People and Products: Consumer Behavior and Product Design

COMING: March 2015

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/People-Products-Consumer-Behavior-Product/dp/1138812242

 

 

 What they're saying about People and Products by A. J. Kimmel:

‘Kimmel introduces a key strategic alliance for the 21^st century: consumer research plus product design. He builds a convincing case for this partnership through a delightful mix of intriguing examples, broad scholarship, and engaging insights.’ - Russell Belk, York University Distinguished Research Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing


‘At last, a book that lives up to its promised title, People and Products: Consumer Behavior and Product Design, and delivers on it. Today, people drive products, brands and markets more than ever before and it is important that Marketing takes this more seriously. Yet, Marketing can still be, and often is, a ‘one way street’ guised as a ‘two way’ approach. This book draws upon examples to describe each element of the title and the ways these interact. I also like the personalized, often 1^st person narrative. This is a refreshing and educative read of modern-day Marketing.’ - Philip Kitchen, Research Professor in Marketing, ESC Rennes School of Business, France

About the Author

Allan J. Kimmel is Professor of Marketing at ESCP Europe in Paris, France. He holds MA and Ph.D. degrees in social psychology from Temple University, USA. He has published extensively in the fields of consumer behaviour and marketing including articles in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychology & Marketing, Business Horizons, Journal of Marketing Communications, and European Advances in Consumer Research, among others.

Stay tuned for excerpts from the book in coming posts...

The Warmer it Feels, the Warmer You Are

Show me the love.  The end of the vacation period in Paris brings the surly out in the usually surly Parisian, seen daily in full glory on the Paris metro.  A new study conducted by Yale University researchers, however, suggests a possible panacea :  simply touching something warm may make you feel and act more warmly towards others.

The researchers asked student participants to hold either a hot or iced cup of coffee and then to imagine the personality traits of a fictitious person.  Those holding the hot coffee rated the person as more generous, sociable, and good-natured than those who held the cold coffee - all of which are characteristics psychologists associate with warmth.  Taking the research a step further, the researchers had other student volunteers briefly hold one of those heat or ice pads sold in drugstores for pain, allegedly as part of product-testing.  The students later were given the option of a small gift as a thank you for participating: they could choose either an ice-cream coupon or bottled drink for themselves, or one for a friend.  Students who held the hot pad were more likely to choose a reward for a friend, whereas those who held the ice pad were more likely to choose a reward for themselves.

According to the principal investigator Lawence Williams (now at the University of Colorado), the findings suggest that people are more sensitive to cues in their physical environments than we might think: "We shouldn't underestimate the importance of our surroundings in shaping our thoughts, feelings, and actions."  In fact, physical and psychological concepts "are much more closely aligned in the mind than we have previously appreciated." 

It's interesting to consider the consumer behavior and marketing implications of the research.  According to Williams, free food samples distributed in grocery stores probably entice more shoppers if they are warm.  Consider also that there already are relatively inexpensive hand warmers on the market - little sacs that you heat in water prior to going out in the cold, which you can then put in your coat pockets and use as a handy way of keeping your hands nice and toasty (assuming they effectively work).  Perhaps a new product tagline:  'Warm your hands and your heart at the same time.'  And as Paris commuters shift more and more from hard-copy books, newspapers, and magazines to electronic versions, perhaps as their portable devices warm up through use, so too will my fellow countrymen.

Source: 

"Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth" by Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh.  Science, 2008, vol. 322, no. 5,091.

On Balance, Consumers Act Differently

I couldn't help but be intrigued by this headline making the rounds in a research press release:

'Shopping in High Heels Could Curb Overspending'

 

 

Say what?

Now check out this little checklist:   

When shopping for a big ticket item, such as a television, there is a checklist of things you should always do:

1. Read reviews
2. Compare prices
3. Wear high heels

Options 1 and 2 are obvious, but how to explain option 3?   According to a new study conducted at Brigham Young University in the US, consumers experiencing a heightened sense of balance are more likely to weigh the options and go with a product that falls in the middle of the scale between high-end and low-end.  In other words, wear high heels.  Or, for those like myself who can't abide high heels (particularly males),  ride up and down the escalator, pretend a cop has just pulled you over and asked you to walk a straight line, stand on one foot when you're pausing in front of product alternatives, or just go shopping immediately following your yoga class.  BYU researchers Jeffrey Larson and  Darron Billeter found that almost anything that forces your mind to focus on balance affects your shopping choices as well.  Balancing consumers, for example,  are more likely to go with a  42-inch TV for $450 rather than a $300 32-inch set or a 50-inch screen for $650.  In other words, balance equals moderation. The moral of this story, according to Larson is this: "If you're someone who tends to overspend, or you're kind of an extreme person, then maybe you ought to consider shopping in high heels."

