Generate WOM in the Right Places

People look to others for advice before making purchases. That’s why we encourage customers to talk to friends and post online reviews. But a report from marketing consultancy Harbinger gives reason for caution in word-of-mouth campaigns: The ways in which consumers access and use recommendations differ by product category.
     Harbinger specializes in marketing research and communications with women consumers. This study surveyed 2,134 women in Canada and the United States through the Ipsos online panel. I believe that many of the study conclusions would also hold for men in principle. My advice to retailers is to find out from your customers where they’re looking for recommendations and then encourage them to furnish their recommendations in those sorts of places. Verbal encouragement will come from mentioning to the customers reasons important to them for giving specific, balanced information to others.

• The frequencies with which the women read and write reviews differ by product category. With a toy, about 20% will read reviews when shopping and about 10% will write a review after purchase. On the other hand, with an automobile, about 40% will read reviews when shopping, but only about 5% will write a review after purchase. With automobile-related products, your encouragement to women to give reviews will need to be more vigorous.
• For almost all product and services categories, family and friends were the most popular sources for recommendations. But for restaurants, casual acquaintances were the second most popular source, and for financial products, family and friends took second place to expert and professional reviews.
• For almost all product and service categories, the consumers were motivated to give and post recommendations in order to help other people make smart purchases. With automobiles and with entertainment, a distinctive motivator was for the consumer to display her expertise. With the home furnishings and food/beverages categories, a distinctive motivator for sharing was the opportunity to help improve the products.

     With some consumers—such as market mavens—you might choose to go beyond verbal encouragement. Market mavens are a special type of opinion leader who counsel others about the whole shopping experience and recommend specific stores. When you’ve identified a market maven, offer gifts to encourage them to consider your store. A study based at Providence College and University of Connecticut indicates that the confidence with which market mavens issue their recommendations means they can be influential for you.

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Attend to Face-to-Face Word-of-Mouth
Encourage Specifics & Criticism in Word-of-Mouth
Build Buzz with Market Mavens

Collect Collectors

In the psychiatric literature, there’s a case of a man who owned over 2,000 wrenches and was continually alert to find new wrenches. He was labeled as mentally ill, in part because he never used any of the wrenches as hand tools. He’d take them out, look at them, feel them, show the wrenches to others, and then put them away.
     Suppose I said this guy owned 2,000 paintings. He enjoyed looking at the paintings and showing them to others. Wouldn’t you agree that as long as he pays his bills, this is okay? As a psychologist, I’m ready to say that the man with the wrenches may not be mentally ill at all.
     Actually, if I ran a store with a hand tool department, I could learn to love this guy. I might ask him to recruit a group of his buddies to form a “wrench-of-the-month” club. I’d spring for the refreshments if they’d hold the meetings at my store.
     Let’s encourage our customers to be collectors. Here are three research-based motivations we can use:

• Fantasy identification. More people will be interested in collecting figurines, bells, or dolls than wrenches. Researchers at University of Minnesota, University of Arizona, and Notre Dame University found that collectors often view each item in their collection as a fantasy image of themselves. Past research suggested that adults developmentally outgrow the appeal of fantasy. However, the popularity of fantasy football leagues, the Home Shopping Network, and Internet pornography would seem to prove those research findings incomplete. In selling collectibles, give each item a personality the customer wants.
• Reminders of experiences. University of Minnesota researchers pointed out how some items in a collection gain special importance because of the wealth of the owner’s personal experiences that have become associated with the items. Even an exact replica of a lost or broken item wouldn’t be a sufficient replacement. Before offering a new item in a collectible series, ask the customer to tell you their experiences with the items they’ve had.
• Sense of completeness. University of Nebraska-Lincoln research found that as children approach age 11, their desire to have complete collections grows. In most adults up through middle age, the urge for completeness often comes to play less of a role in purchasing behavior. To sell to the adult collector, you might want to redefine what constitutes a complete collection.

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Ethically Develop Kids into Collectors
Meet Customers’ Desires for Nostalgia
Suggest Nostalgic Items to Lonely Shoppers
Offer Family-Oriented Experiences

