Purchasing Decisions Made Simple

I was on my way home last Friday for Family Weekend when my mom called me and asked if I could pick up a couple of items at the store.  I gladly accepted this request and stopped off at Harris Teeter before proceeding home.  One of the items we needed was salad dressing, so I headed to the appropriate aisle, and, without thinking, made a beeline to the section where the Newman’s Salad Dressing bottles were displayed.  I picked up a bottle of Light Red Wine Vinaigrette, plopped it into my basket and started to make my way towards the dairy aisle. 

Yet, before I could leave this aisle behind I began thinking about the speed of my purchase decision and turned around to face the array of salad dressings once more.  It was then that I began to note just how many different salad dressings there were.  The longer I stared at the selection the more overwhelmed and confused I became.  There were way too many choices, but somehow I had completely blocked out all the other options and went to the brand I was familiar with.  At that moment I started to ponder why I had been so quick to pick up a bottle of Newman’s Dressing as opposed to Wishbone or Hidden Valley.  I probably picked that brand just because that is what my parents have always had at home in the fridge and I was purchasing the dressing for them.

However, I then asked myself the question: “If I was purchasing salad dressing for myself, would I have immediately chosen Newman’s?”  And my answer would be “yes”.  In a couple of years when I am living on my own and shopping for my own groceries I imagine that I will be picking out the exact same dressing that my parents bought.  “Why?” you may ask.  Because Newman’s is what my parents always bought and their loyalty to the brand has rubbed off on me. 

  

Subconsciously, I think many consumers go for the brand that they were raised with and that their parents used.  If I need to buy paper towels I go for Bounty, when I think Dishwasher Detergent the first product that comes to mind is Cascade, when it comes to Ketchup I think Hunt’s, Chicken Broth evokes images of the Swanson logo.  What do all these brands have in common?  They are the exact same brands that my mom buys when she goes shopping and they are the brands that have been ingrained in me.  When you think about it, it seems safer to stay with a product that your family has used for long periods of time and in which you have developed a trust.  I know what I am getting when I purchase Newman’s dressing because I was raised in a home where that was the only brand we used on our salads.  Furthermore, I like the fact that I can refer to my family’s purchase choices because it makes the decision making process a lot less painful.  I did not have to stand around and compare bottles of dressing for 20 minutes, trying to figure out what dressing I would like and what brand would be best.  Instead I can bypass what would be a time consuming process by asking myself, “What does mom usually buy?”  Thus I exhibited habitual decision making by thoughtlessly reaching for Newman’s dressing.

If there are many other consumers out there like me who make decisions this way, there is no doubt that marketers will have to exert extra effort in order to capture our attention and convince us to switch brands.  Maybe they should start using our moms as intermediaries.  In my opinion, I can always rely upon and trust my mom’s advice.  After all “Mom knows best”.

Posted by: Katie Guerra

Reaching for an Answer.

            Video games have more and more become engrained into our society over the years.  What started out as a “fad” or something that was only being used by kids or technology nerds, have now found their way into most homes across the country, and are being used by people of all age groups and demographics.  Pretty impressive considering the cost to buy a new video game system is a couple hundred dollars and most games run above the $50 mark; definitely not cheap for the college kids and still a pricey investment even for those with a little extra money to spend.

            Yet, even with this large price hurdle, certain games seem to be very prevalent amongst a lot of my peers.  Just recently, a new Halo game came out called Halo: Reach supporting the full $59.99 price tag.  Just to reiterate, not cheap for a broke college kid like me.  Yet, for some reason I knew that I would buy it, play it for a couple of months then pretty much forget about it.  Essentially the investment is never worth the return, yet I continue to do it anyway.

            After the purchase, I really started to think about why I do this.  With this particular game, it could be because it reaches back to my childhood.  Halo has been around for a while, and I can remember it being one of the first games I was enthralled in with my childhood friends.  Is it these fond memories of playing the past games that make me want to buy them now?  In fact, I have had good memories playing all the games in the past.  But why does this still make me want to buy it now?  I had fun doing numerous things when I was younger that currently have no effect on my purchasing decisions.  Why is this any different?  I still wasn’t quite sure.

