Talk About Social Consciousness Early

If you want socially responsible manufacturing practices to be a marketing point in sale of certain of your products, feature that information prominently in ads the shopper will see before coming to your store, and then again in your store signage and early in your face-to-face selling. Otherwise, shoppers will do worse than overlook the information during that transaction. They’ll also become less likely to value information about social consciousness in future transactions.
     That’s the conclusion from research findings at Ohio State University and University of Texas-Austin. The studies concerned the use of child labor in the manufacture of jeans and the failure to use sustainable materials in the manufacture of backpacks. It turned out that study participants who didn’t place a priority on knowing this information were critical of those who they saw did pay attention, calling these socially conscious shoppers terms like “odd,” “boring,” and “not fashionable.” Further, after seeing others act in socially conscious ways, those who didn’t became less likely to pledge themselves to do so in the future.
     But there was a way around this: If consumers were invited to make a donation to a charity using the researcher’s funds, those who did were much less likely to look down on consumers who acted in socially conscious ways. The researchers say a similar cancellation of the devaluing can be achieved if information about the social consciousness in item manufacture is presented early in the purchase decision process.
     Your customer loves the design of a shirt on your store shelf, but despises the labor practices of the manufacturer. So they don’t look at the label before putting the shirt into their shopping cart.
     Your customer instantly realizes the mahogany table now on your showroom floor would look perfect in their dining room, but they could never look themselves in the eye if they thought the mahogany came from an endangered rain forest. So they don’t give it a thought.
     Shoppers who care the most about an issue are the ones most likely to hide from the reality. The furniture shopper who would feel the deepest amount of grief at having in their home any wood from an endangered rainforest turns out to be the shopper most likely to avoid asking about the origin of the material after they’ve decided they deeply love the item for sale.
     So don’t depend on them asking. Tell them first.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Acknowledge Customers’ Willful Ignorance