Loosen Up Shoppers to Reveal Flaws

People shop to correct shortcomings. When somebody admits to a flaw, there’s the opportunity to make a sale. So how do we make it more likely that our shoppers will drop the defensiveness?
     What would work if you were the customer? Please think now of a flaw you have that would make it more likely you’d purchase something sold in your store. Some shortcoming you admit you have, but don’t talk about to everybody, maybe because it’s embarrassing.
     Got that personal flaw in mind? Okay, read on.
     Suppose you’re shopping on my ecommerce site for the first time. I present you with a questionnaire saying I’d like to get to know more about you so I can better meet your needs. An item on the questionnaire asks specifically about that flaw.
     The question is the same on both versions of the questionnaire. Yes, there are two versions. On one version, the website header has the store logo on the left and on the right reads, “Survey on Strengths & Weaknesses” in a professional black font. On the other version of the questionnaire, the website header has on the left a cartoon devil logo and on the right reads, “How BAD Are U???” in a bright red font.
     On which of those two would you be more likely to admit to a flaw? The questionnaire with the professional look or the one with the very casual look? Please make your pick and then read on. (I realize the title of this posting could be a spoiler. You couldn’t help looking back at the title, could you? But if that’s your biggest flaw, you’re fine.)
     Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University explored this issue of people revealing their shortcomings. What did they find? If you are like most of the people who were in that study, you’d be more likely to admit to your flaw when the questionnaire is casual.
     With our shoppers, elicit information about flaws by loosening them up. We don’t want to leave the impression of an unprofessional business, though. In some retail settings, the “How BAD Are U???” approach works fine, but in other settings with other sorts of customer expectations, you’ll want to use techniques like gentle humor and casual conversation to do the loosening.
     Then once the flaw is revealed, promptly move toward the sale by describing the remedy you can provide.

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Personalize by Respecting Privacy Concerns

Anchor Frequency Estimates to Individuals

When selling a product to a prospect, don’t make them think they’ll be using the product often, since that can kill off their interest in buying it.
     This strange conclusion is one way to interpret findings from research at University of Maryland-College Park and Georgetown University. And, as you’d expect, the conclusion is only partially right. But the part that is correct provides useful guidance for handling usage frequency estimates with shoppers.
     The experimental study began with asking university students to say how often they played video games. One set was asked the question in the form, “Please tell us how often, using a scale that ranges from ‘Less than once a week’ to ‘More than once a day.’” Among themselves, the researchers referred to this as the “high frequency scale.” The rest of the students were presented what the researchers called the low frequency scale: “… using a scale that ranges from ‘Less than once a year’ to ‘More than once a week.’”
     The students using the high frequency scale reported playing video games more often than did the students using the low frequency scale. Consumer psychologists call this an anchoring effect. When shoppers are given higher numbers as anchor points, they’ll give higher numbers as answers.
     The next part of the study is where things got really strange. Compared to the students who had previously been presented the low frequency scale, students who had previously been presented with the high frequency scale were less interested in trying out a new video game. When we put the two parts together, the college students who had said they play video games more frequently expressed less interest in new video games. The high-frequency-scale group was only half as likely to accept the offer of a free trial of a video game.
     Why? The researchers are convinced it’s because the high frequency scale made students think other students played video games very often, while a low frequency scale made students think other students didn’t play video games so often. When the anchor was set high, the students felt their frequency of use was relatively low, so they labeled themselves as not that interested in video games.
     The advice for retailers: When discussing predicted frequency of use with shoppers, talk about each shopper as an individual. Avoid comparisons to others. Especially with competitive consumers like university students.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Set Price Anchors with Price Adjacencies
Move the Customer to Accept Higher Prices
Know the “Don’t Know” Answer Frequency

Craft Fear Appeals

In certain circumstances, we can make a sale more likely by arousing in the customer a sense of fear—fear about the consequences of not making the purchase or buying into the course of action we’re proposing. But unless the fear appeal is crafted well, it could end up doing damage to your business.
     Here are some tips on crafting fear appeals:

• Research at Universidad Pùblica de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain concludes that for certain shoppers in the world, fear sells, but for others, it’s a turnoff. How to tell which is which? Monitor the extent to which your shoppers use fear words themselves.
• Raise enough fear of a real danger to win the customer’s attention and motivate action, but only to the degree that you’ve a guaranteed way to substantially reduce the risk. Don’t oversell. Researchers at Auburn University find that if the fear becomes too intense or if they don’t see a way out, shoppers become defensive and start thinking about why they don’t need the item you’re wanting to sell them. Or if they do end up making the purchase, chances are they’ll associate negative feelings with your store, making it less likely they’ll come back again.
• Pair the fear with regret (“I can understand why you’re sorry you didn’t make a purchase like this before the accident”), guilt (“I’m sure you want to do all you can to protect your family”), and/or challenge (“I realize the price is high”). Research at Tulane University and Salisbury University regarding health behaviors like using sunscreen and eating high fiber foods concluded that regret, guilt, and challenge increase the rate at which the consumer buys into compliance.
• Don’t hesitate to use legitimate fear appeals with older consumers. Seniors respond better to fear-laden sales messages than to purely rational sales messages, especially if the fear appeal is combined with appeals to positive emotions, like comfort, contentment, and relief. This is what’s suggested by research at University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, and University of California-Irvine. Emotional appeals also help elderly shoppers remember details about sources of sales messages more accurately. All emotions—positive and negative—arouse interest among older consumers, and as people age, they get better at turning the negative into the positive (comfort from achieving control over fear).