The bigger picture here pertains to the relationship between physical sensations and decision making, and reveals that people should be aware of how physical forces can change the way they think about things.  As Billeter suggests,  "We need to sit back for a minute and consider, 'Is this really what I want, or are the shoes I'm wearing influencing my choice?'  We need to be more aware of what is influencing our choices."


Source:   Jeffrey S. Larson, Darron M. Billeter. Consumer Behavior in “Equilibrium”: How Experiencing Physical Balance Increases Compromise Choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 2013; 50 (4): 535 DOI: 10.1509/jmr.11.0455

Hide the Chocolate or Lose the Diet

There's nothing more counter-productive to not eating between meals than living with someone who leaves an open package of chocolate chip cookies or nacho chips on the kitchen counter.  There are two ways to deal with this situation: close the package and put it back on the shelf or reach in and snatch a couple cookies or a handful of chips.  Guess which action is more likely?  I rest my case.

A new study on self-control by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Dusseldorf adds credence to the scenario above by suggesting that avoiding temptation is likely to increase your chances of success with a diet as opposed to simply relying on willpower alone.  In other words, out of sight, out of mind.  According to one of the investigators, Molly Crockett, "Our research suggests that the most effective way to beat temptations is to avoid facing them in the first place."  True, this sounds like 'bubba psychology" - a truth that your grandmother could have told you, without having to do the research at all, but the research adds empirical support to what otherwise is armchair psychology.

The fancy term for restricting access to temptations is "precommitment" - such as not buying those fattening chocolate chip cookies in the first place or putting money is a savings account with high withdrawal fees. 

The research team provided male participants with a series of choices - some involving small rewards that were continuously available or large rewards that were forthcoming.  To obtain the large rewards, the participants had to exert willpower to resist opting for the small rewards.  For other choices they had the opportunity to precommit, so as to avoid the temptations.  Brain activity was measured as the decisions were made, and by looking at the brain regions that play a role in willpower and precommitment, it was found that precommitment was a more effective self-control strategy than willpower.  So give your brain a break and stick to your diet through some simple precommitments - don't buy the cookies, chocolates, or chips at all, or if you do, put them on a high shelf where you can't see them.  Hide the chocolate, save the diet.

Further reading:
Crockett, M. J., Breams, B. R., Clark, L., Tobler, P. N., Robbins, T. W., & Kalenscher, T.  (2013). Restricting temptations: Neural mechanisms of precommitment.  Neuron.  DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.028

Consumers Like Matching Brands

No, this isn't a promotion for Tostitos.  If you were to ask me which nacho chips and salsa sauce to consume, and I'm not sure why you ever would, I know I wouldn't recommend national brands like Tostitos.  As for salsa sauce, I prefer to make my own from scratch and would be happy to pass along a recipe.  But we're not here for recipes, we're here to better understand the psyche and behavior of consumers, and that's where the nachos example comes in handy.

As it turns out, based on a series of experiments conducted at the University of Minnesota (USA), researchers have found that when people consume certain products in tanden - such as nacho chips and salsa sauce - they enjoy the products more if the brands match.  So if you were to snack on, say, a bag of Tostitos nacho chips and Old El Paso salsa sauce while watching a televised football game, you wouldn't enjoy the snack as much as had the chips and sauce brands matched (such as Tostitos chips and sauce or Old El Paso chips and sauce).  Similarly, we might imagine that you would say your burger was tastier had the ketchup and pickles brands matched.

As to why matching brand labels lead to greater enjoyment, the researchers suggest that they encourage consumers "to believe that the products were tested and designed to go well together."

There is no universal answer to which brand a consumer likes the most.  The brand a consumer prefers for a particular product depends on the brand of other products with which it is being combined.  A company that offers products that are consumed together will have an advantage over other rival brands that do not offer both individual products, since consumers will want to have matching brands.

So now you know why many of the recipes - there I go again - on food packages tend to include certain ingredients that bear the same brand as the purchased item - often obscure or hard-to-find ingredients that only the brand offers.

Another comment regarding the nachos and salsa - based on simple learning principles, such as classical conditioning - if you find you are always munching on the same snack every time you watch a football game, you've probably trained yourself to associate these things.  And if your team wins, you'll probably enjoy your chips and dip even better.

One final nachos point - if you find the Tostitos logo particularly memorable or likeable, it could be because of the embedded image of two happy consumers (well, I don't really know how happy they are) - the two 't's in the center of the brand name - holding a giant nacho chip over a bowl of salsa sauce - the dotted part of the letter 'i'.  For the sake of closure (although this example is more consistent with the perceptual principle of figure-ground than closure) let's just assume the chip and salsa are both Tostitos, and that the consumers are happy.

Source : Ryan Rahinel and Josepth P. Redden. Brands as Product Coordinators: Matching Brands Make Joint Consumption Experiences More Enjoyable. Journal of Consumer Research, April 2013.