Limit Healthy Food Purchases

To protect the health of our environment, we’d like to minimize food waste. Food waste generates greenhouse gases. Also, to protect the health of our clients and patients, we’d like to minimize them consuming sugary snacks and saturated-fat dinners. Clogged arteries can kill.
     It’s useful, then, to know that people are more likely to waste virtue foods than waste vice foods. The SUNY Brockport and Bryant University researchers who documented this difference attribute it to counterfactual thinking. Counterfactuals are “what if” questions consumers ask themselves: “What if I’d demanded more information?” and “What if I’d shopped around more?” are examples of upward counterfactuals regarding decisions to return purchased items. These questions help the shopper feel better by giving ways to improve future shopping. Examples of downward counterfactuals include, “What if I’d been unfortunate enough to get a product with even more shortcomings?” and “What if I hadn’t discovered these problems with the product until it caused real harm?” Downward counterfactuals improve the consumer’s outlook by leading to them deciding they escaped a worse situation than the one they have.
     In the case of wasting food, the counterfactual question afterwards is “What if I hadn’t discarded it?” Because vice foods offer greater and quicker pleasure than virtue foods, our answers to that question over time make us more likely to throw out the virtue foods when there’s an abundance of each. Study participants felt discarding vice foods was more wasteful than discarding virtue foods.
     Based on their findings, the researchers suggest reminding consumers to purchase virtue foods only in quantities they’re confident they can consume. There’s a tendency for people to buy virtue foods because they think they should do so rather than because they think they’ll eat all they buy.
     Study results from Poznań University of Economics and Business in Poland argue for reducing food waste by reminding shoppers about proper use of freshness date labeling systems. The researchers saw apparently irrational use of the freshness dates, even when the implications of “use by” and “best before” are well understood. About one-third to more than one-half of consumers will eat food that is past its “use by” date. At worst, this risks food poisoning. But about one-quarter to more than one-half of consumers consider foods unsuitable for consumption when the posted “best before” date has passed. If the taste, smell, and look are still okay, this risks food waste.

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Avoid Recommending If Strict Return Policies 

Tell Some Complainers It Could Be Worse 

Shower Cold on Regretful Customers 

School Shoppers About Shelf-Life Labeling 

Waste Not with Misshapen Produce

Right a Wrong with a Wrong

Researchers at Queensland University of Technology and University of Augsburg find an example of two wrongs making a right in a way which facilitates sales dialogue.
     The first wrong in their example is an inauthentic smile accompanied by forced cheerfulness in the voice. Shoppers value authenticity in salespersons’ expressions of positive emotions. The second wrong is a limitation of options available. Shoppers don’t want to be overwhelmed with options, but they seek freedom of choice.
     It might seem that adding sparse selection to a phony smile would make the dissatisfaction worse. Yet in their studies, limitation of purchase options increased in the shopper an appreciation for the emotional pressure which could impede the salesperson from showing genuine happiness along with gratitude toward the salesperson for at least making the effort to project joy.
     It’s best to genuinely smile at customers and to offer customers choices. However, based on their findings, the researchers suggest limiting options when phony smiles and forced cheerfulness are likely. This could be at times of high societal stress, during peak business hours, or as store closing time approaches, for example.
     In response to my email inquiry about the study, Andreas Lechner, one of the researchers, adds, “In studying display inauthenticity, that is, the visibility of unfelt emotions, we take an integrative perspective and look at both facial expression (e.g., asymmetric smile) and vocal expression (e.g., forced high pitch). So, technically speaking, (in)authenticity is a molar and not a molecular phenomenon. A lot of things are going on in the face, voice, and potentially gestures at the same time.”
     Moreover, in status-oriented or competitive situations centered around dominance, you will do best to chill out your emotions, say researchers at University of Arizona, Texas A&M University, and University of Chile. This applies when selling to teens, who expend considerable energy dominating their adolescent insecurities and who consider even authentic shows of emotion to be decidedly uncool. Similarly, show cool in any negotiations where establishing authority takes precedence over cultivating trust. Curbing emotions in order to look cool is also useful when selling luxury items to consumers aspiring to higher status.
     There are other times to avoid a full-toothed, full minute smile. If you’re delivering corrective discipline to a staff member, a smile could make what you’re saying seem unimportant. If a shopper is distraught, the smile could make you look uncaring. That would be all wrong.