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Know How Much Emotion to Deliver
Scare Customers into Buying
Emphasize Emotions with Older Consumers
Sell Self-Esteem After Times of Fear
Use Terror Management Theory for Status Items

Inform Your Staff Where Sales Dollars Go

In a Bloomberg Businessweek opinion piece, McGill University’s Jody Heymann recommended opening up the financial books to your staff. There is abundant research evidence that when employees feel a sense of ownership in a business, they find their jobs to be more rewarding. They’ll work harder and more creatively.
     My impression is that many first-line retail employees would prefer not to spend their time regularly tracking the fortunes of the business. But Prof. Heymann might be getting at something more fundamental: Those first-line employees often are woefully inaccurate in estimating where a retailer’s product sales dollars go.
     See if I’m right. Ask some of your employees this question: “For every $100 our store makes in sales, how much of that is profit after expenses?”
     My colleague, hardware/home improvement retailer Art Freedman, says that the answers he gets are in the range of $30 to $50. These employees think that for every $100 sale, the business gets to keep $30 to $50 in final profit. Many employees fail to realize that the real margins are much thinner than that.
     To start, they forget what’s usually the largest cost—inventory replenishment. When you sell an item, you’ll be buying more in order to replace the item on the shelf. Art says that in his business, inventory replenishment consumes about $50 of the $100 sale. And money needs to go for salaries, rent, marketing, and the rest. If you think the numbers alone will bore your staff, use charts or tell it in the form of a story.
     You might not want to take Prof. Heymann’s advice to keep the bookkeeping open to all employees all the time. You might not want to implement her other advice—profit sharing. Still, occasional business literacy lessons for your staff could be quite helpful. Tell your staff where the sales dollars go. It will build their trust, motivate their job performance, and allow them to appreciate how even small mistakes, if made repeatedly, could drive you out of business, eliminating the jobs for them and their coworkers.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Ask Customers & Staff for Ideas
Coach Your Staff with Stories

Give Customers a Clear Sense of Progress

For many retailing activities, we’re asking the customer to go through a series of steps. With a frequent shopper program, the steps consist of the various award levels. With a technologically sophisticated product, the steps consist of learning how to use the different capabilities. With a process, such as the customer returning an item for refund or credit, the steps might include checking the receipt, obtaining approval from a manager, and so on.
     In each of these cases, give customers a clear sense of progress through the steps.

• Sometimes we do this by making the steps big so that the customer easily recognizes change. Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University compared two versions of a loyalty rewards program in which a participant earned a 6% shopping discount after spending $100. In one version, the participant earned 10 points for each dollar spent and had to accumulate 1,000 points. In the other version, the participant earned one point for each dollar spent and had to accumulate 100 points. The researchers found that people felt more of a sense of progress with the “1,000 point” version because each step was associated with a bigger—and therefore more noticeable—number.
• Sometimes, we make the steps smaller so that it seems easier to climb up the staircase. Researchers at University at Buffalo-SUNY and Indiana University evaluated different protocols for learning to use the capabilities of products like smart phones, Wii games, and digital cameras before deciding whether to purchase the item. Based on their results, they recommend having the learning divided into small steps, with the person given intensive hands-on trial periods at each step. This method produced the most user willingness to buy.
• In almost all cases, we’ll want to give the consumer an overview of the steps at the start and then verify to the consumer when each step has been completed. More than eighty years ago, a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik explored the reasons that waiters had a better memory for orders placed that were not served or not paid for than for those for which all the steps had been completed. Psychologists since then have used the term “Zeigarnik Effect” to refer to the mental itch we feel when a task is in limbo. Scratch that itch for your customers by announcing completion of each step along the way.

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Help Loyalty Program Members Progress
Turn Product Training into a Profit Center
Offer a Buffet of Loyalty Program Rewards
Tailor Loyalty Programs to Customer Culture
Give Loyalty Program Members Prestige
Have Suppliers Train Staff and Shoppers

Balloon Your Profitability with Music

How in the world can music increase profitability for a retailer these days? The market for selling it is competitive, seeing as there are all those 99¢ personalized music downloads. And even 99¢ is too high for some people when Pandora’s free service will learn the kind of music each of us likes best and then play it anywhere we’ve got Internet.
     Well, there are ways:

