eBay

In the past I have been persuaded to buy items on eBay that I really don’t want or need. There are a number of factors that aim to persuade us to bid or buy on eBay. Time pressure is a big factor. When items are listed in terms of ‘Time: ending soonest’ you know how many minutes left you have to bid or buy an item. In the past I have bought items that have had a couple of minutes until the end of the auction purely because I don’t want to miss out and then regret it. ‘What if this is the only item in this size/colour/price, I’ll regret it if I don’t place a bid ’. One explanation is ‘loss aversion’ first coined by Kahneman and Tversky (1979). This is the tendency for individuals to strongly prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring gains. We make these quick decisions without thinking them through. I was talking to a friend about a pair of shoes she was looking to place a bid on and she said ‘I probably won’t wear them much but look…they’re SO cheap I can’t not place a bid’. The fact that there was less than an hour to go before the end of the auction further persuaded her.

Two concepts discussed by Cialdini (2007) are at work here. Firstly, once you have placed a bid on an item, you have made a psychological commitment. Secondly,unless you set a maximum price you are willing to pay and stick to it, it is likely that if outbid you will re-bid just to be consistent with your original decision. Once you know that you are bidding against someone else or several others you want to win the item even more (despite the fact that you may not actually want the item that much). 

The 99 pence/cents effect is also commonly used for starting bid and postage prices on eBay. A field study by Schindler (1989) compared sales of the same catalogue using three different pricing formats. Thirty thousand customers received one of three pricing formats for all items in the catalogue. These were round number prices, those that ended in .99 and those that ended in .88. They found that sales for the .99 format catalogue were 10% higher after three months and .88 prices did not increase sales any more than round numbers despite all being 12 cents cheaper.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291

Schindler, R. M. (1989). A field test of the effects of price ending on sales. Working paper,  School of Business, Rutgers University - Camden, Camden, NJ.

The multi-buy trick

Among the many persuasive techniques or “tricks” by supermarkets, I find this the most ridiculous. Yet, many of us may have come across or even become victim of it. As you could see from the picture, the price is 1.39 GBP for one product. The yellow tag suggests that this product is on offer and you could get two of them for just 4.50 GBP. Wait a minute! 2 for 4.50 GBP means you have to pay 2.25 GBP per product. It is actually more expensive and this is absolutely not a good deal at all. 

Supermarkets like to take advantage of using yellow tags and a so-called offer to persuade customers to buy more. This persuasive technique is called misleading inference. Supermarkets induce a misleading inference to make you think that buying two products will help you save money than just buying one. Unfortunately, customers will easily believe so if they do not think clearly. Harris (1977) found that consumers falsely assumed that juxtaposing two imperative statements in an advert would imply a causal relationship. Shimp (1978) also found that incomplete comparatives in an ad are often used by consumers to falsely infer that a product is superior to competitors. These misleading inferences can result in inflated product evaluations, beliefs, and even purchase intentions (Burke, DeSarbo, Oliver, & Robertson, 1988; Olson & Dover, 1978).

References

Burke, R. R., DeSarbo, W.S., Oliver, R. L., & Robertson, T.S. (1988). Deception by implication: An experimental investigation. Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 483-494.

Harris, R. J. (1977). Comprehension of pragmatic implications in advertising. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 603-608.

Olson, J. C., & Dover, P A. (1978). Cognitive effects of deceptive advertising. Journal of Marketing Research, 15(1), 29-38.

Shimp, T. A. (1978). Do incomplete comparisons mislead? Journal of Advertising Research, 18(6), 21-27.

Groupon

Groupon is a website that offers a variety of discounted goods, events and holidays to customers, specifically tailored to where the person lives.  The company combines a number of persuasive techniques to encourage customers to purchase their vouchers.  Groupon places a restricted time on their offers and states that there is a limited number available.  Giving customers only a short period of time to make a decision is a clever technique as it forces them to make a decision quickly and pressures them with the fact that if they do not act now, they will miss out on the product.  Scarcity is also an effective tactic as studies have shown that we tend to equate rarity with high value, and it creates feelings of uniqueness and self-worth (Fromkin, 1970).  In a study conducted by Worchel, Lee and Adewole (1975), participants rated cookies as being more attractive when there were only two cookies left in a jar, as opposed to when there were ten. Participants rated the cookies as even more attractive when they originally saw ten cookies and then these were taken away and replaced with only two, as they viewed them as more scarce and seeing cookies being taken away made them value them more.  This shows how customers who use Groupon will see the limited time and number of goods available as pressure to act fast, buy impulsively and not miss out on what may be a great deal. 

