Gang the SKU on Shoppers

Displaying multiple versions of the same product—such as five replicates of a cordless drill model in an ad or an array of a household cleanser package for a store display—builds in consumers a perception that the product is powerful and a good value. The University of Cincinnati, University of Miami, and University of Georgia researchers who documented this acknowledge that featuring an item in isolation—such as with white space around it in an ad—indicates other benefits, such as scarcity or luxury. Balance these considerations in deciding how to display the item.
     The explanation for the gang effect is “entitativity,” which refers to the extent to which a collection of related items is viewed as a single entity. When shoppers see five identical visual images, they tend to consider the five as one unit. Five of anything are more powerful than one of that same thing. This implication carries over subconsciously to consideration of each single item in the collection.
     Discount marketers make use of entitativity in the form of power aisles—those shelves with the overwhelming numbers of a limited selection of products which researchers at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Youngstown State University have shown give the impression of high returns for the money spent. Entitativity implies efficacy.
     Entitativity research has its roots in person perception, not item perception, and person perception provide an example of the phenomenon sometimes being to the detriment of a marketer. Researchers at University of Michigan and London Business School analyzed funding activity on Kiva.org, a micro-financing site. On the site, photos and descriptions are presented of people seeking small loans for commercial endeavors. The researchers were interested in what happened with listings which included photos of a group of fund seekers. Some of these photos were judged in a preliminary study to show a group who looked tightly organized, as if ready to act as one.
     Those appeals were more quickly funded than the appeals in which the group looked loosely organized. Those researchers also found that charitable donations to help poor children were higher when the children were described as belonging to the same family than when not. However, when the researchers described the charity recipients as a cohesive group of child prisoners, the average donation amount was less than when the “child prisoners” were shown as isolated individuals. Power here was viewed by consumers as a negative.

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Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals
Account for Contextual Influences on Sales
Collapse to Soles When Asking for Money

Fear Fair Trade Discount Promotions

Savvy marketers realize there are circumstances in which dropping the selling price of an item retards sales rather than enhancing them. Studies at McGill University and Auckland University of Technology created one of those circumstances by offering promotional discounts on fair trade items. Consumers whose interest in fair trade was heightened by reading about its purposes were less likely to purchase a fair trade chocolate bar offered at 30% off than when offered at the regular price.
     The fair trade movement advocates a willingness to pay a premium to suppliers who treat workers humanely and conduct their operations in ways which sustain the environment. Its origins were in sales by producers in developing countries to consumers in developed countries of items like coffee and handicrafts. The spirit of free trade can now apply to sales within a developed country of a broad range of items and of the humane treatment of animals, not just workers.
     The researchers’ explanation for the drop in interest from promotional discounts is that the shoppers worried the lower price would impede adequate pay and proper employment conditions for the workers. Consumers who showed no particular interest in fair trade campaigns were, not surprisingly, more likely to buy the chocolate bar when offered at a 30% discount.
     For the fair trade proponents, the damage to the marketer from the price discount extended beyond missed chocolate bar sales. The researchers saw a drop in brand credibility, which would affect its other offerings to the marketplace. Again, this was not true for shoppers low in fair trade involvement.
     Knowing this, you might choose to avoid featuring in your promotional discount campaigns items carrying a fair trade benefits claim. Instead, harvest the extra revenues which come from shoppers willing to spend more money to express their values. If you do discount fair trade items, emphasize in the promotion a clear rationale which proves the discount does not lessen fulfillment of the fair trade objectives. This avoided the sales drop.
     Attention to shopper values is also important with green products, a benefit related to fair trade. Consumers expect to pay a premium for products with the sensitivity to environmental impacts which qualifies the products to be called green. But Drexel University researchers saw consumers in their studies get mighty irritated if consumers came to realize products had only trivial modifications in the direction of environmental sensitivity.