• Use music to pace customers. When you play faster music in a store or restaurant, people tend to make their selections and complete their purchases more quickly. According to researchers at Western Kentucky University, when slower music is played as background in a fine dining restaurant, patrons stay longer, but eat about the same amount of food. To make it profitable, you’d want to be sure to serve alcohol, since the researchers also found that slower music leads to more alcohol consumption.
• Play music with lyrics if you want shoppers to select items from habit without much thought. Researchers at Columbia University and Northwestern University find that noticeable music helps head off arguments shoppers might make to themselves about the purchase. On the other hand, if you want a shopper to carefully analyze the purchase decision, either do not have music or use music that is barely noticeable. If you’re wanting customers to try new brands or new products, delete intrusive music.
• Use music to project a store personality. Research findings from psychologists at University of Melbourne indicate that the music should reflect a personality that fits how your target customers want to see themselves.
• Sell music that people can’t get elsewhere. Cracker Barrel, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and Target each have arranged to sell house brand special edition CDs.
• Breed earworms. That’s the term University of Cincinnati researchers use to refer to tunes that get stuck in consumers’ brains, repeating involuntarily. When those earworms were bred from melodies heard at your store or in ads for your store, each repetition is a reminder to consider coming back again. Last spring, Holiday Inn featured a song titled “You Always Make Me Smile” in an ad campaign. The song gained popularity on its own, and now there have been well over 800,000 viewings of the music video. Perhaps it helps that the video is documenting 4,000 people setting a record for the world’s largest water balloon fight.

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Use Music to Motivate, Not Disrupt
Play and Sell Store Theme Music

Locate Mobile Shoppers in Your Space

It’s said that when William T. Dillard—who founded the Dillard’s department store chain—was asked what were the three most important factors for the success of a retail operation, he answered, “Location. Location. Location.” He’s often credited with originating that phrase.
     Developing technologies are adding a new meaning to the importance of location: Brick-and-mortar retailers should use information about the physical location of their target customers. The GPS capabilities of mobile devices will be allowing you, among other things, to track when a potential shopper is approaching your store and how a visitor is navigating through the aisles.

• Give real and virtual rewards for digitally checking in. Shopkick gives consumers gift certificates for certain numbers of check-ins at the stores of their retail clients. Starbucks grants the title of store mayor to the smartphone owner who has the most check-ins with that store during a 60-day period. These are really technology-augmented frequent shopper programs. Researchers at University of Southern California and University of Pennsylvania find that such programs work better if you give the new user a head start with a couple of extra credits as they begin.
• Involve the consumer beyond just checking in. Campbell Soup Company plans to encourage grocery store shoppers to scan the UPC code on a can in return for the opportunity to compare prices and write reviews. A number of retailers are building game mechanics—such as scavenger hunts—into the apps for shoppers. Researchers at Bournemouth University in the U.K. find that when real store brands meet with online games like this, it’s important to keep the games fresh. So change the rules and the challenges periodically.
• Encourage shoppers to use their mobile devices to keep each other posted about their shopping experiences and to invite others to participate. Don’t limit this to the people at home. How about, “Did someone come shopping with you today, but is in a different part of the store? Get in touch with them using your mobile device, tell them where you are, and get their thoughts on what you’re shopping for.” A repeated finding in consumer behavior research is that when people shop in groups, they buy more than when they shop alone.

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Give Loyalty Program Head Starts
Encourage Group Shopping

Strengthen Store Identification Using Bags

Can a shopping bag build a bond between your customer and your store? Maybe so, according to University of Minnesota researchers.
     Female participants in a study were asked to carry a shopping bag for an hour as they walked around a mall. Some of the women carried a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag. The rest carried a pink shopping bag with no store or brand identification. At the end of the hour, each woman returned to the research site and was asked to rate herself on a list of personality traits.
     Compared to those who carried the plain bag, the women who carried the Victoria’s Secret bag were more likely to rate themselves as feminine, glamorous, and physically attractive. These are characteristics associated with the Victoria’s Secret store and merchandise brands.
     Does this mean that giving your customers a shopping bag with your logo on it significantly strengthens their identification with your store? Well, the study design was more complicated than what I’ve told you so far, and those complexities shape the best ways to profitably use the findings.
     Here are the two complexities:

• Each woman in the study chose whether to carry the Victoria’s Secret bag or the plain bag. Therefore, one explanation of the findings is that women who choose a bag with the store brand on it are saying they want to be considered as having personality traits like the store brand. A classic philosophical question is, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” In this study, we can ask, “Does carrying the bag influence the shopper’s personality, or does the shopper’s intended personality influence the bag they select to carry?” The answer to that second question is, “It works in both directions.”
• Carrying the Victoria’s Secret bag did not have an effect on all the women shoppers. Those for whom it did have the most effect were shoppers who aspired to be better in some way, but felt they couldn’t do it on their own. They are the type of people who depend on brands to help them achieve their self-esteem aspirations.