Groupon also uses the technique low-balling as when you first look at an offer, it appears very cheap and they show the percentage you are saving with your deal.  However, often afterwards you are asked if you would like to add on something with your booking, such as a massage or dinner reservation when booking a hotel or even just adding on postage and packaging.  These surpluses often come at a higher price but people are inclined to agree as they have already committed to the offer.  This has been proven to be affected in a study conducted by Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett and Miller (1978) as it was found that once students agreed to participant in psychology experiment, they were significantly more likely to then agree to arriving at 7am than participants who were told from the start that the experiment would be at 7am.

Another affective tactic Groupon uses is the bandwagon technique by stating how many other members of Groupon have already purchased the voucher a person is looking at.  Studies show that people are more likely to engage in a behaviour if they believe other people are also taking part and are therefore part of a social norm.  Milgram, Bickman and Berkowitz (1969) conducted an experiment where confederates looked up at a building on a busy street and found that the number of passersby conforming increased with the number of confederates but at a decreasing rate.  This shows how people are more likely to purchase a Groupon voucher if they believe many other people have already agreed to.

Cialdini, R. B., Cacioppo, J. T., Bassett, R., & Miller, J. A.(1978). Low-ball procedure for producing compliance: Commitment, then cost. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 463-476.

Fromkin, H. L. (1970). Effects of experimentally aroused feelings of undistinctiveness upon evaluation of scarce and novel experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 321-329.

Milgram, S., Bickman, L., & Berkowitz, L. (1969). Note on the drawing power of crowds of different size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(2), 79.

Worchel, S., Lee, J., & Adewole, A. (1975). Effects of supply and demand on ratings of object value. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 906-914.

 

IKEA - Aladdin's Cave (maze) . . .

Ikea may be a market leader in terms of the carefully crafted shopping experience. Almost every part of the experience from layout to product variety is crafted to maximise the desire to purchase.  

If ‘items for the home’ is taken as the over-arching term describing the products for sale, then Ikea offers an almost unreasonable amount, necessitating huge department stores extending over six floors. Simonson (1990) looked at the effect of both variety of product available and amount of product desired on consumer purchase. Participants were asked to imagine they were either purchasing a single item for an occasion on a single day or purchasing several items for occasions over several days. They found that variety significantly increased buying behaviour but only when participants had in mind the notion that they may need several items.

 

Most people would not go into Ikea for a single item, the floor plan and one way system lift system alone makes this an undesirable notion. At the same time, customers are forced to walk around the entire floor and view all items on offer before exiting. The fact that customers often do not enter Ikea with the idea that they will be buying only single item and the huge variety of products on offer, ensures that trip to the store will be neither quick nor inexpensive.

 

Furthermore, Ikea offer “complete apartments for different demographic groups” (Davis, 2005, pp.702). It could be argued that this employs the foot in the door technique, in buying one item you are then more attracted to the overall look for an entire room that can be achieved with further purchase (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).

 

Davis, D. (2005). Urban consumer culture. CHINA QUARTERLY-LONDON-, 183, 692.

 

Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: the foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of personality and social psychology, 4(2), 195.

 

Simonson, I. (1990). The effect of purchase quantity and timing on variety-seeking behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 150-162.

V for Vendetta: A Revolutionary

In this speech V, the masked revolutionary in New London, V persuades the population to rise against the government on the 5th of November. The main persuasive technique used in this speech is guilt, V reminds the people that they chose a dictatorship and they need to rectify this.

Carlsmith and Gross (1969) found that particpants' made to feel guilty would be more likely to comply to a request. In their first experiment participants were made to believe they gave either a high or low status confederate an electric shock in a learning task, regardless of the status of the confederate participants who had administered shocks were more likely to comply to a request given by the confederate (75% vs. 25%). In a second experiment it was determined this effect was due to guilt as opposed to sympathy or restitution, as participants were only more likely to help a participant they themselves had harmed.

References:

Carlsmith, J. M. & Gross, A. E. (1969). Some effects of guilt on compliance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11(3), 232-239.

