Praise Your Brand Competitors

“Our brand is better than their brand,” outsells, “Their brand is worse than our brand.” Researchers at Duke University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee go beyond this to recommend you explicitly praise your direct brand competitors. The praise improves consumer attitudes toward your brand, involvement with your marketing initiatives, and intentions to purchase your brand. The researchers attribute these payoffs to shoppers perceiving a brand which praises others as warmer, and shoppers value warmth in brands, all else being equal.
     Still, all else is not equal when it comes to brand warmth. Often, shoppers’ perceptions of greater brand warmth are accompanied by their perceptions of lower brand competence. It might seem then that when your brand starts praising the competition, your brand could come across as falling behind in quality. The message becomes, “We wish we were as good as their brand.” That would seem to require adding, “And you can count on us striving to get there.” There is an appeal of the underdog who tries harder.
     But all these twists turned out not to necessarily be a concern, according to the studies. Instead of the praise of competitors portraying a shortfall of competence, the praise had the opposite effect. People said something like, “What they’re doing requires confidence of the sort which comes from them already delivering top quality themselves.” Moreover, competence could be portrayed by adding specific evidence, such as customer recommendations or helpful information, in marketing materials.
     There are limits on this effect of gains from praise. Complimenting another brand which is not a direct competitor to yours isn’t as meaningful. And organizations which already enjoy perceptions of high warmth, such as charities, won’t see as many additional benefits from praising direct competitors for the consumer’s expenditures.
     On the other hand, the effect is enhanced among shoppers who are initially skeptical of the brand’s claims. The praise of the competition sidesteps suspiciousness of the brand’s true motives.
     Sometimes the praise of a competitor comes in the form of a referral which benefits the shopper and the seller. An art dealer says, “You’ll notice that this painting is unframed. We sell frames in our store, but I suggest you consider looking for a frame at the frame warehouse two blocks from here. We carry picture frames as a convenience for our customers, but the frame warehouse specializes, so they have a broader selection and better prices.”

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Combine Competence with Warmth 

Boast About Underdog Determination 

Level with Shoppers about Competitor Upsides

Disrupt Habitual Paths to Peak Endcap Effect

Shoppers prefer counterclockwise to clockwise paths around a store. A team of researchers at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos in Brazil and Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal attribute this largely to the majority of us being righthanded and living in countries where we drive on the right side. The tendency is reinforced by stores being designed to accommodate the prevalent counterclockwise path and by any lefthanders navigating in an environment dominated by the counterclockwise-drifting righthanders.
     Then after these explanations, the researchers turn around to make a case for turning around the shoppers. It has to do with store endcaps—displays of products at the end of an aisle on a shelf or rack perpendicular to the aisle. In studies at University of South Australia, endcaps at the front of a store, facing the entrance or the checkout counters, uplifted sales by an average of 346%. Endcaps at the back of the store, facing the storage area or the building’s rear wall, uplifted sales by 416% on average. One explanation for the sales lift from endcaps is that it’s easier to see products there than on aisle shelving. One explanation for the advantage of front-facing over rear-facing is that shoppers spend less time lingering at the back of the store, so are less likely to spot merchandise on those endcaps.
     The team from Brazil and Portugal found that shoppers are more likely to attend to merchandise on the endcaps when moving in clockwise than when moving in counterclockwise patterns around the store. The explanation for this one relates to brain physiology: The pattern of dopamine concentration in the brain results in people developing a better mental map of an environment when moving clockwise.
     The implication is to nudge shoppers into breaking their usual habits of rotation when endcap selling would be especially profitable. A salesclerk asked by a customer where to find a particular item could lead along the clockwise path to get there. Likely companion purchases could be shelved in the store using positions which require clockwise routes for retrieval.
     A “virtual bundle” might serve the purpose in some situations. Virtual bundles are promotional offers where a savings is received when the shopper purchases a certain number of designated products shelved separately in the store. Contrast this with “physical bundles,” for which the items to be purchased at a discount are all packaged or shelved together.

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Cap Off Profits with Endcap Impetus 