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Chill Out Emotions to Look Cool 

Dwarf Giant Smiles So You Won’t Look Dopey

Expose Seniors’ Values Through Virtual Reality

Researchers at Massey University and Federal University of Paraiba point to a difficulty when the shopper is considerably older than the salesperson: The two parties to the transaction are likely to hold different values. Personal values influence purchase decisions.
     Older consumers place relatively higher importance on self-direction, tradition, security, and benevolence. They prize independent thought and action, respect long-standing customs, seek safety and stability, and welcome opportunities to attend to the welfare of others similar to them. Compared to salespeople, who are usually younger than them, the elderly place less importance on accumulating power or demonstrating expertise.
     A potentially useful training technique for salespeople selling to the elderly is inspired by a University of Witten-Herdecke study based on a change in social motivations found to be associated with aging: We come to place relatively less importance on seeking information during transactions and relatively more importance on seeking emotionally meaningful interactions.
     The researchers had people aged between 18 and 30 years individually participate in a fifteen-minute virtual reality session. The surroundings were a copy of the room in which the session was being held. For some of the participants, the avatar reflecting the participant’s actions in a virtual mirror was a young adult, while for the others, it was an older adult.
     Of interest to the researchers was the effect of this experience on a choice given to each participant: Would they prefer to spend a half hour of spare time with “a very close friend,” “an interesting new acquaintance,” or “the author of a book you have read and admire.” The first option was considered by the researchers to represent the most emotionally meaningful interaction.
     Compared to the participants embodied in the VR session as a young adult, those embodied as an older adult expressed more interest in spending time with the close friend.
     The researchers were struck by the strength of the effect, and they recommend further research to pin down the explanations for it. One possibility is that being embodied as an older adult increases empathy for seniors. A related explanation is that the experience stimulated thoughts about the young adult participant’s own aging. This dynamic was used in a study in which young adults became more likely to invest in a retirement account after being shown digitally-altered photos of what they’d look like decades later—with jowls and bags under the eyes.

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Value Different Values Systems of Seniors 

Emphasize Emotions with Older Consumers 

Bag Consumers with Future Images 

Foster Senior Wellness with Reminiscing

Note If “Not” Drops Price Sensitivity

When a food label states—because of a regulatory requirement—that the package contents include some genetically modified organisms, shoppers’ willingness to pay more for non-GM alternatives in that food category increases. Beyond this, the shoppers become less likely to want to buy any item in that food category. People are on guard when it comes to the unknown, and researchers at Neoma Business School, Concordia University, and University of Wisconsin–Madison point out there is much consumers have not taken the time to know about use of GMOs.
     A label which instead reads—because the claim is considered a benefit—“Non-GMO Project Verified” was found by the researchers to produce a similar effect, although smaller in magnitude. In experiments with potato chips, pasta sauce, and pickles, willingness to pay for a non-GMO item was increased about 8¢ by a “Non-GMO” label and 42¢ by a GMO-present label.
     Either label could start the consumer thinking about the use of GMOs in foods when they weren’t thinking about this previously. They might not have been thinking about it because people are focused on other factors, such as taste and caloricity, in selecting foods. They might not have been thinking about it because of willful ignorance. Since they want to consume the food, they avoid considering the details.
     And then, because the word “not” arouses caution when a shopper does notice it, attention goes to GMO.
     When the movie “Mary Poppins” came out, I was working toward my doctorate in psychology at Stanford University. In that ancient era, “junkie” commonly referred to somebody addicted to narcotics and probably selling narcotics. I tell you that so you can make sense of adhesive signs I started seeing around the Stanford campus reading “Mary Poppins is a junkie.” It looked like some mischievous Stanford students wanted to ridicule Mary’s squeaky-clean persona in the movie portrayal.
     A juicy rumor began circulating that these signs were popping up all over the nation and Walt Disney himself was so outraged about it, he was hiring detectives to locate the miscreants for punishment. A phony rumor, I’d think, but in any case, I did start seeing a new set of signs around campus. Each one read, “Mary Poppins is NOT a junkie.”
     This got me thinking about all those additional people who’d now turn around the “not” to consider the possibility of extra ingredients in Mary’s spoonful of sugar.

