Influence Orders by Stating Ordered Details

When selling to or taking orders from a group of shoppers who know each other, you might want to influence the degree to which members of the group match each other’s choices. This could be because you have a large amount or a short supply of a certain item, for instance. Researchers at University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University, and Simon Fraser University find that the way in which you acknowledge each order in turn can tweak this influence. When the gal behind the ice cream store counter says, “Here’s your large cone,” when handing the chocolate cone to Morty, the others who came along with Morty and order afterwards become more likely to also select a large chocolate cone than if the gal said, “Here’s your chocolate cone.”
     The reason has to do with social discomfort and with the distinction between nominal and ordinal descriptions. Nominal labels, such as “chocolate,” “Republican,” and “disaster relief,” aren’t members of a ranked list. “Chocolate” is not more than “vanilla.” A Republican might think differently than a Democrat, but Republican is not itself less. On the other hand, ordinal labels, such as cost and size, are members of an ordered sequence.
     Consumers are more likely to order or accept what members of a group previously ordered or accepted when the choice is described to them as ordinal rather than only nominal. This is because people feel ordinal labels signal social comparisons, so contradicting this choice in the presence of friends is socially uncomfortable.
     We’ll want to recognize that the effect is subtle and that there are other influences on group choices. In my example, Morty’s girlfriend Suzie could conclude, in the face of Morty ordering a large cone, that a small cone better fits her appetite or that peppermint fits her preferences much better than does chocolate. She might decide that she’ll impress Morty as attractive if she consumes less ice cream or as an independent thinker if she orders something other than what Morty chose.
     Still, even subtle effects make a difference. In the studies exploring how one consumer’s choice affected the choices of that consumer’s friends, the friends were more strongly influenced by descriptions of pasta brand prestige than pasta shape and donation amount than donation cause. In applying this, though, use both the ordinal and nominal: “Here’s your large chocolate cone,” if you want to sell more large chocolate cones.

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