Archive for February 28, 2012

Shopping: Be Smart, Resist the Urge

February 28, 2012 / lauren.hardgrove / No comments

 By: Lauren Hardgrove, Shareen Hill, Wendy Lin, Jeanne Ngo

The article “7 Shopping Secrets Retailers Won’t Tell You“ by Naomi Mannino heavily references the work of Paco Underhill, author of “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping,” who has tracked hundreds of thousands of shoppers to study how they shop.  In summary, the article mentions seven key points:

1. The ‘Magic’ of the Display – Displays are often used to hint at the “source” of products, when, oftentimes, displays are not even correlated with the products true source.

2. When BOGO and 2-Fer Deals Are Good – Oftentimes, stores use “Buy one get one free” offers to get you to purchase a product. The truth is, stores only used these offers in order to try to increase their overall sales dollars, so you are spending much more often than you have originally planned.

3. Don’t Turn Right When Entering the Store – Most people are right-handed and right oriented, so most people turn right when they enter a store. This means that the most attractive displays and most expensive items are conveniently placed on your right.

4. Why Clearance Items are in the Back– All the expensive items happen to be on route on your way to the back.

5. Why the Clearance Area is Messy – People like neat. People like categories. People like labels. When these are not found in the clearance section, people find relief in finding it in the non-clearance section.

6. Beware the Small Stuff Around the Register – This one’s self-exploratory.

7. Be Selective when Shopping with Friends – Danger comes in numbers.

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The Abilene Paradox

February 24, 2012 / MHBAdmin / No comments

By: Kelly Pugh, Tumini May Sekibo, Jenny Shi

It is a 104 degree summer day in Coleman, TX. Jerry B. Harvey and his wife are visiting his parents-in-law. Dusty, humid, and musty as the weather is, the only comfort is the fan whirring in the veranda and the mindless game of dominos the men are engaged in.

Then his father-in-law comes up with the bright idea that a 106-mile trip to Abilene will be a fun activity (in the miserable heat and an unair-conditioned van, no less). The last thing Harvey wants is to have to move more muscles than dominos requires. But off to Abilene they go! Because mum and wife said they were interested, Harvey decides not to rock the boat, so he feigns concurrence.

The ride is a hellish adventure in every sense of the word. The weather is unbearable and the journey twice as uncomfortable. Abilene itself is nothing to write home about either. According to Harvey, “The food at the cafeteria provided first-rate testimonial material for antacid commercials.” Just not worth the time, energy, and misery.

Finally making it back home, they all sink down in their misery. Suddenly the truth comes out: nobody enjoyed that trip because nobody ever wanted to go in the first place. Mum said yes because everybody else seemed enthusiastic, and wife went along with the crowd, just like Harvey, because it appeared everybody else was on board! In defiance of all logic, four intelligent people had gone on the most miserable trip of their lives, when all of them would have rather just stayed home. Hence, the Abilene Paradox.

Pepsi, X-Factor, and a $61 Million Partnership

February 22, 2012 / MHBAdmin / No comments

By: Robert Davies, Briana Fountain, Jennifer Miller, Jasmine Watts

Who won the last season of the X-Factor? Any ideas? Can you name any of their latest work? Better yet, do you remember seeing that person in a commercial during the Superbowl? Probably not. Considering the lack of notoriety of X-Factor contestants, it was rather surprising that Pepsi decided to use X-Factor winner Melanie Amaro in their Superbowl advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcf01QTcO6E

Several months ago, when this plan was announced, representatives from Pepsi said that they were “making an effort to move beyond the traditional sponsorship and think about how the Pepsi brand can add to the viewer experience.” Pepsi’s traditional sponsorship included such big names as Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Mariah Carey, Kayne West and Britney Spears. They even used Elton John and Flavor Flav in this new Superbowl ad, alongside Amaro.

Using well known people as the “face” of your brand has a host of advantages. Not only does it increase product awareness, but consumers are more likely to purchase goods that have been endorsed by celebrities compared to products endorsed by “unknown people.”  Although seemingly simplistic, many people will buy a product purely because their favorite celebrity endorses it.

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The Founding Father and the Fabled Fox

February 21, 2012 / MHBAdmin / No comments

By: Randall Warlick

“In common life, to retract an error… is no easy task; perseverance confirms us in it, and rivets the difficulty.  But in a public station, to have been in an error and to have persisted in it when it is detected, ruins both reputation and fortune.  To this we may add, that disappointment and opposition inflame the minds of men and attach them still more to their mistakes.”

-Alexander Hamilton (*1)

In 1774, a British Loyalist living in New York named Samuel Seabury wrote a series of essays in which he criticized the members of the recently-formed Continental Congress.  Alexander Hamilton, then a student at New York’s King College and a member of the school’s Sons of Liberty organization, was outraged by Seabury’s “Westchester Farmer” essays.  He subsequently wrote a pamphlet titled “A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress,” in which he outlined colonial grievances against the crown, chastised ineffective British leadership, and defended the actions of Congress.  Within the 35-page pamphlet, he often commented directly upon the actions of the British Prime Minister, Lord North.  In one particularly inspired quote, reproduced above, Hamilton succeeds in describing a phenomenon that goes beyond the specific actions of Lord North and speaks to a psychological concept that would not be academically formulated for another 185 years: cognitive dissonance.

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A Black Tie Affair

February 20, 2012 / MHBAdmin / No comments

By: Kara Johnson, Lisa Taylor, Melissa Yu

Historically, boxed wine has been marketed to people who care more about price than about taste and quality.  Due to the fact that it is cheap and comes in large quantities, college students have traditionally been key consumers of boxed wines.  Kim Moore, the Director of Marketing for Black Box, said, “There’s definitely a stigma of box wine because people think of the value box wine that they drank too much of back in their college days.” This stigmatization of boxed wines as being poorer quality than bottled wines is explained in Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Cialdini proposes that humans utilize the “expensive = good stereotype.”  In his book, he gives the example of a jewelry store in Arizona that sold Indian jewelry.  The owner of the store was having trouble selling certain items and had tried everything from changing the display to discounting the price.  However, when the head salesperson accidentally marked the jewelry up to twice its original price, rather than reducing it to half price, the jewelry sold immediately.  Since most of the jewelry store’s customers were vacationers who didn’t have a vast knowledge about Indian jewelry, they assumed that the more expensive the jewelry was, the better quality it must be.

Alternatively, in the case of boxed wine, people often use the stereotype of cheap equals poor quality.  It is this stigmatization of boxed wines that Black Box is trying to overcome in their marketing efforts.

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