Tag: marketing
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Psychological Pricing and Other Shopping Persuasion Techniques
The endowment effect, sex in advertising and pricing anchors: all bits of ‘shopping psychology’ we’ve heard before. Ryan Sager looks at these shopping persuasion techniques we should be aware of, adding a few small pieces of information that may be novel: Endowment effect: We place a higher value on items we own, and just by…
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The Statistics of A/B Testing
Whether or not you believe this to be (as Joel Spolsky does) the “best post […] about A/B testing, ever”, it definitely is one of the easiest to understand and one of the few posts on split testing that is statistically sound (i.e. useful). Is [a given A/B test] conclusive? Has [variant] A won? Or…
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Apple, Disney and Pixar: It’s the Products
Written in early 2006 shortly after Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in a $7.4 billion all-stock deal, BusinessWeek looks at the relationship between the Disney and Apple CEOs and where their relationship may lead. Prescient in that it accurately predicted the Apple TV and the iPhone, the article also briefly looks at Jobs and his product-first…
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Apple’s Strategy of Rejecting ‘Social Media’
Apple’s ‘rejection’ of the practices pundits “always say you should do to succeed in the Internet economy” isn’t unique, but it does make for interesting reading: Apple doesn’t blog; it doesn’t Tweet; it does little on Facebook; it doesn’t engage with its customer base. It doesn’t ask the “community” for feedback or rapidly iterate based…
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(Preventing) Manipulation Through Irrationality
Through the theories discussed in Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational (and largely based on the excerpts in Chris Yeh’s outline of the book), two articles have emerged on different sides of one topic: our irrational decision-making in terms of products and purchases. One on how to take advantage of our irrationality when marketing products, and another…
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Influencing Behaviour Online
Ignoring, for a moment, the rather unsound and outmoded neuroscience propounded in the introduction, these tips for extending influence online and persuading your visitors are worth a few minutes: Show ratings and reviews by other users (for action through social validation). Provide instant gratification and a quick fix. Put the most important action to be…
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Scarcity Marketing
Neuromarketing has recently been looking at The Scarcity Effect: WORCHEL, LEE, AND ADEWOLE (1975) asked people to rate chocolate chip cookies. They put 10 cookies in one jar and two of the same cookies in another jar. The cookies from the two-cookie jar received higher ratings—even though the cookies were exactly the same! Not only…
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Kodak and Brand Naming
While reading about the history of the Eastman Kodak Company (more commonly known just as Kodak) I came across this titbit about the Kodak name which seemed like sound advice for naming a product or brand: The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, “it seems a strong, incisive…
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Information Gaps and Knowledge Rewards
Starting with two great examples of marketing through curiosity (the Hot Wheels mystery car and California Pizza Kitchen’s Don’t Open It thank you card), Stephen Anderson looks at how you can use ‘information gaps’ to drive curiosity and then interaction with your customers. Information can be presented in a manner that is straightforward or curious.…
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On-Hold Music and Time Perception
With the correct choice of music and by giving the perception of progress customers on-hold in a telephone queue underestimate the time they have been kept waiting and will stay on the line longer before hanging up. Newsweek summarises a number of research studies that have looked at the psychology behind telephone queues and on-hold…