Puff Persuasively to Holistic Shoppers

In a 2006 Iowa Law Review article titled “The Best Puffery Article Ever,” David A. Hoffman defines puffery as a vague statement claiming the competitive appeal of a service or product that, because of the ambiguity and subjectivity of the statement, won’t be declared fraudulent by regulators. Professor Hoffman’s article title is itself an example. Getting in the spirit, I’ll even call it a once-in-a-lifetime example!
     But how effective is puffery in selling the service or product? Most studies have concluded that, since it arouses less cynicism, gentle bragging (“extraordinary service”) works better than extreme exaggeration (“world’s best service”). Also, if presenting shoppers a comparison of three, such as three products you carry, puffery about one will influence the shopper to favor that one, but the same puffery about a trivial attribute possessed by two of the three will drastically undercut the influence of the puffery.
     Researchers at University of California-Berkeley and China’s Jinan University refine such answers by saying it depends on whether the shopper is thinking in a holistic or an analytic way at the time of potential purchase. Holistic thinking evaluates an item as a whole, considering relationships and context. Analytic thinking focuses on the details. A marketer might describe a chocolate candy as “Makes you feel better than any other treat,” in an effort to appeal to holistic, abstract thinking or as “Made with the best cocoa of any chocolate treat” for targeting analytic, concrete thinking. An ad for a diamond pendant might claim, “The gift she’ll remember when she forgets the rest,” or, “The purest color she’ll ever see.”
     Consumers who are thinking holistically are strongly influenced by puffery, yet in a roundabout way. When a competing offering engages in extreme exaggeration, this increases the shopper’s attraction to an offering you want to sell that only gently brags. However, in circumstances where the evidence is that competitors are not currently engaging in extreme exaggeration, feel free to move up the scale of outrageous claims. When consumers think analytically, puffery has much less effect in comparative buying situations.
     Researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, and ESADE in Spain find that talk of time causes shoppers to think holistically, since time considerations are difficult to analyze objectively. In contrast, thinking about the financial aspects, such as the price or the credit terms, leads to analytic reasoning in shoppers.

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

Click below for more: 
Construe to Fit Comparative Price
Expose Puffery for All It’s Worth
Encourage Category Consistency Time-to-Time