Rejuvenate Empathy to Curb Panic Buying

Any frontline employee in a grocery store has witnessed one customer helping another. People are by nature empathic, at least during carefree times. In times of product shortages, such as the supply line disruptions from a natural disaster or pandemic, that empathy may be tough to spot, though. Shoppers engage in panic buying, cleaning out inventory, depriving their fellow consumers of items they need. They may then hoard the items at home.
     A team of researchers at ETH Zurich and University of St. Gallen sees panic buying as contagious. Bulk purchases by a few highly anxious customers result in stockouts which, because of the general anxiety from the natural disaster or pandemic, trigger a panic buying mindset in other shoppers.
     To disrupt this spiraling, the researchers say, rejuvenate the faded empathy. In one of their studies, some participants were shown a picture of a relatively empty supermarket shelf with a customer notice containing a personalized appeal: “Think of nurses like me. If you buy too much, there won’t be enough left for me. Buy only what you need. Amy P.”
     This message tapped into associations with nurses as helping professionals who worked extremely long hours during the COVID-19 pandemic and so had limited time to go grocery shopping.
     Each study participant was also presented with a description of panic buying as a worldwide phenomenon during the first wave of the pandemic and asked to state how many days of supplies everyone should stockpile at home in anticipation of an upcoming wave of infections.
     Data analysis showed that the average number of stated days was significantly lower than from another set of participants not shown the Nurse Amy message. Still other sets of participants were shown a notice reading, “89% of our customers currently buy 2 units at most…. Buy only as much as you need,” or, “The nation is currently experiencing a shortage of various products and common sense. So buy only as much as you want….” Neither of these was as clearly effective as the Nurse Amy empathy appeal.
     Also, there was no evidence that the picture of the relatively empty supermarket shelf mattered. The Nurse Amy message worked even when the picture was of a relatively full shelf.
     Retailers can use empathy appeals to curb panic buying. Public policy organizations could use empathy appeals to discourage hoarding and encourage sharing of purchases during times of shortages.

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Help Store Shoppers Positively Interact 

Scale Purchase Restrictions During Shortages 

Chimp Away Sales Resistances Using Scarcity

Call In Responsiveness to Product Recalls

In January 2007, Consumer Reports published a report announcing a serious safety problem with certain infant car seats. Understandably, consumer demand for the car seats promptly cratered. Adding to the evidence of the power of the notice is that when, two weeks later, Consumer Reports announced that the earlier report was in error, demand quickly rebounded.
     Researchers at Freie Universität Berlin, University of Connecticut, and Stockholm School of Economics note that this sort of responsiveness is often not seen when it comes to product recalls. Owners of the affected items are frighteningly unwilling to take corrective action. As a result, there are increased risks of physical damage to consumers and of lawsuits against marketers. The researchers analyze the reasons for failures to act and then identify tactics for increasing consumer responsiveness to product recalls.
     People are more likely to respond when less effort is required of them and when they believe themselves capable of taking the corrective action. Thus, full remedy—offering the owner product replacement or refund of the purchase price—works better than partial remedy—offering a do-it-yourself repair kit, for instance.
     Beliefs about the probability of damage also count. But with both the nature of the offered remedy and perceived probability of damage, there’s an interaction with firm reputation, defined as the extent to which the consumer considers the marketer issuing the recall to be trustworthy. For low-reputation firms, there’s little difference in effectiveness between full- and partial-remedy offers. And for low-reputation firms, perceptions of high damage likelihood actually make it less likely the consumer will respond to the recall offer. Customers don’t trust low-reputation firms to correct the product defect in those circumstances.
     For the marketer, the upshot, then, is to maintain a reputation of trustworthiness and, if a recall is necessary, portray the maximum extent of the possibility of danger and offer the consumer a remedy which requires minimum consumer effort. In the researchers’ field study, recall effectiveness climbed twenty-four percentage points when a high-reputation firm offered a full instead of partial remedy, all else being equal.
     Results from other studies indicate it’s better to describe to the consumer the possibility of damage rather than the probability of damage if the problem which led to product recall isn’t corrected. Also, limit the descriptions of possible damage to only the most serious. Including minor concerns leads to lower estimates by the consumer of total risk.