Comic Relief

Zhang, Y. (1996). Responses to humorous advertising: The moderating effect of need for cognition. Journal of Advertising,25, 15-32.
Comic Relief uses many persuasive techniques in order to get people to donate their money. Every couple of years, Comic Relief raises millions of pounds for charity and literally helps to change lives. To do this they use a whole host of different techniques in order to persuade people to part with their well earned cash.

Humour is one of the tactics, as is the use of celebrities, mixed with guilt. Humour has been shown to increase overall favourable responses (Zhang, 1996) and can also induce a positive happy mood which can increase helping behaviour (Isen, Clark & Schwartz, 1976), and the use of celebrities uses the high status-admirer altercast which again has been shown to increase helping behaviour (Bickerman, 1971), exactly what Comic Relief wants.

The main technique that is used is guilt. Throughout the night films about the lives of people in both Africa and the UK are shown depitcting how hard their lives are when they shouldn't have to be that way. All it takes to changes lives is a small amount of money, so Comic Relief do all they can to convince others to help, and people will help as they want to reduce the guilt they feel (Carlsmith & Gross, 1969). Different templates from Goldberg, Mazursky & Solomon (1999) are also used, specifically the inverted consequences template as it shows what will continue to happen if you do not donate.

Another tactic used is flattery, as the presenters and other presenters constantly say how the entire night would not be possible without the help of the people at home who donate. This encourages those who have not already donated to donate as they want to be included in the flattery and feel good about themselves, and research has shown that people are more likely to comply to a request when they have been flattered (Hendrick, Borden, Giesen, Murray, & Seyfried, 1972).

Overall all these tactics combined help to persuade people to donate their money, and to great success. Over the last 25years Comic Relief has raised over £800 million and has helped changed lives for the better, and shows how persuasive techniques are used effectively in real life.


Bickerman, L. (1971). The effect of social status on the honesty of others. Journal of Social Psychology, 85, 87-92.
Carlsmith, J. M., & Gross, A. E. (1969). Some effects of guilt on compliance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11, 232-239.Goldenberg, J., Mazursky, D., & Solomon, S. (1999). The fundamental templates of quality ads. Marketing Science, 18, 333-351.
Hendrick, C., Borden, R., Giesen, M., Murray, E. J., & Seyfried, B. A. (1972). Effectiveness of ingratiation tactics in a cover letter on mail questionnaire response. Psychonomic Science, 26, 349-351.
Goldenberg, J., Mazurksy, D., & Solomon, S. (1999). The Fundamental Templates of Quality Ads. Marketing Science, 18, 333-351.
Isen, A. M., Clark, M., & Schwartz, M. F. (1976). Duration of the effect of good mood on helping: "Footprints on the sands of time". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 385-393.
Zhang, Y. (1996). Responses to humorous advertising: The moderating effect of need for cognition. Journal of Advertising,25, 15-32.

Only X number of seats left at this price!

Only X number of seats left at this price!

A persuasive tactic that I have seen utilised many times when I am purchasing flight tickets is that of informing the customer that there are only a few tickets left available at the price that is being viewed. This is persuasive in two manners. Firstly it places a perceived time constraint on the customer. The impression that is given is that the tickets are being sold at a fast rate, when in reality only the quantity is told, rather than the rate of sale. This time constraint encourages peripheral processing over central processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), and is thus the message is more persuasive than if the customer was allowed longer to process the message. This increase in persuasiveness can then translate into a higher number of sales, even if the ticket being sold is not the most appealing.

The second persuasive tactic that is in effect is that by showing how few tickets are left it gives the impression that the tickets are popular, and thus it is more appealing to the customer. This has been shown by Hanson and Putler (1996) who found that by increasing the number of downloads reported by online software, further downloads were more likely, and participants rated the more popular software as more appealing.

The combination of these two techniques leads to people impulse buying expensive goods that they would normally debate over.

Hanson, W. A., & Putler, D. S. (1996). Hits and misses: Herd behavior and online product popularity. Marketing letters, 7(4), 297-305.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Nostalgia - Wispa bar

Creating the feeling of nostalgia is an advertising technique which I have often been influenced by. When in a supermarket looking at the rows of chocolate bars for sale, I often (and definitely more often than I should) succumb to the classic Wispa bar to reminisce about my childhood. The silly thing is I prefer the taste of other chocolate bars yet I am still drawn to this one.

