Crush Close Ones with Schadenfreude

There are consumer motivations which consumers might be ashamed to acknowledge to others. Among those motivations is what is called schadenfreude, which means deriving delight from seeing others’ ambitions being crushed. Among researchers, schadenfreude has been attributed to envy, to raw hostility, and to the sort of emotion tunnel vision which keeps us from acknowledging the pain caused to the others.
     Still, there are times when schadenfreude is considered acceptable, such as with sporting events. Researchers at University of Georgia point out how viewers of NCAA football, ATP men’s tennis, and WTA women’s tennis games can feel fine about cheering wildly when the fan’s favored team or player crushes the competition. The researchers also note that those three leagues employ instant replay video as a tool for officiating calls and that when those IRVs are shown during televised sporting events, there is often a small ad accompanying each. The researchers wondered if the experience of schadenfreude improves the impression of the brand being advertised.
     It seems that it does. In a laboratory setting, people who viewed a favorable call made in a suspenseful game based on the IRV formed a more favorable view toward the advertised item. In other situations, too, we’d expect that a feeling of prevailing in a suspenseful situation would reduce resistances to favoring and then purchasing merchandise, services, and suppliers associated with the domination. People like to be associated with a winner, and the joy with that is greater when the chance of winning is not a shoo-in. People also enjoy rooting for the underdog who aims to overachieve. So maintain some suspense.
     That’s true with your retailing team, too. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania recommend that you keep your retailing team a little bit behind the competition. The payoff is that your team will exert a greater effort. These researchers analyzed 60,000 basketball games, including 18,000 National Basketball Association matches. They found that teams which were behind by one point at halftime were more likely to end up winning the game than were teams ahead by one point at halftime. Note that this held only when the team was a little bit behind. Overall, for every two points a team was ahead at halftime, the chances of winning the game increased by about 7%.
     For both you and your customers, winning a close one gives joy, and part of that joy may be the questionable variety called schadenfreude.

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

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Overachieve as the Underdog
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