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Psychology is a science like any other. Although we talk about retail’s amazing ability to avoid science and sound decision making, we’ve never talked about the use of psychology, even though retailers might be accused of borrowing from the annals of psychology whether they realize it or not.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with advertising. Most retailers have no objective idea if their promotions worked. That’s because leadership doesn’t want to have conversations about machine learning and how it might make them more successful. For the full explanation you can read more here<\/a>. That said, retailers should think about the kinds of content the precedes<\/em> theirs. In other words, emotional states have a huge impact on the effects of marketing.<\/p>\n Robert Cialdini<\/a> and his former graduate students demonstrated that advertisements using simple and classic persuasion<\/a> principles \u2013 such as popularity and scarcity \u2013 can fail miserably, or succeed wonderfully, depending on the information that immediately precedes the advertisement. In that research, people in one condition read a product review about a restaurant described as \u201cthe most popular restaurant\u201d at which \u201cmany people gathered.\u201d They were told that \u201cif you want to know why everyone gathers here for a great dining experience, come join them at the Bergamot Caf\u00e9.\u201d In another condition, the Bergamot Caf\u00e9 was instead described as a destination for a chosen few: \u201ca unique place off the beaten path\u201d that was a \u201cone-of-a-kind place… yet to be discovered by others.\u201d Those subjects read that: \u201cif you\u2019re looking for a great dining experience different from any other, look no further than the Bergamot Caf\u00e9.\u201d When asked whether they\u2019d actually enjoy going to the Bergamot Caf\u00e9, people\u2019s responses depended on what had been going on just before they read the restaurant review<\/span>. Some of them had just watched scenes from a scary movie (The Shining<\/em>); others had just watched a romantic movie (Before Sunrise<\/em>).<\/p>\n Compared to people who were experiencing no emotion, people who had just seen the scary movie were positively influenced by the appeal to popularity, but they were actually turned off by the appeal to uniqueness. People who were feeling romantic, on the other hand, had just the opposite reaction \u2013 they were turned off by popularity, and attracted to the out-of-the way place far from the bustling crowds.<\/p>\n So a note to your marketing team: when they think about advertising they should pay attention not only to how much viewership a program has, but to what its content is. <\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s a psychological tip for positioning. A study from Beijing, China demonstrates that people want to follow the lead of similar others, \u201cWhat have other people like me done in this situation?\u201d So what the owners of a string of restaurants in Beijing did was put a star next to certain items on their menu that signified, \u201cThis is one of our most popular dishes.\u201d And each one immediately became 13% to 20% more popular just by pointing to something that was true. <\/strong>Now that you see this it probably makes sense that Amazon shows you other popular items, no?<\/p>\n There’s also something to ponder on the deep psychological response to numbers. For instance, if you have a number in the name of your restaurant, a name like \u201cStudio 97\u201d instead of \u201cStudio 17\u201d would lead people to tip higher<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Are you finding yourself wanting feedback on your service? You might want to consider changing the way you ask. A group of survey takers were asked to evaluate the idea of a fast casual restaurant. Some were asked for feedback others for advice. Those asked for advice reported a higher likelihood of wanting to eat at the restaurant.<\/strong> People are more likely to patron an establishment if they feel they were a part of it.<\/p>\n Ever heard of the idea of reciprocity? It’s apparently a societal norm, which makes researchers wonder if it’s been an engrained human characteristic going back ages. I’ll attest I’ve watched countless retail executives totally ignore this tenet and treat others poorly after getting what they wanted. But for those still paying attention, a study showed restaurants giving a gift of free food saw spend increase 24%. It seems counterintuitive that providing people free food would make them full and thus likely to spend less, but that’s not what the research showed. Showing a little love can go a long way<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Something to keep in mind as you navigate down the path of running a business in brick and mortar.<\/p>\n