Cadbury, who reintroduced the bar in 2009, have been very successful in evoking feelings of nostalgia for their product. Mainly because of the preservation of the original packaging that transports you back in time (for me to my early childhood) to when the bar was at its peak. This personal nostalgia produces positive feelings such as joy and affection (Holak and Havlena 1998) and consequently increases the desire to buy the product (Haley and Baldinger 1991).  The effectiveness of this technique is evidenced with Wispa becoming Britain’s best-selling chocolate bar with whopping sales of 92.5m!

Pascal, David and Muehling (2002), have demonstrated the effectiveness of nostalgia producing adverts. In their study participants viewed adverts which were evaluated as nostalgic or non-nostalgic and then had to complete a survey measuring their attitude towards the advert, brand and likelihood of purchasing. It was found that advertisements eliciting nostalgic reactions generated more favourable perceptions of each advert, the associated brand and resulted in an increased likelihood of purchasing compared to non-nostalgia evoking adverts.

Haley, Russel I. and Allan L. Baldiger (1991), "The ARF Copy Research Validity Project," Journal of Advertising Research, 31, 11-32.

Holak, Susan L. and William J. Havlena (1992), "Nostalgia: An Exploratory Study of Themes and Emotions in the Nostalgic Experences," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 19, John F. Sherry, Jr., and Brian Stemthal, eds., Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 380-387.

Pascal, V.J., Sprott, D.E. & Muehling, D.D. (2002). The influence of evoked nostalgia on consumer’s responses to advertising: An exploratory study. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 24(1),39-49. 

The Big Match - Giving What We Can Warwick

One of my housemates is very passionate about a charity called Giving What We Can and he along with some other people has set up a Giving What We Can Warwick group here on campus. The idea of this charity is a very interesting one and one that I can never quite make my mind up about. They want to make giving to charity easier by encouraging members to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will be the most effective in helping those living in poverty. This is done by providing information about the most cost-effective charities and by constantly doing research into what charities can be deemed as cost-effective.

After my housemate told me about a talk by the founder last year I have felt cautious of the structure of the charity. I felt that the “warm cuddly feeling” of giving to charity was being taken away by turning everything into numbers. Over the last year he has got increasingly involved and passionate about the charity and I have become increasingly suspicious of the techniques. I have been mainly concerned with the fact that it is not really possible to calculate the impact of charities that support political change as you cannot measure the number of lives saved. But then this year the Giving What We Can Warwick group ran a donation campaign by agreeing to match any donations up to £4000 with money out of their own pocket. After reaching this target they then announced that they would be matching up to another £2000. This target was reached bringing their total to £6000 matched so that is a huge amount of £12000 raised for Against Malaria Foundation!

The whole thing is documented in these two videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAnVna8ynA4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NU_9IbJK7k

When I heard that they were going to match every donation made I forgot all about my reservations of choosing the most cost-effective charity and began spreading the word through facebook statuses and by word of mouth. During this period of time I found myself constantly selling the idea of how cost-effective Against Malaria Foundation are with £5 providing a mosquito net for two people for 5 years. This matching scheme signifies my largest donation to charity that does not provide me with a product or a specific experience in return.

Research has shown that offering to match charity donations increases the amount of giving (Eckel & Grossman, 2003). In a study by Eckel and Grossman (2003) participants were given a list of charities to offer a donation to and they used a rebate subsidy and a matching subsidy that shouldn’t affect the level of giving as it presented the participants with the same net cost of giving to the charity. However, the results showed that the donations were significantly higher when the donations were matched. This provides support for the persuasive technique of matching donations given to a charity to increase the amount of giving.

This is one persuasive technique I don’t mind being affected by!

References

Eckel, C. C., & Grossman, P. J. (2003). Rebate versus matching: does how we subsidize charitable contributions matter?. Journal of Public Economics, 87(3), 681-701.

The Carousel

This is a scene from the American period drama called Mad Men, which centres around an advertising agency in the 1960’s. In this clip one of the main characters Don Draper has to present an idea for an ad campaign for a new product to Kodak’s representatives.

In this clip there a two different kinds of persuasive messages going on, firstly there is the persuasive tactic aimed at the viewer in the way of product placement. Secondly, there are the many persuasive techniques used by Don Draper to convince Kodak to choose their company to run the advertising campaign for their new slide projector.