Make Virtual Bundle Shoppers Feel Smart

Sharpen Time Sensitivity to Reduce Returns

When deciding whether to return a purchased item, consumers might ask themselves, “Is it worth my time to do this?” Knowing that happens, a pair of researchers at Sookmyung Women's University and Seoul National University asked themselves, “Would increasing the purchasers’ sensitivity to the value of time make it less likely they’ll return the items?”
     They found how, indeed, it does. In one study, the researchers collaborated with an online retailer of handmade baby items and lifestyle accessories. One group of the ecommerce shoppers were shown cues about time when checking the return policy. These cues included a clock icon, a statement that the retailer valued the shopper’s time, and the sentence, “We promise to do our best not to cause any inconvenience due to returns for our customers who have purchased and waited for our products.” For another group of shoppers, the return policy did not include these time cues.
     Analysis of the ratio of product returns to product sales showed that shoppers receiving the time cues were less likely to return purchased products. Other studies by the researchers supported this conclusion. The advice for retailers who want to reduce returns is to include in sales transactions a few cues which stimulate shoppers to think about the value of time.
     This intervention requires little or no cost to the retailer. An earlier study by the same pair of researchers identified another method to reduce returns which does have a financial expense, but could be more effective: Offer a free gift along with the item purchased.
     You probably wouldn’t use this for every purchase. But it can work well with sales of items where processing returns is especially costly or bothersome. The researchers found it’s even more effective when you allow the purchaser to choose the free gift from a few alternatives.
     The method works for two main reasons. First, the shopper believes that if they return the item, they’ll need to return the free gift, and this makes the psychological cost of the return higher. Second, the acceptance of the gift, and especially of a gift the customer selected themselves, results in a more solid feeling of ownership, and so a hesitancy to surrender the merchandise-gift pair.
     Knowing you accept returns reduces shopper indecision at purchase time, so you want to make item returns as easy as possible while still protecting yourself from financial damage. Techniques like these will help.

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Gift with Purchase to Cut Item Returns 

Close Out the Purchase 

Return to Reconsider Your Return Policy 

Risk Stringent Return Policies

Accept God’s Grace of Consumer Acceptance

“For God’s sake, relax. You’re fine as you are.” This might be the internal chatter of consumers for whom thoughts of a loving God are highly salient. Researchers at Dartmouth College, University of Pittsburgh, and Duke University say these people are less receptive to self-improvement benefits of items than are target audiences who think less actively about their benevolent God. When targeting to audiences with faith in God accepting them as-is, marketers do well to highlight product and experience advantages other than self-improvement.
     The researchers saw this effect in archival grocery store data: In U.S. counties with a higher density of religious congregations, the percentage of self-improvement products sold and self-improvement dollars spent were lower. The effect also appeared in a study where higher God salience in religious consumers was found to be associated with lower interest in a fitness app claiming to improve health.
     In my email exchange about the conclusions with Prof. Lauren Grewal, the lead researcher, she wrote, “In one particular study we found that this effect did not hold for non-religious consumers. A caveat is that we studied a US sample that was mostly Christian, so in societies where thoughts of God may not be as loving or benevolent, we would not expect to see the same kind of effects.”
     Findings from a University of Wyoming study suggest that for the “God loves me as I am” self-acceptance, religious faith needs to be clearly affective. These people would strongly agree with statements such as, “God is an important influence in my life.” The affectively religious take comfort in a personal relationship with a divine being. By comparison, those whose faith is primarily cognitive would strongly agree with statements like, “The scripture of my religious affiliation is the word of God.” These consumers take comfort in adhering to a firm set of required and forbidden behaviors integral to the religion. Faith can have elements of both the affective and the cognitive.
     The “as-is” acceptance of God salience has implications for marketing religious belief itself. Those with affective faith in God can lessen resource expenditures on self-improvement. Related to this, they also have less need to strive for control in life. We could add these advantages to the other benefits an organized religion offers to target audiences, according to research: 

• Control over the world by adhering to a moral code 
• Protection against eternal death 
• Certainty in understanding the world 
• Social identity

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Disentangle Religiosity Effects on Shopping 

Fence In Consumer Anxiety 

Proselytize to Fit Current Culture

Up Down Price Drops

You see the need to drop the price on an item you sell from $300 to $200. You want to do it in a way which maximizes sales profits. Would it be better to implement the decrease in one step of $100 or space out four progressive discounts of $25 each?
     Studies at Universitat Ramon Llull analyzed this question from the perspectives of the time value of money, consumers’ purchase deferral decisions, and consumers’ predictions of future price changes. Their findings indicate that if your objective is to stimulate immediate demand for the item, your better choice is to drop the price by $100 in one gulp. In addition to being attracted by a real bargain, consumers are likely to figure that this big a drop won’t last long. A price increase is due.
     However, progressive price drops of $25 each offer the opportunity for greater profits over time. Different consumer segments can purchase at the price point which is sufficiently attractive to them. Still, the researchers see a risk with this approach: They find that after three progressive discounts of this type, people expect further drops. They’ll hold off purchasing.
     So burst the expectation, the researchers recommend. After two $25 price drops, raise the price by $10 for a while, let’s say, before continuing the drops.
     Another longer-term advantage of the $25-at-a-time strategy is in maintenance of your retailing value price image. The frequency with which a shopper sees low prices influences price image more than does the amounts by which prices are lower.
     Although deep price discounts can attract shoppers, the tactic sometimes generates negative longer-term results, including judgments that the quality of the sale items is flawed and that regular prices charged by the store are excessive.
     After considering the evidence for these, business experts at Texas A&M University, University of Houston, Indiana University, and University of Delaware uncovered another downside: Shoppers who realize they’ve missed the big sale sometimes become less likely to purchase the item at a lower discount offered subsequently.
     The important word here is “sometimes.” We’d like to know how to avoid the negatives. Studies at University of Miami and University of Kentucky support use of “steadily decreasing discounting.” Before returning the item to its pre-promotion regular price, offer additional discounts on the same merchandise, each discount at a progressively lower percentage than the deep discount. That pretty much eliminated customer disgruntlement.