            The day it came out though I finally remembered.  Numerous friends were talking about the game, playing it etc.  Then it finally clicked.  For some reason, the release of games like this that have transcended multiple console generations (that feels odd saying) are more of an “event”.  Within the first couple of days there were over 10 of my friends who had already purchased the game.  I wanted to be a part of that.  If everyone else was jumping in on it and having a good time (which I knew that I would) why shouldn’t I?  It was a different form of social outlet.  And I have to say I’m glad with my purchase at the moment.  I’m having fun.    


Post by Adam Hanson.  Senior BEM major at Wake Forest University

Keeping up with the Joneses

The great thing about Redbox is that you can take a risk on a potentially terrible movie, but justify it because you only spent a dollar. The other night I took a risk on a movie called “The Joneses” starring David Duchovny and Demi Moore.  Essentially, here’s the plot: Kate and Steve Jones, with their two teenage children, move their picture-perfect family into an upper-middle class suburban neighborhood. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, they are actually a fake family hired by a marketing company to introduce new luxury-level products to neighborhoods using a program called “stealth marketing.” Working on commission, they charm the neighbors into buying the same gourmet foods, sportswear, and golf clubs as everyone makes the effort to “keep up with the Joneses.” The plot is forgettable, but the concept is thought-provoking.

“Stealth marketing.” We’ve essentially seen a similar phenomenon with bloggers as regulation has cracked down on disclosure. For a while, companies could pay popular bloggers to promote products and the readers would simply treat it like the honest opinion of a satisfied customer. Now, if a blogger is being paid, they have to say so. In the movie, this concept is moved from cyberspace to suburbia, as the neighbors are totally unaware of the Jones’ hidden agenda. From a marketing student’s perspective, the first hour is a fascinating insight into how consumers interact with each other as they make purchasing decisions.

How much does the behavior of our peers affect what we buy? Think about it. I could read 10 reviews of a movie, but if a friend tells me it's terrible, then no amount of thumbs up will get me to pay $7. (Maybe I’ll Redbox it later?) Similarly, when my roommate gets a new Patagonia fleece for the fall, my Mountain Hardwear jacket instantly starts looking worn-out. After some thought, it occurred that most of these situations revolve around two particular emotions: trust and envy.

The marketing world has always known about trust. We know that Word Of Mouth (WOM) is so powerful because it sends a message of product/service quality through a network built on real trust among consumers. Over time, people have built up a skepticism of traditional forms of advertising, but if you can get your customers marketing your product for you, it's a goldmine. In the movie, the marketing agency steps through this advertising barrier, directly promoting certain products with the trust that comes from an “everyday” consumer, and creating a WOM wildfire right in the neighborhood. It’s dishonest, and it works.

The other emotion, envy, is just as powerful, but much harder for a company to intentionally elicit. Remember the cool kid in elementary school? They would get something for their birthday, and within a few weeks, everyone had the same backpack/lunchbox/toy in a different color. As adults, we may throw fewer tantrums in ToysRUs, but our actions haven’t changed that much. We still look to our peers for the things we should be buying. John has an iPhone 4. Now I want one. I wish I could say that I’ve grown out of that, but its true.

So aside from paying actors to move into a neighborhood and promote a product, any thoughts on how a company can appeal to a consumer’s need for trust or tendency to envy?

Will McQuain is a senior BEM major at Wake Forest, concentrating in Marketing and Non-Profit Management.

Pit Watching

Do you ever just sit back and watch people as they make their food choices at the Pit?  If so, you can almost certainly relate what I’m about to tell you; if not, just sit back and enjoy some of my observations about consumer behavior inside the confines of our “wonderful” dining establishment.

I recently met a couple friends at the Pit for lunch at noon on a Wednesday.  We sat in our normal spot (a high table in the middle of the cafeteria, of course), and as we ate, I sat there and tried to make sense of the different decisions that my fellow students were making.  I’ll start with the back area with the homemade meals and the grill since the salad line is a whole different story in itself.

