Are You a Consumer Zombie?!

Why does your super market constantly move its products around?

The longer you are in the super market the more likely you will buy unintended impulse products.  By moving products around so that you have to look for them, supermarkets and other stores increase the time you spend in the store.

Why is one product on the middle shelf, while another product is on the bottom shelf?

Positioning that enhances conspicuousness increases the chances that you'll choose that product. 

    The answers to these questions can only be found at the place where reason gives way to marketing and cynicism replaces integrity--of our everyday consumer lives.  During our lectures on informal fallacies we discussed how people's thinking and choices can be influenced in undesirable and often unconscious ways by our innate psychology.   We noted that the emotional associations we have with options can influence our choices in undesirable ways.  As a result, advertisers for companies like Coke and Pepsi try to create positive emotional associations with their products.  In similar fashion advertisers try to persuade us through our social instincts.  By employing appeal to the people, companies try to associate their products with groups or characteristics that are valued in society.  Thus, sports stars advertise sport drinks and athletic shoes.  Fashion designers and cosmetics manufacturers showcase their products on the young and beautiful.

     Likewise, advertisers seek to enhance sales through the psychology of choice.  Psychologists know that consumers don't consider the full range of products when making a selection.  Instead, consumers select from a what researchers often call the "consideration set," the subset of products from which the consumer will make his or her choice.  A great deal of advertising and marketing tries to place a product in the consideration set.  To take a case, can you name all of the brands of toothpaste in your supermarket?  You probably can't.  However, you can name a set that you consider (e.x. Crest, Colgate,...).   Consumers generally seek to buy one or two items of any given kind, but that number will increase if the product is on sale through a promotion that suggests high numbers of items (e.x. 5 for ten dollars, limit 12 per customer, "buy 10 for your freezer"). Consumers are more likely to choose an alternative after a relatively inferior option is added as a choice.  For example, if you are choosing between A&W Root beer and Sunkist Orange Soda, you are more likely to choose the A&W if an inferior root beer is added to the choices.  Larger packages are perceived as better values and increase usage by the consumer.  Consumers prefer alternatives that are compromise choices.  You are more likely to choose a six dollar bottle of wine over a five dollar bottle of wine if a ten dollar bottle of wine is added to the options.  Consumers who think about the possibility that their purchase decisions will be wrong are more likely to choose better-known brands regardless of the real risks.  For instance, people tend to shy away from genetically engineered produce when unaltered produce is available.

    Finally, advertisers use several tools to gather information about you and your shopping habits.  Supermarket clubs trade "bargains" for the ability to track your purchasing habits.  Software and internet sites install "spyboots" which gather information on what sites you visit and what sorts of purchases you make.  Web sites often require that you register, thereby providing them with e-mail addresses and other information which they can use to sell you products or sell to others.  Internet service providers and portals like Yahoo, invite you to provide them with data about yourself and your interests under the guise of personalizing your service (e.x. my AOL)  Credit card companies and credit bureaus track your spending habits to sell to third parties.

    Do all of these tactics really influence your buying patterns?  Or, is it really the product themselves that influence your purchasing?  We'll see. Tomorrow we'll perform blind in class taste tests to see if you can distinguish various types of name brand products from their generic counterparts.