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Notch a Niche for the Fair Trade Spirit
Wash Away Your Greenwash Products

Tip Yourself Off with Tipping Tracking

The size of tip a consumer gives a restaurant server is commonly thought to be directly related to the degree of quality the consumer judges the service to have shown. This suggests that monitoring the amount of tips a server receives—relative to what other servers receive and correcting for the number of hours worked—will give a measure of that employee’s job performance.
     Beyond this, studies at Drexel University, Fordham University, Iona College, and Korea’s Soongsil University found that the size of the tips provides information about the consumers—how empowered they feel themselves to be. People who perceive themselves as having little power leave tips more out of desire to avoid embarrassment than to reward good service. Given enough data on tipping to the wait staff, restaurant management and the servers themselves can identify repeat diners who feel little power. They are the ones consistently leaving tips higher than the overall average of tips to that server.
     Researchers at HEC-Paris and Northwestern University concluded that when the large size of a product or package implies power, consumers craving more power go for the large. A set of study participants were offered a choice of different-sized bagel pieces. Those participants who felt powerless in the face of threats chose bigger pieces. But when small size implied status from exclusivity, consumers who felt relatively powerless would forgo the large.
     Other studies have identified ways a retailer can influence a shopper’s sense of power. In a Northwestern University project, it didn’t take much: Some of the study participants were asked to imagine an actual episode in the past when they possessed high power in a situation. You could adapt that to discussions you have with a frequent customer.
     In a dining situation, the customers usually feel more powerful than the servers. This can be influenced by words the server uses. “Here, you’re the boss” and treating with deference raises perceptions of power. “Here, we take care of you” and treating with authority does not. Strangely, even the colors worn can make a difference. Waitresses working in a set of five French restaurants were instructed to wear the same design T-shirt in one of six assigned colors. Those wearing red received tips that were 27% higher than with other colors. The difference was largely attributable to males dining alone and to how seeing red makes men question their sexual power.

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Go Intense with Threatened Shoppers
Keep Your Distance If Customers Expect It

Weather Changes in Weather-Based Buying

Consumer research has repeatedly found that weather conditions such as temperature influence purchasing behavior. For instance, during cold spells, people become more willing to take on complex risks and more interested in watching feel-good romance movies while eating fattening snacks.
     Studies at Rice University and University of South Wales show how the second of those is particularly true among women. The reason is that women are more sensitive than men to their negative emotional states. The researchers found plenty of evidence for this. Adults in New York State spent more money on entertainment and tobacco during cold months than warm months. The difference was most pronounced in census tracts having greater percentages of women. In a sample of adult non-dieters from across the U.S., there was higher reported consumption of chocolates and cookies when the temperature was colder and the rainfall greater.
     These changes in consumption habits tracked self-reported changes in mood. For both genders together, the effect was stronger for those who reported having spent more time outside. Between genders, the effect was stronger for the women than for the men.

     Services like Weather Unlocked, Weatherfx, and WeatherBug allow marketers to knowledgably develop campaigns, including promotional discounts, based on weather forecasts. The research indicates the return on investment for doing this will be greater for product classes of interest to female consumers. The projects are also likely to be more profitable when recognizing how it is not only the current weather, but also the anticipated weather which influences purchasing behavior. Women often choose their swimwear as the temperatures start to rise, and all that could be well after they’d joined the gym or purchased exercise equipment. The Rice/South Wales researchers recount that Pantene shampoo once used WeatherFX to spot upcoming humid days and then issued “frizzy haircasts.” Sales of Pantene increased 28%.
     As a rule, when the weather is warm, people become more comfortable paying higher prices for products and services. Yet if the product is a snow shovel and the service is repair of the furnace, a willingness to pay more is likely to come into action during the cold months instead of during hot ones. And studies at Clicksuasion Labs in North Carolina, University of Auckland, and Western Sydney University find that the effect of warm temperature reports on price anchors operates most clearly when consumers are making their purchase decisions without complete amounts of information.

