Mask Those Gorgeous Mannequins

In-store shoppers for appearance-oriented products compare themselves to how others in the store look. If the comparison comes across with the shopper thinking they end up on the short end, the chance of you making a sale drops.
     It makes no sense to ban beautiful shoppers from your store. But there’s something else, since others who act as comparison models are not only the human beings. When a female mannequin is looking unattainably gorgeous, women who have doubts about their attractiveness feel threatened, with the result that they criticize the product the mannequin displays. The researchers at University of Alberta and University of British Columbia who saw this happen also observed a similar effect in men. In this case, one explanation is that the fellows felt disturbed that they’d not be able to hold the attention of a real woman who was so attractive. Another explanation is that an attractive female mannequin stimulates in men the general idea of how society casts judgments based on physical appearance.
     The researchers suggest making the mannequin look less attractive by omitting the hair or masking the face. A Stockholm School of Economics study proposes a more drastic measure—decapitation. Female shoppers gave higher ratings to fashion items on models whose heads weren’t shown. So in your ads and on your mannequins, you could leave off what’s above the neck.
     The damper on item evaluations from gorgeous dummies was found only with the display of appearance-oriented products, such as fashion and accessories. When the item in the research was an umbrella, the use of a mannequin had no effect.
     Do recognize how standards of beauty differ among social groups and change over time. Where suntans currently imply an attractive life of leisure, there were times when a darker skin tone implied the need to work in the fields. While mannequins and models incorporating size 6 torsos from the neck down are considered especially attractive now, this wasn’t true during the Great Depression. With food being scarce, the typical retail store female mannequin intended to get mouths watering wore a size 18 dress.
     Also, selling aspirational products is good marketing. Shoppers who consider themselves to be highly attractive won’t be threatened by good looking mannequins, and shoppers who consider themselves to be somewhat attractive will be drawn toward mannequins that they consider looking a bit better than they themselves do.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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Get A Head, Except for Ladies’ Clothing
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