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Drop Prices Slowly 

Project Responsibility for Missed Discounts

Match Discount Depth to Duration

Persuade Populists

Populism is popular, and therefore important for agents of influence to understand. University of Nevada-Reno researchers note how populism is now a political force across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with little probability of fading away. They go on to specify how populism is embedded in a set of cultural attitudes. I recommend that we consider those attitudes as influencing not only who and what gets the vote, but also which types of appeals sell retail products, attract donations, and improve adherence to health care practices.
     The distinguishing view in populist sentiments is that society is clearly divided into the common people, who are generally virtuous, and the elite, who generally intend to exploit the common people. Therefore, the common people must continually be on guard that their welfare is not ravaged by the elite. In the UNR studies, populist attitudes were assessed by degree of agreement with items such as “Ordinary people are of good and honest character,” “The people should be asked whenever important decisions are taken,” and “People like me have no influence on what the government does.”
     The researchers collected data about populist sentiments and associated personality characteristics from university students in 33 countries. Not surprisingly, social cynicism, as measured with items like “Powerful people tend to exploit others,” was related to populist views. So was social flexibility, as measured with items like “One has to deal with matters according to the specific circumstances.” People who otherwise show populist attitudes are also more likely to be open to new experiences.
     The implications for persuasion are the importance of earning trust and the value of stimulating curiosity. Regarding trust, researchers at University of Michigan suggest adherence to four communication practices: 

• Relevance. Give enough information to the consumer to allow the consumer to make wise decisions. 
• Parsimony. Limit the amount and pace of information to fit the capabilities and the preferences of the consumer. 
• Truthfulness. Have sufficient evidence for the claims you make ready for presentation to the consumer in manageable chunks if the consumer asks for them. 
• Clarity. Use words, phrasing, and the sequencing of ideas which minimize ambiguity for the consumer.

     As to arousing and then satisfying curiosity, studies at University of Arizona and University of Washington verified the value of encouraging consumers to formulate questions for which they had not yet obtained the answers. Populists want to dialogue with those aiming to influence them.

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Relax Guardedness with Gricean Norms 

Kick the Sale with Curiosity 

Yield to Power Distance Belief 

Give Me Five for Productive Staffing 

Market by Political Propensity

Beat Benevolent Ageism

What some might consider as respecting one’s elders can come across to the elders as disrespectful ageism. University of Akron researchers find that gender factors into this.
     In the studies, adults in their 80’s were considered overall by young adults to be emotionally warm, yet incompetent. It’s natural to offer help. But compared to the effect when an elderly man accepted the help, when a woman accepted the help, there is less effect on the young adult’s judgment of the senior’s competence.
     Considering their findings in this and other studies, the researchers attribute the gender difference to women being perceived as less competent than men, regardless of age. The researchers go on to note the evidence that feelings of incompetence can jeopardize wellbeing in the elderly. It’s possible that women are bothered less because of a lifetime of tolerating unnecessary benevolence. Still, all seniors would benefit if paternalism is eliminated.
     Wanting to assist others is virtuous. Accommodating deficits which come with aging is courteous. The problem arises when we stretch that to assume the senior is inept. Ageism stifles seniors’ self-confidence and, consequently, their objective performance.
     Ageism also kills sales. Consider an experiment at Saarland University, German Institute for Japanese Studies, and Akita International University. Researchers asked seniors to read one of two descriptions of a store interaction. In the first scenario, when the elderly shopper says, “I’m looking for a cell phone,” the salesperson replies, “We have a phone with supersized buttons,” and when the shopper asks if the phone supports UMTS, the reply is, “Those modern abbreviations used by the younger generation often cause some confusion.” In the other scenario, the replies are, “What were you thinking about buying?” and, “This phone supports the UMTS standards.”
     We might expect that the first scenario would strike the study participants as showing sensitivity to the characteristics of the individual shopper, a desire to save the shopper’s time, and an effort to reassure the shopper that lack of technical knowledge is fine. But in fact, the older adults reading the first scenario were, on the whole, less receptive to purchasing the phone and shopping at that store in the future than were those reading the second scenario. An explanation can be found in that those seniors reading the first scenario were also more likely to say they felt they were being talked down to as if they were a child.