     The advice for you: For the aspirational merchandise you sell, make branded paper bags available to the customer.
     And, oh yes, a bonus tip: If you sell merchandise like Victoria’s Secret sells, consider that some shoppers might like to conceal their purchase inside a plain paper bag while walking the mall.

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Project Your Store’s Personality
Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals

Ease the Guilt for Adult Unhealthy Eaters

Talking about the origins of a fast food success store, Wallace Fowler, who owns sixty KFC franchises, told Bloomberg Businessweek, “Kentucky Fried Chicken hit the streets with eleven herbs and spices, pressure-cooked, and by and large, the general public doesn’t give a damn how many calories are in it.” The stimulus for his statement was efforts by KFC Corporation to reach health-conscious consumers by emphasizing grilled chicken over the fried chicken recipe.
     My advice to you, retailer, is that if your adult customers choose to take the unhealthy route, ease the guilt for them. Feel no need to go beyond fully informing them and obeying the law. When Giant Foods, reportedly inspired by President John. F. Kennedy’s “Consumer Bill of Rights,” formulated their own list of rights decades ago, it included “Right to choose. Consumers who want to purchase possibly harmful or hazardous products (such as food with additives) can do so.”
      My advice is different regarding child consumers. There, choices need to be restricted and to the degree that the retailer can arouse guilt in a child for making unhealthy choices, it could help parents and guardians shape the child’s long-term eating preferences. This is an important issue where retailers can fulfill a social responsibility. The U.S. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion says that over the past thirty years, obesity rates among preteens has tripled and among adolescents has nearly quadrupled.
     But when it comes to adults, the customer likes to be in control, so there are better health motivators than retailer-induced guilt.

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Balance Healthy and Indulgent in Merchandise
Have Fun Items Throughout the Store
Inform Consumers, But Don’t Intrude

Shoo Away Negative Customer Feelings

Form a partnership with your customer. The customer gets a product and/or service that meets their needs well. You gain profitability from this sale and the enhanced probability of future sales.
     For it to work best, you’ll want a customer welcoming you achieving a gain. As it turns out, if the customer is in a negative mood, even your best intentions to help out the customer might fall short of producing feelings of reciprocity.
     Here’s a laboratory example of what I mean: Researchers at University of California-Berkeley and Duke University showed a group of study participants a film clip designed to irritate them: In the clip, an arrogant boss fires an employee, after which the employee destroys company property. Another group was shown a clip of the same length from the TV show “Friends.”
     Next, each participant was offered money to be split with a partner. The participant had to make a joint decision with the partner (actually one of the researchers) whether or not to accept $20. Unless both agreed to accept the money, neither would get anything.
     In some cases, the partner said, “Let’s take the money and split it evenly, with $10 for each of us.” No problem there. The participant was happy to agree to accept the money.
     In other cases, the partner said, “The only way I’ll agree to accept the $20 is if I get $15 and you get $5.” Something quite strange happened with this group. The participants who had been exposed to the irritating clip were more much more likely to turn down the offer than were those who had seen “Friends.” Their negative mood led to them wanting to deny the $15 to the other participant, even though this meant depriving themselves of $5.
     The same sort of thing that happened in the university laboratory can happen in your store. A clearly negative mood can lead to a customer wanting to deny you profitability. The remedy? Keep the transaction short. Findings from research at University of Maryland and Yale University indicate that too much talking will lock into the shopper's mind the bad feelings they're experiencing, and those negative memories make it less likely they'll return to your store in the future.

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Avoid Locking In Bad Moods

Maintain Purchase Momentum in Customers

Consumer psychologists talk of a “flow state” in which a customer who makes a purchase becomes more likely to make another purchase and then another. Consider what happened in a study conducted by researchers at Yale University, Duke University, and Carnegie Mellon University:
     Some study participants were invited to buy a CD that had been previously judged as appealing to people like the participants. The rest of the participants were invited, instead, to buy a light bulb. Yes, the butt of so many “how many does it take” jokes.” A lowly light bulb. As you might expect, a higher percentage of the CD group than the light bulb group decided to make the purchase.
     Next, all participants—regardless of what they’d been offered before and whether they made a purchase—were invited to buy a keychain. Shopping momentum evidenced itself. A higher percentage from the CD group than from the light bulb group decided to buy the keychain, and those in the light bulb group who did make the purchase were more likely to buy the key chain than those who turned down the light bulb offer.
     Don’t exploit purchase momentum—such as in children or people with a compulsive buying disorder. But allow customers to both build your profitability and build their enjoyment from shopping with you by maintaining purchase momentum.