As per usual, the grill line (serving hamburgers and fries today) was the most popular choice among the different options, even though its line never ballooned to more than 10 people.  Interestingly enough, though, the majority of the students actually looked at what was being served in the Southern Kitchen line before making their final decision to either stick it out and stay in the “healthy” line or rush over to the pizza line before all of its product runs out.  Overall, however, the cramped atmosphere and lack of seating seemed to force most of the students to make quick decisions which made my observations much more entertaining.

There was also a significant group of students who would come in and make a beeline for the deli section or the International option and who simply disregarded the back lines altogether.  Apparently, these students were willing to wait just a bit longer to get their custom-made sandwiches or the option of the day from abroad.  And those choosing the deli option seemed to know exactly what they wanted, for they very rarely demonstrated any level of indecision upon reaching the front of the line.  And then there was the salad line.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the customers of the salad line were female, and the majority of those made a simply bag/backpack drop and headed straight to that destination.  And this is where hilarity ensued.  With the pressures of society (especially at Wake Forest) telling everyone to just eat healthily and try to stick to just a salad and maybe a sandwich, a few of the salad customers would try to sneak around and make secret trips over to the pizza line and appease their desire for a tasty, yet rather greasy, treat.  Yea, I saw you pretty girl with the red shirt and blue jeans, you’re not fooling anybody.  Overall, though, the healthiness of the students eating at the Pit was ridiculously outstanding.

And, in the end, with about half the patrons choosing milk and Powerade® over the more unhealthy soda options, the students at Wake demonstrated once again that staying healthy is a key issue on this campus and amongst consumers of the Millennial generation throughout the nation.

Joel Fletcher is a senior BEM major with a concentration in Marketing and is also studying Spanish for Business

Purchasing Hand Soap: Quick & Simple? Yeah right.

Soap: a substance used for washing and cleansing purposes (dictionary.com)

            Like the moms from our panel discussion, I always make a list for my grocery store trips.  Today’s list consisted of only four items, so I anticipated my time at Harris Teeter to take up roughly fifteen minutes of my day.  However, because hand soap for my kitchen was an item to be purchased, my time at the store was double what I had originally thought.  Here is a picture of half the overwhelming variety of soaps available in the grocery aisle, considering my phone couldn’t capture all the soaps:

            This was my view for at least fifteen minutes as I looked at every front label of the pump soaps.  With such an assortment for simple hand soaps, I realized that the consumer must take into account what he/she is looking for in such a product, and then rank these desires in order, for one product may have one aspect and another product may have another aspect.  While reading the bottles, I composed the following list of the various factors consumers look for in their everyday act of washing their hands: anti-bacterial/germ killing ability, scent, texture, background, and appearance.  Considering the prices were similar, I do not think price would be the determining factor for consumer purchase. 