Research has found that product placement can not only increase recall for the product and the brand but also increase consumer purchasing (Gupta & Lord, 1998). This effect on attitudes and beliefs towards the product is exacerbated by the congruency between the plot of the show and the product placement (Russel, 2002). In this case the product placement is part of the story line, therefore creating high congruency.

Don Draper very cleverly introduces the slide projector as a ‘time machine’, claiming it takes you back through time, he even uses some personal ‘happy memories’ of his own by using pictures of his perfectly happy family life. Combine this with his incredibly smooth way with words and you’ve got a very persuasive pitch:

“Nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards … it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels — around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”

Don Draper plays on the persuasive technique of nostalgia, it’s effectiveness was recently tested by Muehling, and Sprott (2004). They wanted to investigate into thoughts and attitudinal responses of consumers exposed to nostalgic (versus non-nostalgic) advertisements. Participants were shown either a nostalgic or non-nostalgic advertisements (example shown below), where the ads were identical apart from parts of the text. Nostalgic cue replaced comparable, though non-nostalgic, cues in the headline (“re-live” versus “capture” the moment), in the date inserted below the dominant picture (“August 28, 1985” Versus “August 28, 2001”) etc. Attitudes towards the products and number of brand-/message-related thoughts were measured. Results showed that suggest that nostalgic cues in advertising do indeed influence the type of thoughts consumers have during ad exposure, and that these thought processes appear to have an influence on attitudes toward the advertisement and advertised brand.

 References:

Gupta, P. B., & Lord, K. R. (1998). Product placement in movies: The effect of prominence and mode on audience recall. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 20, 47-59.

               

Muehling, D. D.,& Sprott, D. E. (2004). The power of reflection: an empirical examination of nostalgia advertising effects. Journal of Advertising, 33, 25-35.

Russell, C. A. (2002). Investigating the effectiveness of product placements in television shows: The role of modality and plot connection congruence on brand memory and attitude. Journal of consumer research, 29, 306-318.

Persuasive writing techniques

There are several persuasive techniques that a journalist can use in an article in order to convince, and influence the reader. Among others these might include: rhetorical questions, exaggeration, facts and statistics, personal pronouns, or emotive language. The article ‘How Zara took over the high-street’ (Cartner-Morley, 2013) published in the Guardian is a classic example of persuasive writing.

From the very beginning, the article uses a cleverly thought out persuasive strategy. The journalist refers to the reader by using personal pronouns ‘you’ and ‘we’. By doing this, she shortens the distance between herself, and the readers, and she associates herself with them. Moreover, the author uses informal, direct language, which creates a friendly-like, engaging and personable conversation about fashion.

Moreover, the reader is encouraged to use imagination, which is a very effective tactic. The journalist asks the readers to think of the London fashion week catwalk show, and use their imagination to ‘undress’ people attending the event, and guess which high street brand would be mostly represented. Research shows that visual imagery is one of the most effective techniques in advertisement, and on television. Imagining a fashion show is a synesthetic experience, because various senses overlap. In addition, visual imagery improves mood, enhances memory, increases confidence, and decreases stress level (Branthwaite, 2002).

Furthermore, the journalist makes several good points in her argument to convince the reader that Zara is one the best high street fashion companies. For example Cartner-Morley (2013) claims that Zara is successful because it produces unique, chic, and affordable fashion. The company follows ‘the spirit of the ‘time’ and gets inspiration from designers. Quoting reliable persons from the fashion industry only adds weight to her argument. The author clearly presents herself as a person who knows the world of fashion.

Research shows that people think carefully about the content of a persuasive message, if the argument is presented by a reliable person. Tobin and Raymundo (2009) carried out an experiment in which participants received either strong or weak arguments from a high expertise, or low expertise person. The result showed that people were persuaded by a strong argument presented by a high expertise person. This is due to systematic processing via the central route, which requires cognitive effort, and in consequence it strengthens attitude, lasts longer, and predicts behaviour (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983).

References

Branthwaite, A. (2002). Investigating the power of imagery in marketing communication: Evidence-based techniques. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 5, 164-171.

Cartner-Morley, J. (2013). How Zara took over the high street. The Guardian [online]. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2013/feb/16/how-zara-took-over-high-street [Accessed 15 March 2013].