• Start your shoppers saying yes. Begin with purchases the shopper is most likely to agree to. Even nodding yes builds momentum. University of Amsterdam researchers found that people who were induced to nod their heads up and down would then think more positively about purchase alternatives than those who had not done the pre-evaluation nodding.
• Give customers a head start. Researchers at University of Southern California and University of Pennsylvania set up an experimental loyalty card program at a car wash: Each customer could receive a free car wash after paying for eight. However, some customers were give a head start of two washes and had to get a total of ten. Those given the head start were much more likely to purchase the eight additional washes and to come to the car wash more frequently.

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Compulsive Buying Disorder. Okay, Laugh
Start Your Shoppers Feeling Yes
Give Loyalty Program Head Starts

Show Customers the Right Picture

Whether you’re asking me to purchase something from your store or contribute money to your charity, I’m probably more likely to agree if you show me the right picture.
     University of Chicago undergraduates were told that UChicago zoology students had been soliciting donations to rescue an endangered panda they’d found in a remote Asian area. On a form asking the undergraduate the most they’d be willing to donate, some of the study participants were shown a picture of a panda, while others were shown just a dot to represent the panda to be rescued.
     Students shown the picture said they’d donate $19.49 on average. The average for the dot group was $11.67. It looked like the picture increased the willingness to contribute. The lesson for retailers? Show customers what they’re getting for their money.
     Pictures are especially important with ecommerce and with the website of a bricks-and-mortar store. Here, you can’t directly stimulate the senses of touch, smell, and taste as you can in the store, and the more senses you pleasantly stimulate—even if indirectly through a picture—the greater the chance of you closing the sale.
     But realize that pictures don’t always make a difference. In another part of the UChicago study, participants were told that the number of pandas to be rescued was four, not one. In this case, the average donation amount was statistically the same with four dots as with four identical pictures of a panda. The researchers speculate that if the picture had been cuter, it would have made a difference.
     Sometimes pictures can hurt. In comparative ads, show a picture of the product or product package you want the person to select, but don’t show pictures of people using the product. University of Maryland researchers discovered that such pictures lead shoppers to start thinking about using the products themselves. When they do this, the shoppers put too much mental energy into thinking about just the recommended product. They forget to pay attention to the comparative advantages, so the power of the comparative ad fades away.
     Why is that bad? I think you get the picture.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Advertise What Products Look Like
Talk to Multiple Senses with New Products
In Comparative Ads, Don’t Show Users

Spot Values by Asking Shoppers for Reasons

A team of researchers from Australia and France told study participants they'd be given either a beef sausage roll or a vegetarian roll to eat. But those tricky researchers had lied to half the participants, who actually were served the other entrée from the one they were promised.
     One group of those participants granted a high rating to what they ate, regardless of whether they actually ate the meat or vegetable version, as long as they thought it was meat. What distinguished this group? Unlike the veggie fans, these meat elitists showed up on psychological testing as embracing values of power and strength.
     The values held by a consumer influence what that person will purchase. When members of a group—such as Baby Boomers or believers in Lindsay Lohan—expect other members and prospective members to share certain values, those values can become important drivers for large slices of your target markets.
     How do you determine what those values are? One way is to ask shoppers their reasons for selecting certain items over others. It’s best not to ask the questions in a “Why?” format. Many consumer decisions are made intuitively or based on emotion. When asked, “Why did you make that choice?,” some consumers get defensive, as if their judgment is being ridiculed.
     You’re likely to get better results and avoid jeopardizing the sale if you use a phrasing that assumes the shopper is making a sound decision: “What is important to you when choosing a product like this?” or “In what ways do you find this one to be better than the other possibilities?”
     When you have the answers, you’ll want to analyze them. One methodology is based on the values categories used in an instrument called the List of Values. Researchers at University of Oregon, University of Alabama, and University of Texas-Austin find that the nine values assessed by the LOV do a good job of describing what characterizes different groups of consumers:

• Fun
• Excitement
• Sense of accomplishment
• Self-fulfillment
• Security
• Self-respect
• Respect from others
• Warm relationships with others
• Sense of belonging

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Sell to Values, Not Just Value
Sell Benefits to Fit Shoppers’ Values
Notice Customers’ Cultural Aspirations