            Four brands of soap occupied most of the shelves: Softsoap, Method, Mrs. Meyer’s, and Dial.  First were the Softsoap products.  This brand had many appealing scents, such as “Rich Moisturizing Shea Butter” and “Energizing Pomegranate and Mango”.  These bottles had visible beads in the bottle to demonstrate the texture that accompanies the scent.  However, these products did not mention anything in regards to killing germs.  These products were instead focused on the senses. Softsoap also offered its original product, in a plain bottle with no special scent, and this product was antibacterial.  The second brand I analyzed was Method.  Method had basic-shaped bottles, therefore lacking in appearance.  With less focus on scent, appearance, or texture, I assumed this brand would mention its anti-bacterial power.  However, just gazing at the front of the bottle, there was no mention of killing germs.  Therefore, this brand truly offers little appeal to the consumer.  The third brand of soap was Mrs. Meyer’s.  The look of the bottles indicated to me that the brand was environmentally friendly, so I decided to actually read the back label of one of the bottles.  This brand’s soap products are cruelty free – never tested on animals.  These products are also biodegradable, so sure enough they are better for the environment.  These products cater to the consumers who feel the soap’s background is important – how it got there and where it will go.  If consumers are green and/or fight for animal rights, this brand would be their brand of choice.  Besides its helping the environment and animals, the brand had three different scents to offer: “Geranium Scent”, “Lemon Verbena Scent”, and “Lavender Scent”.  However, this brand, like Method, had no mention of its ability to clean away germs, which would deter some consumers from this brand.  The fourth and final brand I analyzed was Dial.  Dial undoubtedly took up the majority of the shelf space, offering three different types of products.  The first type of product was the original style soap – simple bottle with flavors such as “White Tea & Vitamin E” and “Winter Apple”.  With the exception of the “Original Gold” soap, none of these bottles mentioned anything about germ killing.  The next type of Dial product was the Dial Yogurt foaming soap.  Though offering the rich and moisturizing “Vanilla Honey” and “Aloe Vera”, again this product offered no true cleaning power, only the scent and the texture.  The final product of the Dial offerings was the Dial Complete.  From the front label it mentioned “foaming antibacterial”, “kills ninety-nine percent of germs”, and “gentle on skin”.  These Dial Complete products also came in a plethora of scents: “Cranberry”, “Original”, “Clean Citrus”, and “Frosted Pear”.  From just the front of the bottle, this product offers the consumer anti-bacterial power, scent, texture, and a simple appearance. 

            After thorough analysis of these four soap brands residing on the Harris Teeter shelves, I was able to rank my list of criteria as I was now aware of what was offered. 

1)    Power to kill germs (after all, the definition of soap mentions its ability to clean)

2)    Scent (I want my hands to smell good after I sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to indicate the appropriate hand washing length)

3)    Texture (who wouldn’t prefer nicely moisturized hands over icky dry ones?)

4)    Appearance (it is a bottle of soap after all, not a piece of art)

5)    Background (I am all for helping the environment and helpless animals, but instead I’ll buy green paper towels and avoid fur coats)

Considering this the Dial Complete products fulfilled my top four criteria for soap, I purchased the Dial Complete “Frosted Pear”.  Why the pear, you ask? It had the best ring to it, and my brain was tired of thinking about darn hand soap.  

~Emily Langsenkamp is a Business & Enterprise Management major with a concentration in Marketing.

Social Networking: The New Happy Drug?

You know that feeling you get when you indulge in a craving, do a good deed, or when you’re in a completely relaxed state of mind?  Well, now there is an easily accessible, inexpensive way to experience those same feelings: social networking.

The ideas, actions, and technology associated with the social media phenomenon are not enough to embody a ‘trend.’ A trend cannot be a trend without significant, meaningful consumer engagement. A strong, loyal following can only occur with the presence of passion or some type of motivation driving that engagement. So then where does this ‘passion’ and emotional excitement come from that makes social media a trend?

This past summer, Fast Company magazine published an article that revealed Neuroeconomist Paul Zak’s research findings on the correlation between social media engagement and the brain’s oxytocin levels. Dr. Zak, also known as “Dr. Love,” discovered that social media engagement floods our brains with oxytocin—the “hug hormone”—that makes us feel empathy, happiness, generosity, and relaxation. Fast-moving streams like Twitter have the most significant impact on the level of oxytocin, harboring the power to make people feel good.

During Dr. Zak’s study, he found that within 10 minutes of “tweeting” and interacting with other Twitter users, the test subject’s oxytocin levels spiked 13.2%. This is comparable to the hormonal level spike experienced by a groom at his wedding. Meanwhile, Dr. Zak found that stress hormones coristol and ACTH went down 10.7% and 14.9%.

So why is it that social networking in particular triggers the release of the generosity-trust chemical in our brains? It’s simple. It comes down to the basic functionality of social networking platforms and their capabilities to satisfy and evolve human needs. We’re social animals by nature, but it is now more than ever that we embody a ‘social’ culture that is driven by the desire to interact.  The ability to engage in social networking allows users to share, interact, learn, ask questions, and build relationships. If this doesn’t sound like euphoria to you, then I don’t know what is.