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Keep Up On Your Promises 

Maintain Store Distinctiveness in Ad Groups 

Betray the Betrayal Effect 

Add Risk Notices to Dilute Risk Opinion 

Estimate Imprecisely When Harboring Doubts

Meld Girl- & Boy-Marketing Language

In the early 1970’s, actress and activist Marlo Thomas initiated her “Free to Be You and Me” project, designed to reduce gender stereotypes in children’s decision making. Now, more than a half century later, the state of California is requiring large retailers who sell toys in the state to maintain a gender-neutral aisle. The sponsor of the law, California Assemblymember Evan Low, says he was inspired to introduce his bill by an 8-year-old girl who asked, “Why should a store tell me what a girl’s shirt or toy is?”
     In October 2021, the same month that bill was signed into law, LEGO announced their “Ready for Girls” initiative. LEGO identified a problem—and also an opportunity to increase sales to a broader audience—with their survey results indicating how at that time 76% of parents reported they’d encourage LEGO play by a son, but only 24% would encourage LEGO play by a daughter.
     Yet, a California State University, Fullerton project finds that differences persist even now in media targeted to boys and girls—differences which could encourage self-stereotyping. This conclusion was based on studies of language characteristics in cartoon franchises associated with toys which a sample of U.S. parents said are targeted to girls, are targeted to boys, or are gender neutral. Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake were among the franchises considered girl-targeted; GI Joe and Star Wars, boy-targeted; and Care Bears and Harry Potter, gender neutral.
     Then, a machine-assisted analysis of language used in the franchise cartoons showed that scripts in the girl-targeted series were more emotionally positive overall than in those targeting boys. Scripts targeting girls did feature more phrasing expressing sadness, but also more phrasing expressing affiliation, which could be seen as a means for easing sadness. Scripts in boy-targeted series featured more phrasing expressing anger, power, and risk. Further, by comparing scripts of older and newer series from the same franchises, the researchers saw evidence that differences in language characteristics between girl-targeted and boy-targeted cartoons have decreased over the years.
     The researchers recommend marketers attend to the remaining differences when crafting messages intended to persuade children. The researchers also urge marketers to avoid language likely to reinforce negative self-stereotypes limiting a child’s developmental options. “This is not a call to cancel traditional gender representations, but rather a call for more balance,” they write. They’re acknowledging the cultural forces which expect circumscribed sexual roles.

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Discontinue Dichotomies If Continuums Fit 

Smooth It with Females, Angle for Males 

Employ Purchase Triggers for Children 

Earn Your Way into Children’s Minds

Straighten Product Presentation Up & Across

Of the range of characteristics determining the appeal of a song, you’d think the angle of lines on the album cover would be less important than the style of the music. And you’d be right. The fact that the angle of those lines makes any difference at all seems strange. Yet that’s what a Vilnius University and University of Groningen study documented. And this carries a message for product presentation more generally.
     In one of their experiments, the researchers asked participants to evaluate album artwork and, while looking at an image of the album, listen to a song from that album. The band name and song were chosen to be unfamiliar to the participants. For some of the participants, the album cover included a grid of perfectly horizontal and vertical lines—a cardinal design. For the other participants, the cover included the straight lines at a 45-degree angle—an oblique design. Keeping the album cover in view while the song plays duplicates what’s done by streaming services like Spotify, iTunes, and Pandora.
     Each participant was told they should listen to the song for as long as they wanted. The people exposed to the cardinal album design chose to listen about 42% longer than did those exposed to the oblique design. Further data analyses suggested that this difference was due to song appeal induced by the orientation of lines on the album cover.
     In another of the researchers’ analyses, the cardinality characteristic of each of hundreds of actual music albums reflecting a range of music styles was measured and statistics about the album’s success in the marketplace were gathered. It turned out that albums with covers having higher cardinality had achieved better sales.
     The researchers relate their findings to past studies showing how respected landscape and portrait paintings include many more vertical and horizontal lines than angled lines, and how people will gaze at a painting for a longer time when the painting is displayed in a cardinal compared to oblique orientation. The explanation is that our brains find a cardinal orientation easier to mentally process, and people usually prefer what is easier to process. The lesson beyond album covers and fine art is to keep information simple for the shopper and customer to process.
     There are exceptions. Sometimes angles or curves work better to portray enthusiasm or femininity. But as a rule, keep product messages straight up and across.

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Mean More with Mean Ratings 

Gently Slant to Produce Proper Happiness 

Down or Right Lines for Limitation Effects 

Smooth It with Females, Angle for Males

Expand Experiences by Inspiring Intimacy

Would diners at your restaurant be more willing to tolerate longer wait times when accompanied by a close friend than if dining alone? Yes, for a number of reasons. The reason experimentally supported by studies at Texas A&M University, Harvard University, and University of Maryland is that consumers are attracted to the opportunity to create shared memories of experiences.
     Marketers can make an otherwise less-favorable experience more attractive by providing for physical togetherness with a relationship partner. In one of the studies, a participant was more likely to choose two free adjacent Cirque du Soleil tickets in row 55 than two free non-adjacent tickets in row 10 when the companion was a close friend rather than a casual acquaintance. Those participants imagining they were accompanied by a close friend reported placing more importance on the ability to create shared memories.
     This shared-memory effect is stronger regarding hedonic experiences—those in which pleasure comes from the experience itself—than regarding utilitarian experiences—where the pleasure comes from the outcome. In another of the studies, participants were asked to assume they were spending a week in Barcelona with a romantic partner and were offered a free upgrade to first-class on a train to Figueres. But the two partners would need to sit eleven rows apart rather than together, as with their coach seats. Then for some of the participants, the ride was described as an interesting narrated tour. For the other participants, the ride was described as not having much to see along the way.
     Participants in the second group expressed a greater interest in the free upgrade and also said they’d care less about creating shared memories.
     The researchers also find that the attractiveness of an experience can be increased by pointing out to the consumer how shared memories can be created even when the participants do not live through the experience physically together. This is useful to marketers because shoppers are going solo in life, such as choosing to live alone, but hesitate going solo to activities, since they think it wouldn’t be as much fun without a close companion.
     What goes into a customer’s memory to be shared also is affected by whether the experience is shared with others. People in a group are greatly influenced by what happens early on. First impressions set the scene. Solo consumers are more influenced by what happens to them late in their experience.

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Enable Shoppers to Revisit the Already Done 

Offer Grandparent/Grandchild Experiences 

Track the Trajectory of In-Store Impressions 

Reap Loads from Solo