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T., Schumann, D. (1983). Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: The moderating role of involvement. Journal of Consumer Research, 10, 135-146.

Tobin, S. J, & Raymundo, M. M (2009). Persuasion by causal arguments: The motivating role of perceived causal expertise. Social Cognition, 27, 105–127.

Persuasive Politics!

Every day we are bombarded with persuasive adverts.  However, during election time the public are constantly on the receiving hand of political persuasive techniques.  One way in which many parties try to obtain support is to go out and directly talk to members of their constituency.  Here, there is a video of David Cameron knocking on doors in his constituency to talk to individuals and hand them persuasive materials about why they should vote for the conservative party.   

Research has shown that this door to door canvassing is very effective (DellaVigna & Gentzkow, 2009).  After reviewing evidence, they concluded that when attempting to persuade voters, the most effective way was door to door canvassing.  Knocking on doors and speaking to voters can increase turnout from 44.8% - 47.2%.  This is most effective for politicians and persuading voters compared to consumer persuasion as when comparing this to telemarketing phone calls, there was significantly less persuasion occurring. 

This may occur for a number of reasons but it is likely to be because the politician is able to build up a rapport with the individual and come across in a more friendly way.  A similar way to gain compliance is through ingratiation.  This is where when you gain approval; you are more able to get someone to comply with you. 

Furthermore, individuals may be more likely to comply and go along with his request to vote conservative due to social influence.  Milgram and many other experiments have demonstrated that we are more likely to comply with an authority figure, in this situation David Cameron is the authority figure.  Individuals may be more likely to comply with him because he is in authority.  Additionally, they may be more likely to comply because he is in a position of knowledge.  Many members of the public may agree with him because ‘he knows how to govern the country’ and he will know things that others do not on the best way to do this. 

This is linked to informative social influence.  The individual may not be aware of all the important information but has a need to be accurate.  The belief that David Cameron would be the right person could override an individual’s personal opinion.   

Politicians use many other techniques to persuade individuals and will often try to blame other political parties for problems in the country.  This is through the competition template by Goldenberg, Mazursky, & Solomon (1999).  An advert can be persuasive by highlighting the competition and identifying areas where it is weaker and not as good.  In the advert below, labour created an interesting advert showing the two sides of David Cameron and his view on NHS spending.  This shows how Cameron is two faced and unreliable in patient cancer care.  Also implicating that he is not forceful and not the correct person for the job.  In doing this, it demonstrates that the labour party would be the correct party and individuals should vote for them because they would not be doing this. 

References

DellaVigna, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2009). Persuasion: Empirical Evidence: National Bureau of

            Economic Research.

Goldenberg, J., Mazursky, D., & Solomon, S. (1999). The fundamental templates of quality

            ads. Marketing Science, 18(3), 333-351.

Sales Promotions

Thinking about where am I going to find a persuasive message for the found content while eating breakfast I realised that 2 were staring at me in the face (just to note I don't actually have ketchup for breakfast, this was left out by one of my housemates). 

Chandon et al, (2000) found that sales promotions provide consumers with hedonic benefits (opportunities for value expression, entertainment, and exploration) and utilitarian benefits (savings, higher product quality, and improved shopping convenience).Utilitarian benefits are primarily instrumental, functional, and cognitive; they provide customer value by being a means to an end. Hedonic benefits are non instrumental  experiential, and affective; they are appreciated for their own sake, without further regard to their practical purposes (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982. p. 100).

Going into more detail into some of these benefits: Sales promotions may allow consumers to upgrade to higher-quality products by reducing the price of otherwise unaffordable products (the quality benefit). They signal the availability of the brand at the point of sale and can reduce consumer search and decision costs and therefore improve shopping convenience. Also, they can enhance consumers' self-perception of being smart shoppers and provide an opportunity to reaffirm their personal values (the value expression benefit).

Consumers evaluate products on the basis of the benefits they provide weighted by the importance of these benefits. The weighting of the benefits varies across products, purchase occasions, and individuals. For low-involvement, repeat-purchase products, the weights of some of these benefits may decrease to zero so that only a few important benefits are considered in the purchase evaluation. For example, Hoyer's (1984) field study of laundry detergent buyers in the United States shows that a few product benefits, such as product performance, price, emotional attachment, or social norms, account for 81% of the (self-reported) benefits sought.