Boast About Underdog Determination

Decades ago, Avis Rent A Car System unveiled a series of ads that the trade journal Advertising Age later called one of the top ten campaigns of the 20th century. The theme of the ads: “We’re number 2 in rent a cars behind Hertz, so we try harder.”
     More recently, researchers at Harvard University, Simmons College, and Boston College found that the underdog’s appeal to consumers endures. Among other things, when a choice of chocolate bar brands was offered to the study participants, the brand positioned as the underdog was selected about 70% of the time.
     The researchers say the power of the come-from-behind fits well with the distinctively American stories of successful immigrants and of second chances met with passionate determination. Supporting this argument, it’s true that the study participants in the U.S. were more influenced than were those in Singapore by the underdog positioning. But even those in Singapore were affected. After all, every consumer in the world has felt they’re behind the leader in something at one time or another, so every consumer cheers for others in that position.
     Your retail store portrays a brand image that is as important to your success as the candy bar brand image is to the candy bar manufacturer. In your advertising, your coaching of employees, and your staff’s personal selling with customers, boast about having the determination of an underdog who is intent on being the best. For instance, share with employees and customers any stories of humble beginnings of your retail business and demonstrate the respect for customers and fellow employees that is associated with humility.
     However, do all this with care. At the same time that people root for the underdog, employees and consumers also like to associate with winners. The Avis campaign was profitable because the fundamental message was, “We’re not settling for being number 2. We’re striving to be number 1, and if we are number 1, we’ll be so accustomed to striving that we won’t be pulling back at all on our passionate determination to serving you.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Brag About Your Retailing Humility
Show Respect in Front of Customers

Juice Up Sales with Flavorful Names

The color of a product strongly influences its attractiveness to consumers. Researchers at University of British Columbia and University of Florida found that the color of orange juice was more of an influence on how taste was perceived than was information about the price of the juice or claims about its quality. And shoppers searching for the right shirt, interior paint, or nail polish pay lots of attention to hue.
     But what about the names given to colors? Is a retailer better off carrying products labeled “cherry red” rather than just “red” on the package? Is a car salesman or interior designer likely to make better sales saying “passion blue” instead of “medium blue,” even though the automobile or the carpet swatch is right there for the customer to see for themselves?
     Well, research at Boston College and University of Pennsylvania implies that Shakespeare’s Juliet may have had her accuracy clouded by love when she uttered “What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
     Unexpected color names—like “Florida orange” and “freckle brown”—build interest. Color names which venture beyond surprise to blatant ambiguity—names like “antique red” and “millennium orange”—might be better still. Ambiguous names work best when the shopper doesn’t see the actual product color first, while unexpected descriptive names work best when the product color is seen. The reason for all this is that the shopper spends mental energy trying to figure out why the particular color name was used, and consumer psychology studies find that mental involvement increases purchase likelihood.
     Are there circumstances in which it’s best not to use color names oozing with personality or ambiguity? In Art and Copy, a 2009 documentary about creative geniuses in the U.S. advertising trade, Hal Riney (who died before release of the film) described his recommendations to General Motors about introducing the Saturn automobile line. Aiming for a down-home, go-for-basics appeal, Mr. Riney advised that if the car is red, call it “red.”
     One might claim that the Saturn is no longer being manufactured because the color names didn’t have enough personality. But that would be twisting the evidence a whole bunch. GM didn’t stay with Mr. Riney’s advice. Color names for the Saturn included “chili pepper red,” “evening blue,” and “forest green.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Spring Your Colors
Lift the Spirits of Your Customers

Give Change in Varied Denominations

Let’s say you’ve held a raffle in which two customers each won $100 cash. To make things a little interesting, you give one winner the prize as five $20 bills and the other winner the prize as one $50 bill, two $20’s, and two $5’s. Each got five bills, but in a different combination of denominations.
     And now to make things even more interesting, you invite each winner to spend some of their cash with you right then on a $40 watch. The person can buy it or not using this found money.
     One of the two winners is noticeably more likely to purchase the merchandise than is the other. Which one spends more? The person with the five $20 bills or the person with the five bills of varied denominations?
     A study using parameters similar to what I’ve described was conducted by researchers at University of Iowa. Their prior study had shown that when one person has a single $100 bill and another person has five $20 bills, the person with the five bills is more likely to make a purchase.
     The person with the $100 bill had what the researchers called a “bias for the whole.” It looked like they hesitated breaking the $100 bill. Why was this? Did it have to do with a desire to avoid carrying a clutter of change? Was it because one person had one bill and the other had five bills? Those questions led to the study design in which each person had five bills to start with.
     The bias for the whole still came through. The shoppers who had the bills of varying denominations were more willing to spend their money on the watch, and this was also true when a T-shirt at $20 or a flash drive at $86 were offered. Having smaller denomination bills eased the bias to keep the whole amount.
     Lots goes into a consumer deciding whether to spend cash. Maybe it’s a match between the price of the item and the denominations of the currency the shopper has. Certainly, it’s how attractive the items are to the shopper. But the researchers’ careful four-experiment design showed how a bias for the whole has a surprisingly large influence.
     The hint for shopkeepers and reminder for restaurant servers: When giving change, deliver it in a mix of denominations to motivate further spending.