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Push Down Talking Down to Seniors

Sidestep Celebrity Endorser Certification

Fake accounts became the bane of social media influencing, in which people accumulate celebrity and persuasion power by recommending products. So media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube launched protocols to prune out the name imitators, certify the real accounts as genuine, and indicate the authenticity to account followers. However, a University of Maine study says the badge of certification could end up cutting consumer trust in the influencers’ recommendations rather than increasing it. This happened when the reputation of the influencer poorly matched the characteristics of the recommended item.
     Perhaps the explanation for the erosion had been provided by William Shakespeare far in advance of the study. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” a line from Hamlet, could be taken to mean, “I wasn’t even thinking about whether the account was real until you highlighted this issue of verification. Now I distrust the whole system.”
     The researchers posit another explanation: Since the verification is performed only on accounts large enough to be worth imitating, the verification confirms not only the identity of the influencer, but also that the influencer is recognized as a celebrity. And unless there is a close match between the image of the influencer and the image of the item being recommended, this makes it appear the recommendation is being issued to profit the influencer rather than benefit the follower. When there’s a poor match, the verification indication does strengthen followers’ trust that the influencer is a celebrity.
     This leads to another risk in using the verification indication absent a good match: Eclipsing, in the sense of emphasizing one thing at the expense of another. Researchers at University of Adelaide and Macquarie University saw how an audience of consumers can be so taken with the celebrity, they’ll forget about the details of the endorsement.
     These researchers found that when viewers of an ad knew the celebrity well and felt an attachment, there was little chance the celebrity would eclipse the brand. However, with lesser-known celebrities—such as those previously unknown social media influencers crowned by the certification of who they say they are—you might avoid eclipsing by keeping the major emphasis on your store brand.
     Social media influencers who have earned certification generally command higher fees. Further, a high-quality certification process consumes other resources. The research findings about the downsides of SMI certification should lead you to consider sidestepping this marketing technique.

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Use Value Added by Third-Party Certifications 

Join Customers in Role-Playing 

Select Celebrity Endorsers Who Fit 

Eclipse Celebrity Endorsers Who Moon 

Warm Up Cold Calls

Disclose Yourself to Radiate Authenticity

Providers of professional services make more money when they use four sorts of techniques to establish impressions of personal authenticity. That’s the implication from research at Wichita State University and University of Kentucky.
     Two of the techniques could be classified as in-role behaviors—integral to the mechanics of delivering professional services: 

• Keep the client’s interests central. Listen carefully to clients. Empathize with clients’ difficulties. Educate clients. Maintain client privacy. 
• Display positive emotions. Show enthusiasm and kindness. Motivate the client. 

     The other two techniques go beyond in-role behaviors: 

• Disclose personal information. Share personal anecdotes. Engage in small talk. 
• Display personal transparency. Reveal your difficulties and setbacks. Talk about your charitable activities.

     It’s these two extra-role behaviors which distinguished those among the financial planners in the survey sample who reported the highest financial compensation. Still, the researchers note that their typology allows for professionals’ flexibility. Self-disclosure is valuable, but professionals preferring not to self-disclose could recognize the need to compensate by increasing the demonstration of client-centricity and positive emotions. Or those professionals not skilled at displaying positive emotions could achieve clear benefits by engaging in small talk with their clients.
     Although the final quantitative study sample consisted of just financial planners, an earlier, foundational qualitative study also included physicians, attorneys, and counselors. This indicates the conclusions apply to a range of professional services providers.
     Woven through these four techniques is the importance of active empathic listening, which refers to the professional responding to a client’s words and nonverbal messages holistically, integrating them for an understanding of beliefs, feelings, and intentions. After AEL, a client rates the service as being of higher quality than otherwise. This is true even if the client doesn’t like the salesperson.
     Characteristics of the professional practice also contribute to impressions of authenticity. Studies at University of Lausanne, University of Bern, Université du Québec à Montréal, and Concordia University identified the following four: 

• Continuity. A practice being in business for a longer time and providing the same sorts of services. Low staff turnover. 
• Credibility. Business policies and practices which are easy to understand. 
•  Integrity. Evidence that the practice and its staff intend to earn a profit by serving clients well rather than by selling each client as much as possible. 
• Symbolism. A business image compatible with the client’s self-image.

     Be careful, though. The studies also found that bragging about these characteristics risks leading target audiences to question authenticity.

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Puff Down for Authenticity 

Prolong Sales Meetings with Holistic Listening 

Shift Shoppers from Thinking You Shifty