Chandon, P., Wansink, B., & Laurent, G. (2000). A benefit congruency framework of sales promotion effectiveness. The Journal of marketing, 64(4) 65-81.

Hirschman, E, C., & Holbrook, M, E. (1982). Hedonic Consumption: Emerging Concepts. Methods and Propositions. The Journal of Marketing, 46(3). 92-101.

Hoyer, W, D.(1984). An Examination of Consumer Decision Making for a Common Repeat Purchase Product. Journal of Consumer Research,11. 822-29.

Persuasion in clothes stores

A few months ago I was looking around Topshop and an assistant came up to me to ask if I needed any help. I told her that I was fine and was thinking about buying the dress I was carrying, to which she responded something along the lines of “oh I have that dress and I think these (pointing gesture) shoes would go really well with it.” After trying them on out of curiosity I was hooked. Even though I did not need another pair of shoes I ended up leaving the shop with both them and the dress. This is similar to the foot-in-the-door technique used by salesman (Pratkanis, 2007). This is when a small request which most people are willing to perform is followed by a related larger request. I had gone shopping for a dress, so committing myself to purchase it was only a small request. As a result being persuaded to buy another item (a larger request) became easier. Research has found that this technique works extremely well. Freedman and Fraser (1966) found that 76% of homeowners in their study put up a sign in their yard saying “Drive carefully” (large commitment) if they had agreed to put up a 3-inch sign with a similar message in their home 2 weeks earlier (small request/commitment). This was over 59% more than the control group who were just asked the larger request.

Nowadays persuasion techniques such as the one above are not limited specifically to the clothes shop. On clothes websites phrases such as “top sellers” or “customers who bought this also bought…” are a regular occurrence. Showing these things increases social proof and as a result increases sales. People make decisions based on what people similar to them do.

References

Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: the foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of personality and social psychology, 4(2), 195.

Pratkanis, A. R. (Ed.). (2007). The science of social influence. Psychology Press.

That's Not All

When I was buying a laptop, the salesman after he had found out that I was interested in a certain computer, immediately began complimenting my choice and spoke positively about the laptop. He then quickly offered a case for the laptop and anti-virus software that I would receive for free if I purchased the computer. With these incentives I bought the laptop that day.

In this situation, the salesman utilised flattery and the ‘that’s not all’ technique in order to make me more compliant to buy from the store. Chan & Sengupta (2010) found that flattery; even insincere flattery can have a positive lasting effect.  

Burger (1986) found that in seven experiments with 426 adolescents, undergraduates, and adults were conducted to examine the effectiveness of a compliance procedure known as the that’s -not-all technique. The procedure involves offering a product at a high price, not allowing the customer to respond for a few seconds, then offering a better deal by either adding another product or lowering the price. Experiments I–II demonstrated the effectiveness of this procedure over a control group that was given the better deal initially. Experiments III–IV suggested that this effectiveness may be partially explained through a norm of reciprocity that calls for the customer to respond to the seller's new offer. Experiment V suggested that the effect also results from an altering of the anchor point participants use to judge the new price. Experiment VI indicated the effectiveness of the procedure cannot be explained by the participant perceiving the lower price as a bargain. Experiment VII, which examined the differences between the that’s not all technique and the door-in-the-face procedures, implied that the former technique is more effective than the latter. Overall findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the that’s -not-all technique.

Through the utilisation of such techniques, the salesperson influenced me to commit to a certain laptop and then offered incentives to make sure I stuck with that choice and went on to pay for it.

Burger, J. M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that's-not-all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(2), 277-283.

Chan, E., & Sengupta, J. (2010). Insincere flattery actually works: A dual attitudes perspective. Journal of Marketing Research, 47, 122–133.

Fluid hair salon (3rd found content)

This advert for the Canadian hair salon, Fluid is a bad advertisement due to the controversy it sparks as it displays a disturbing scene. It is trying to stress the importance of always looking chic, even when your boyfriend has beaten you up using the tag line ‘Look good in all you do’ and a female with  black eye and a menacing man behind her. This is taking the shock tactic too far that it is not effective. And puts the viewer off the brand since it seems it is trying to promote domestic violence. The main objective of an effective advert is to gain the attention of the viewer (White, 2007) and adverts of a shocking nature can do such a thing by surprising viewers. However in some cases such as this one, when fear is created in a disturbing manner this will lose attention. For instance, viewers ignore scary and shocking adverts as they cannot relate and therefore take no notice, (Williams, 2009).

