Something still doesn't sound right about selling on the LESS ticket.
Look at Does Consumer Happiness = Time or Money Spent?
Consumers do respond favourably to marketing that focuses on time, not money. Jennifer Aaker, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
“Ultimately, time is a more scarce resource — once it’s gone, it’s gone — and therefore more meaningful to us,” says Cassie Mogilner, who co-authored the study. “How we spend our time says so much more about who we are than does how we spend our money.”
The study found that mentioning time is effective because consumers are trying to make the most of it.
“When you refer to time, there’s a big social component that integrates the products you use with the people in your life, which makes the product experience more meaningful and richer,” says Mogilner.
The argument goes that... to shift your own advertising efforts away from money and better connect with customers’ time values, your marketing and branding efforts should:
1. Emphasise how the product frees up consumers’ valuable time
2. Build your brand as one that makes leisure or work time more enjoyable
3. Accentuate your product’s potential for relationship building (ie time spent with others)
Though countless successful marketing campaigns have been built around spending less, Aaker and Mogilner contend that referencing money will always have a slightly negative connotation.
Even when a purchase is a relative bargain, many buyers resent having to spend their money at all. Spending time, on the other hand, is something no one can avoid. So companies can improve sales by showing how they help consumers spend it well.
I am not entirely convinced by the argument. More often than not, advertising is no longer the best way to connect/attract/communicate with potential customers. The researchers' argument only refers to consumer products...
I think they are just saying what has been said here before which is that people buy your product for the 'afters'/benefits - what's left after the product has been bought/consumed. People don't buy your product for 'what it it does' - they buy it 'for what it does' does for them...!
- Does Consumer Happiness = Time or Money Spent? - the research
- Jennifer Aaker, Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Cassie Mogilner co-author
- Want to Increase Sales? Sell Time Not Cost - BNET
2 comments:
"People don't buy your product for 'what it it does' - they buy it for 'what it does for them'...!"
I agree. Plus, this means that, essentially, there are many different interpretations to this research. What does money mean to the subject; what of time?; what of the product itself? Did the ad's even work?
I also think that the research suffers from lag. i.e. It was executed before the "recession" proper, and, certainly in the US where it was facilitated, time meant far more to the middle-class masses than their disposable income, until now where there has to be an often tenuous balance.
The researchers "analyzed 300 ads in Money, New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and Rolling Stone..." all middle to affluent class magazines, so readership is highly unlikely by those where money means a stark choice between feeding the family an extra, well-needed meal, and walking to work along a dangerous highway at 6am.
"and found that nearly half (48 percent) included a reference to time...Clearly, marketers feel at some intuitive level that this time is important," says Aaker. This is astoundingly subjective! I'm not so sure what importance the advertisers do place with time, and again, it depends on the product and the individual buyer.
It is interesting, yet telling, that they do not cite, (even in the full paper) what those products being advertised were, or how those ad's affected bottom line sales.
There is also something to the way that the lemonade stand research was done. Either the researchers had no clue how to advertise, or were deliberately trying to skew the results by having the study groups set up as 1. "Spend a little time and enjoy C&D's lemonade" 2. "Spend a little money, and enjoy C&D's lemonade" and 3. "Enjoy C&D's lemonade."
The researchers said "The results were instructive: The sign stressing time attracted twice as many passersby—who were willing to pay almost twice as much—than when the money sign was displayed."
What a surprise that the set up would yield this result in a US consumer setting! Again, interesting that they do not say a. Where the research was executed, which would have a profound effect on the outcome, based upon culture and demographic (Americans would have been embarrassed by the money sign, which is why the annual Girl Scout Cookie drive doesn't mandate signage) and b. What the control group #3 effect was.
The second part of the research was: "In a second experiment college students who owned iPods were either asked: 'How much time have you spent on your iPod?' or 'How much money have you spent on your iPod?'...Students asked about time reported more favorable attitudes toward their iPods than those asked about money. 'We were very surprised at how strong the differences were,' says Aaker."
Again, I'm surprised that Aaaker was surprised, (save the opportunity for a paper). Again, the researcher seems to possess a gross level of misunderstanding, when dealing with the US mindset. North American culture is obsessed with time, and although materialistic, doen't like to talk about what things cost. It is simply enough to be seen with the clothes, car accessories. One would yield a surprisingly offended reaction if one would approach an American and ask what something cost them. Whereas they would gladly engage for hours on the aesthetic or use values of a purchase.
So, more flawed research, more senseless opinions by over-excited, self-indulgent Professors seeking tenure above discovery.
Where, indeed, has all of the innovation gone? Where are all of the break-through's in correlation to the huge number of graduates these days?
I think it is shocking that this was even published at all. We are, after all, talking about Stanford University School of Business, a la JFK, Phil Knight, Guy Kawasaki, Jim Collins, even our own Lord Browne.
One has to wonder that, if this had been written and submitted by by Joe Public, instead of Aaker, a Stanford Professor, whether this would not have been laughed out of the selection panels hands at the "Journal of Consumer Research"! As it happens, it will shortly be appearing in their very own ink at a university library near you.
I don't think I'll have the time to read it again, besides, it's too expensive...
More tosh from over the pond. What a waste of time these famous universities are. I can't stand that our own european common sense stuff doesn't get the time of day.
SW
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