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Keep Shoppers Cool for Critical Thinking
Elevate Expected Prices with Hot Cues
Smooth It with Females, Angle for Males

Deep Canvass to Uncoil Voters’ Rigidity

“Let them know they’ve been fooled without making them think they’re fools.”
     I crafted that epigram to headline advice I give to campaign workers who want to change voters’ deeply held convictions. The persuasion tactics I then go on to suggest include listening to stories of life experiences told by the voter which have led to mistaken beliefs and then sharing true stories which illustrate a more accurate worldview. All this with the exchange of tales in ways which sidestep personal judgment of each other. When it’s done in face-to-face neighborhood contacts, political psychologists call it “deep canvassing.”
     The method is supported by results of a study based at Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley. The study was conducted to question the popular view that the only way to influence elections is to increase the number of people with your view who vote. Personally important political opinions are extremely resistant to change. All new information which confirms previously held beliefs is attended to and remembered well. Any new information which contradicts beliefs is ignored or forgotten. Trying to change these political opinions is therefore futile, says this perspective.
     The pessimistic view also comes with research support. Political scientists at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Rice University say that liberals tend to be physiologically different from conservatives. Liberals have relatively more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain associated with impulse control, while conservatives have relatively more gray matter in the amygdala, which is associated with intense emotional experiences.
     These are overall tendencies, not true of every individual voter. Further, the physiological predispositions, built into a consumer’s DNA, aren’t the whole tale. Situations and experiences do matter. An article in VICE Magazine about the use of deep canvassing quotes advocates of the technique who attribute its effectiveness to building relationships of trust through mutual storytelling. The article also reports on the limitations of deep canvassing during the during the 2020 election cycle. Considerations like the coronavirus restrict door-to-door visits and invitations to sit down together to chat. Deep canvassing could be used in phone conversations, though.
     The notion that life experiences can uncoil even deep-seated political orientations certainly is not new. Although a 2007 research article claims to have disproved the claim, the old saying “A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged” persists. Author Tom Wolf added, “A liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.”

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Involve the Shopper in Your Story
Discuss Disgust Conservatively & Liberally
Mobilize Cause & Guilt Against Fake News

Accredit Seniors About Alzheimer’s

Identification of a senior’s enhanced potential for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has personal and societal benefits, say researchers at University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University. Although there is currently no cure for AD, early diagnosis allows for treatments which delay the progression and for contingency planning.
     Yet many seniors who show preliminary signs, such as confusion, decline opportunities for screening. What measures, then, work best to persuade suitable seniors to participate? The most important answer, the researchers found, has to do with a senior believing they’re capable of handling news of an AD diagnosis. It’s a characteristic psychologists call “self-efficacy,” and it arises when a person feels empowered by education. Before suggesting to a senior that they undergo the screening, qualify them to make informed decisions about the diagnostic procedure and about living with AD.
     Self-efficacy also develops from social norms. In the research, seniors were more likely to be interested in AD screening when they heard their peers were undergoing it or believed that people they respect would want them to do it. It was found that the women, who are more sensitive than men to social norms, were more likely than the men to agree to AD screening. This is consistent with other research showing women play closer attention to their ongoing health and that wives are effective at coaching husbands to engage in preventive health care.
     These Miami / Florida Atlantic recommendations were based on structured surveying of 1,043 people ages 50 to 97 years who tested as showing no evidence of dementia, and then sophisticated statistical analyses of the results.
     In the studies, seniors carrying long-term care insurance were more likely to agree to AD screening. The researchers attribute this to knowing the cost of the screening would be covered. Another likely reason, in my opinion, is that those with the insurance are more comfortable that if AD develops, they won’t be such a burden on others. The long-term care insurance will provide personal assistance and pay at least some of the fees.
     This derives from the question, seen especially in the elderly, that if you can’t do anything about a problem, why expend resources discovering it? Beyond this is a concern about stigma. If there’s evidence of future AD, the senior will think less of themselves. More importantly, other people will consider the senior’s current capabilities as inferior even prior to any evidence of marked deterioration.

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Couple Wise Consumer Decisions
Affect Seniors’ Rehabilitation Intentions