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Sell More by Adding Variety
Give Shopper Variety for Control
Randomly Arrange Limited Product Sets

Accent Values of Your Hispanic Target Markets

U.S. retailers have been advised by many experts to shape their marketing, advertising, and selling to Hispanic markets. An Advertising Age feature this week uses demographic evidence to buttress that advice and confirm what you’ve probably noticed on your own: According to 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data, the Hispanic population has grown about 40% over the past decade, while the non-Hispanic population has grown only about 5%. You’ve increasing numbers of customers and potential customers who identify themselves as Hispanic.
     Because you’ve already noticed, you’ve also probably made some changes to appeal to the Hispanic market. Continue doing that, but don’t overdo it. The adjustments should be a change in accent rather than dramatic alterations in what’s been working for you up to now. Here’s why:

• The distribution of Hispanics in America is not uniform. About half the number of Hispanic consumers live in California and Texas. And within any city, Hispanic-Americans are more likely than Asian-Americans, for example, to live in primarily Hispanic-American communities. While American retailers overall will see their target markets include mushrooming numbers of Hispanic-Americans, this might not be the case for your store.
• Overall, there are still about four times as many white non-Hispanics as Hispanics in America. You succeed as a retailer by appealing to consumers’ values. There are some differences between those who identify with Hispanic culture and those who do not. You’ll not want to ignore the majority values system. You’ll want to gracefully accommodate both.
• American consumers with a Hispanic ancestry are over time becoming assimilated into mainstream American society and, in the process, are embracing the mainstream’s values.
• There are substantial differences in values among groups of consumers who identify themselves as Hispanic. That’s not at all surprising, since there is not one monolithic Hispanic culture.

     So once we realize we’re talking about tendencies, not boxes, accent values of the Hispanic market:

• Family. Retailers like La Curacao design around family in ways ranging from store merchandising and layout to in-store entertainment.
• Color. Researchers at St. Joseph’s University say that Hispanic-Americans generally prefer brighter colors than do non-Hispanics.
• Adventuresomeness. In the U.S., about 35% of Hispanics are under age 18, as compared to about a 20% rate for non-Hispanics. The result is relatively more emphasis among Hispanic-Americans on the adventuresomeness associated with youth.

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Have Bilingual Staff for Bilingual Shoppers
Notice Customers’ Cultural Aspirations
Show Commitment to the Underserved

Use Terror Management Theory for Status Items

Researchers at London Business School and Cornell University gave 150 study participants information designed to temporarily threaten the participants’ self-esteem. One consequence was that the amount participants were willing to pay for fancy cars, luxury watches, and other high-status goods climbed. The amount did not climb for non-status items. By comparison, the amount people were willing to pay for high-status goods did not climb when the participants’ self-esteem was not threatened.
     Terror Management Theory (TMT) says that our realization we will someday die leads us to crave the promise of life in an afterworld and to us building legacies of children, fame, and fortune. Research projects at Stanford University find that a related protection against death anxiety is high self-esteem. The colloquial phrase “I was so embarrassed I could’ve died” reflects a relationship between threats to self-esteem and one’s demise.
     What this means to you as a retailer is that whenever you heighten a shopper’s low self-esteem, you’re appealing to an especially deep and compelling need in that shopper. Since consumers associate self-esteem with items having social status, the effectiveness of self-esteem appeals is greatest with status items.
     TMT says that one consumer motivation for buying luxury products is to build enough self-esteem to protect against death anxiety. To maximize the effectiveness of that motivation, make it a point to remind shoppers to enjoy themselves before it’s too late and then give genuine and generous praise whenever the shopper purchases a luxury item.

• Build self-esteem after the purchase is made. The London/Cornell researchers found that when praise is given before the purchase, the urge to splurge fades.
• Be ethically comfortable with using an underlying fear of death as a sales motivator. In my opinion, it’s fine to deliver value by relieving your customers’ anxiety. The three caveats for me are: Don’t violate the law to make customers feel good. Don’t gouge people by charging excessive prices. And don’t pressure people to buy when they’re seeming to struggle with temptation. But those are my rules. You need to decide for yourself.
• Recognize that TMT motivation is reserved for adults. Reminding children they’ll inevitably die is nothing if not ghoulish. And teenagers—those reckless rascals—behave and misbehave on the assumption they’ll never die.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Sell Self-Esteem After Times of Fear
Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals
Give Low-Income Customers Dignity
Build Self-Esteem of Your Teen Customers