With hug hormones permeating through the virtual social world, the possibilities for organizations to engage with their customers are endless, and vice versa. But just wait… this discovery can be just as frightening as it is exciting. Social networking has allowed for the transition of power from the organization to the consumer. However, this discovery could mean businesses regaining some power over their customers due to the generosity and vulnerability caused by the feelings associated with oxytocin spikes. Dr. Zak found that those infused with oxytocin donated an average of 48% more to charity than those administered the placebo. Right now it's charities, but it's not long before we're giving to corporations, political campaigns, countries, and so forth. Once again, the possibilities are thrilling but quite discomforting.

So what does this all mean for the future of social networking and how we engage, act, and exist in the virtual realm of social interactions? I guess we will have to wait and see…


-Linleigh Hawk is a senior Business & Enterprise Management major with concentrations in Marketing and International Business, and a minor in Global Trade and Commerce. 

Sour Patch Stings More Than The Tongue

My inspiration for this post came during what seemed like an eternal van ride back from the University of Virginia this weekend after a tournament. When we pulled up at a gas station I didn’t even think twice about going into the convenience store, if not for anything else but to stretch my legs. Perusing the store I walked past the fridges full of ice cold Gatorade and couldn’t resist the temptation of a ‘Glazier Freeze’. So I approached the counter, cash in hand, only to be greeted by the familiar, devilishly tempting, luminous yellow packaging of Sour Patch Kids.

It was at this point that my saliva glands seemed to do summersaults in my throat as they anticipated the sugar rush they thought was headed their way. As much as I tried to resist the urge, I folded, and reached for the package to add to my purchase, knowing I was becoming just another statistic and sucker for Point of Purchase advertising.

I tend to think of myself as fairly impenetrable when it comes to marketing campaigns and commercials, as I’m sure many of us do, however it’s times like these, in a gas station in Virginia, that I recognize how wrong I am in that belief. Marketing doesn’t end at the hilarious Old Spice commercials, or Verizon billboards littered alongside highways, instead it encompasses our entire lives, even as I’m writing this I’m receiving emails from 1-800 FLOWERS offering me new deals on a dozen tulips I don’t want! But the point is, POP marketing is just another strategy companies utilize to generate sales, and it works.

A study conducted in 2001 that used sophisticated eye tracking technology in relation to POP marketing efforts in order to examine what exactly consumers look at and then how likely they are to buy that product demonstrates the power of POP product placement. They note that simply “looking at a brand increases its consideration probability anywhere from 30 – 120%.” Coupling this with the fact that “between half and two thirds of purchase decisions are made at the POP” truly goes to show the impact of this style of marketing and companies are latching onto this.

If you’d asked me in times gone by, before I consciously began to take note of my purchasing decisions, why I chose to buy this pack of teeth rotting candy I probably would have given some reason such as “I wanted a reward after a long weekend of tennis.” Now however, I know the real reason behind this purchase, genius marketing! Brands such as Sour Patch know most people can’t control the urge to grab a bag of candy when it’s pushed in front of their face and they have their money at hand. Without this kind of temptation, the likelihood of someone actively seeking Sour Patch on a cluttered shelf is considerably lower.

Overall, I find looking back on this purchase rather amusing. I distinctly remember making my reach for the candy look to all witnesses as much of a snap decision as possible, most probably because my subconscious didn’t want people around me to think I was a heavy candy eater. So the question I pose is, was this really a spur of the moment decision, or, like some higher power, did Sour Patch have this purchase in mind for me all along?

Finally, on a slightly less candy related note, let me explain my preemptive post, seeing as my birthday isn’t until Saturday! I think it’s safe to say that I plan on consuming more than 5 drinks that day, with it being a home football game day and all, so whether that makes me a binge drinker or not ill leave up to you to decide!

POP Eye Tracking Study

Iain Atkinson is a Senior BEM Major with a concentration in Marketing