Free Chicken Fingers

Recently my roommate and I went to a local Hardee’s for lunch, intending to splurge on the unhealthiest meal possible.  This was only my second time visiting this particular Hardee’s and third time visiting Hardee’s period, so I had only begun to form an opinion about this restaurant.  To that point I had been impressed with the quality of the food as well as the friendly service, but I was not ready to name it one of my favorite fast food restaurants.  For fast food restaurants in particular, I believe it is critical to be in the consumers’ evoked set and more importantly one of the top three options that come to mind.  I believe for this to occur the restaurant must provide a consistent experience each time one visits any of its locations.  The food and service is never going to blow you away but it is critical that neither of these alienates you from returning to the restaurant.

On this occasion my friend and I ordered our food, got our drinks and went to the table so they could bring our food when it was ready.  A couple minutes passed and they brought my friends order out, promising me that my food would be out shortly.  As the minutes grew I waited and waited yet nobody came over with food.  Being a relatively new customer to Hardee’s, I grew increasingly disappointed and frustrated and soon was ready to give up on the fast food chain entirely.  However, before I was able to ask for my money back and storm out in dramatic fashion, the cashier saved the day by not only bringing my order, but also bringing out three free chicken tenders.  He apologized saying he thought someone had already been brought out.  I figured this was a lie and he just forgot, but either way I was satisfied with the free food.  While I was still annoyed at the delayed service I was pleased that they valued me enough as a customer to make the effort to make up for their error.

As pleased as I was that they put forth this effort, I did not realize until later exactly what a smart move this was from a marketing and customer service standpoint.  Obviously bringing me the free food adequately made up for having to wait so long in the first place, easing my irritation with the restaurant and fast food chain.  I did not realize until later that these were the “new hand-breaded chicken fingers” that I had seen advertised so heavily recently.  They took an opportunity to calm an irritated customer and market a new product.  I enjoyed the fingers and feel confident I will order them in the future.  Opportunities like this one should be capitalized more often by companies.  Receiving something for free, no matter how small, can often make a poor experience a positive one and if you have a chance to market a small or underselling product/service you can more than make up for the cost giving away the free product/service.  Not only did I leave that day satisfied, I tried and enjoyed their latest product and will likely order it in the future.  More companies should follow Hardee’s example and capitalize on such a strong marketing opportunity.

Cami Secret or not so Cami Secret.... that is the Question

The other day Joel and I were watching the Major League Baseball playoffs.  There were 3 games on television over the course of the evening, night, and early morning, so we were on the same channel all day.  After the final game, we stopped paying attention to what was on and continued doing work in our living room.  It had gotten to the hours of infomercials and one in particular caught our attention.

Having watched the first few seconds, I realized that I was not the target audience.  I could relate to none of the problems or scenarios, but for some reason I was drawn to the commercial.  I don’t know if it was because of the ingenuity of the product or the fact it made me laugh, but it kept my interest.  The product I am speaking of is the Cami Secret.

The basic gist of the product, for those of us who are guys, is this: Women in the workplace need to be cognizant of how revealing their tops are.  As a result there is often a struggle between “going-out” clothes and “wear to work” clothes.  It is expensive to buy different outfits and it can be uncomfortable to wear camisoles (female undershirts).  This product is the solution to all of these problems.  It is like a small bib that clips to a woman’s bra straps and appears to others to just be a camisole.  It can be adjusted to different heights to show off different amounts of skin, depending on circumstance and situation.

One of the major reasons I found this infomercial interesting is because I have always been curious about the effectiveness of infomercials.  Many normal or mainstream products I envision sell strongly, such as OxiClean or even the Snuggie, as you can find these products in many stores.  However the Slap Chop or Shamwow!, I have my doubts about.

This was the situation I came across when I saw the infomercial for Cami Secret.  Not being part of the target market made it even more difficult for me to decide whether this was a viable product or not.  Is this something someone would use?  What age group is it targeting?  Are there actually women watching this channel at this hour after the baseball game?  Suffice it to say, I still question this product and its functionality.

For any female reading this, please give me some feedback regarding the product.  Also, please don’t view me in a negative light as this ad might be a bit risqué for a class discussion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex6H6G34-DU

On another note, when searching for the infomercial on Youtube, I came across a very funny parody.  Keep in mind that the parody is misogynistic in nature, but if you can stomach it, you might get a laugh.

Jordan Jacobson is a senior at Wake Forest University.  He is graduating this Spring with a BS in Business and Enterprise Management with minors in both Psychology and Journalism.  He is particularly interested in consumer behavior and decision making.

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.