But perhaps the extreme lengths the advertisement has gone to could work to the brand’s advantage as it does get viewers discussing it and therefore increases brand exposure. However some researchers argue that offensive advertisements, may be successful in the short term in increasing public attention but in the long run the customer base and brand name could be tainted (Prendergast, Wah-Leung and West, 2008; Prendergast, Ho and Phau, 2002).

Javed, E. M. B., & Zeb, H. Good shock or bad shock: What impact shock advertisements are creating on the mind of viewers?.

Prendergast, G., Ho, B. and Phau, I. (2002) ‘A Hong Kong view of offensive advertising’. Journal of Marketing Communications. Sep, 8 (3), pp. 165-177.

Free Delivery and Returns

I experience this type of persuasion particularly when online shopping especially for clothes. It convinces me to order more and to order from a particular website when there is free delivery and returns, especially as a poor student in a town with limited shops. It does this by convincing people to take the risk if hesitating on a decision on items consumers are not sure they want or even need. Helps increase uncertain decision making when online shopping. Clever marketing strategy as it helps unsure customers. A recent survey by Redshift Research revealed how much consumers care about free returns when shopping online. 60% of those polled said they would never purchase clothes online unless they could return any unwanted items for free. Perhaps this is an example of valence framing as it involves losses and gains. There is nothing to lose from trying if delivery/return is free. All you can do is gain from the situation. People seek to avoid loses and therefore free delivery and returns this eliminates loss. Tversky and Kahneman (1981) illustrated how valence affects willingness to take a risk using what has become known as the Asian disease problem.

Online shoe store Zappos confirmed the effect of free returns by saying people who regularly return items can become some of your best customers, with its own customers who buy the most expensive shoes having a 50% return rate. People who returned half of their orders made the company more money. Morwitz, Greenleaf and Johnson (1998) tested the difference between“$82.90 including shipping and handling” and “$69.95 plus $12.95 shipping and handling”. They found consumers were less likely to recall the full total cost and were more likely to remember the product’s cost. Therefore unbundled pricing had more demand which shows the attention on delivery cost. This in turn could be why free delivery is effective.

References

 Morwitz, V. G., Greenleaf, E. A., & Johnson, E. J. (1998). Divide and prosper: consumers' reactions to partitioned prices. Journal of Marketing Research, 453-463.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453-458.

Free gifts!!

One of the most common and obvious ways to attract consumer's attention is gift giving. Everyone loves recieving gifts. When deciding which magazine to buy the gift that comes with it may be what makes us get one over the other when the contents are very similar. This may seem trivial and superficial when the decision we are making is between Cosmopolitan or Vogue, but the power of gift giving goes beyond magazines. It even influences the bank we put our savings in, how many money do we put and how satisfied we are with our bank.
In a recent study, researches found that gifts increased deposit balances, survey response rates and customer  satisfaction compared with a non-gift group. The quality of the gifts and the consistency of gift-giving also influenced the deposit balances and satisfaction.

 References:

Haisley,E.,&Loewenstein,G.(2011).It's Not What You Get but When You Get It: The Effect of Gift Sequence on Deposit Balances and Customer Sentiment in a Commercial Bank.Journal of Marketing Research,48(1),103-115.

"Marvel" at the persuasive techniques

In this clip, Natasha Romanoff has the task of persuading Bruce Banner to join the Avengers. She uses several persuasive techniques including innuendo ("I'll persuade you"), and extreme consequences ("We're facing a potential global catastrophe"). Her initial tactic, however, is that of "Jigsawing." That is to say, landscaping the situation to promote intergroup harmony and positive social relations. It is used here as, before asking for Banner's help, Natasha lets him know that they've been keeping people away from him to help him out .

This technique is detailed in Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, and Snapp's (1978) experiment. Participants were students in whose class Aronson and colleagues implemented a technique which allowed students to work with other students from different backgrounds. These intergroup relations improved academic performance and minimised prejudice. In the example above, Natasha hopes that by making Banner think they have a friendly relationship he will agree to do as she asks.

Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephan, C., Sikes, J., & Snapp, M. (1978). The jigsaw classroom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.