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Avoid “Not” in Influencing Shoppers 

Acknowledge Customers’ Willful Ignorance 

Modify Dislike of the Genetically Modified

Pose the Nudes at a Distance

Naked models in ads draw attention. As marketers, we’d like to direct that attention toward the ad message rather than undercut the message because of audience objections to the nudity. Study findings from Paris School of Business and Athens University of Economics and Business help here.
     In one experiment, the researchers asked 435 U.S.-based adults to express reactions to a perfume ad which carried the slogan “Made to excite,” and included a photo of a male model and a female model with arms around each other. In a first version of the ad, the models were fully clothed; in a second version, the two were partially clad; and in a third, the man was nude from the waist up and the woman’s breasts were visible.
     Prior to answering questions about the ad, some of the participants were asked to imagine engaging in a set of tasks, such as reading a book, tomorrow, while the others were asked to imagine engaging in those activities a year in the future.
     Among those shown the ad with the nude models, the group asked to assume the far future frame of mind expressed higher purchase intentions for the perfume, overall, than did those asked to assume the near future frame of mind. They also had lower ethical objections to the ad. These differences were less for those shown the other two versions of the ad. An explanation resides in “psychological distance,” which is higher when a consumer: 

• Selects an item for use in the future rather than now 
• Believes they’ll need to travel a longer way to obtain the item 
• Selects an item for use by someone else rather than themselves 
• Considers returning or exchanging an item purchased by someone else rather than by themselves.

     When there’s higher psychological distance, the consumer places relatively more importance on objectivity than on feelings. Emotional reactions to an item and to marketing of an item are less intense. According to studies at University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Oviedo in Spain, and Lieberman Research Worldwide, this is true for highly positive emotions—such as the thrill in having the item—and for highly negative emotions—such as anger at flawed product performance.
     Taken together, this suggests that introducing temporal distance into an ad featuring naked models—such as proposing purchase of the item in the future rather than right now—would help maintain the intended sales stimulation.

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Drive the Psychological Distance 

Mobilize Your In-Store Erotic Capital 

Strip Out the Benefits of Customer Costumes 

Abandon Naked Abs for Influential Ads

Acknowledge Effort with Caregiving Items

When directly taking care of those they care about, people place high importance on verifying their own efforts. Outcomes matter. So does the ability to reduce efforts which the caregiver perceives as jeopardizing their ability to protect their child, elderly parent, sick friend, or others who are beloved and in need. Marketers should feature those benefits in advertising items for caregiving. But researchers at Texas A&M University, Northeastern University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Harvard University argue for the appeals clearly acknowledging the caregivers’ efforts necessary to use the product or service.
     Some of the researchers’ evidence for this came from their studies showing how caregivers who did caregiving on their own felt better about themselves than those who depended on an effort-reducing product. Other evidence came from an analysis of online comments about the SNOO bassinette, a product advertised as lulling a baby into sleep by gently rocking along with playing white noise. Among the comments specifically noting how the SNOO reduced caregiving effort, 76% were criticisms, such as, “This seems so detached. Hold your child. Yes, your arms ache. Yes, your back hurts.”
     Supporting the researchers’ advice about the tenor of ads, the tag line, “You give the XOXOs, SNOO gives the ZZZs,” generated substantially more consumer interest than, “With SNOO, get ZZZs with ease.”
     The effort in itself signals love. In another exploration of this, researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison considered parents outsourcing planning of their child’s birthday party. In structured interviews with study samples, the researchers identified pivotal shopper questions the parents will probably ask. Here’s my version of those questions along with my suggestions for profitable retailer responses: 

• “Will I feel I’ve carried out my parental responsibilities?” Reserve control for the parent. Because they have come to you to save time, take care not to overload with details. Have a set of three to five overall party packages to consider, and allow for customization of each package. 
• “Will my family and friends give me credit for carrying out my responsibilities as a parent?” This question is similar to the first one, but it’s different. It’s the difference between psychological risk—“What will I think of myself?”—and social risk—“What will others think of me?” Go beyond reserving control for the parent in the party planning. Also reserve ample opportunities for the parent to be the focus of attention during the celebration itself.

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Reserve Control in Intimate Outsourcing 

Relate Biases to Gift Registrants 

Look Simple, But Offer Complexity