Framing

How much does the way a product is presented affect consumers' perceptions of that product?


One study sought to answer that question. The researchers told the participants that they are tasting ground beef. Half the participants were told they are tasting 25% fat ground beef, while the other half was told they are tasting 75% lean ground beef. Also, half of these were told before they tasted the meat and half were told after they had tasted the meat. (Note that this is the same meat, just represented in two different ways.)


The participants were then asked to rate the meat on several factors (taste, greasiness, quality, and lean vs. fat). 


The researchers found that it didn't matter whether the participants received the label before or after tasting the meat. What did make a difference was whether the meat was framed in a positive light (75% lean) or a negative light (25% fat). Those that were told the meat was 75% lean were more likely to rate the meat favorably, while the ones who were given the negative framing of the meat tended to rate the meat less favorably. 

Levin, I. P., & Gaeth, G. J.  (1988).  Framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product.  Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 374-378.

LiveStrong Bands and Geeks

One of the levels in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is social. People need to feel like they belong to a group with other people who have similar values and beliefs as them. Along with that, people feel the need to distance themselves from those who they do not want to be like (divergence).

One study sought to examine the ways people diverge themselves from undesired groups. Researchers went to a college campus and sold yellow LiveStrong bands to one dorm (target dorm) and a week later sold them to the dorm next to it, which was where more academic students lived (geeks). The students in the target group did not dislike the students next door, but they did not want to be associated with them. As a control group, the researchers also sold the same number of bands to people off campus, to ensure that people wouldn't stop wearing them simply because of boredom with the fad.

The researchers followed up 6 and 13 days later. The sought to find out who was still wearing their wristband. They found that "in the week after the wristbands were adopted by the geeks, there was a 32% drop in the number of Target Dorm members who reported wearing the wristband." (Berger and Heath, 598) The control group only had a 6% drop in wearing them. According to the researchers the results "illustrate that people may abandon cultural tastes that are adopted by other social groups." (Berger and Heath, 598)


The implications for advertising?

Advertisers should be aware of who they associate their products with and how other people perceive these groups. They should also develop strategies that will enable these groups to be more receptive to being associated with each other.


Berger, Jonah, and Chip Heath. "Who Drives Divergence? Identity Signaling, Outgroup Dissimilarity, and the Abandonment of Cultural Tastes." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 95.3 (2008): 593-607. Print.

The McGurk Effect

An interesting research study found a connection between what someone sees and what they hear.

First, watch this video.



Now, watch it again with your eyes closed. Did you hear something different? Harry McGurk discovered this and reported it in a 1976 paper.

The video is of a man saying “bah” with a voice dubbed over it that says “dah.” Our eyes and our ears work together and our brain hears “dah” until we only use our ears when we hear “bah.”

“When confronted with conflicting pieces of information, the brain decides which sense to trust.” (Angier)

This effect contradicts what was previously thought by classical scholars, that the sensory elements in the brain work independently of each other. New research has found that these elements actually interact with each other, affecting each other in small ways.

What does this mean to advertising?

It could have implications in using sound and text at the same time. If the two are not synchronized, this could cause the viewer to become confused, which will then turn them away from the ad.


Angier, Natalie. "When an Ear Witness Decides the Case." New York Times 22 June 2009. Web. 9 Oct 2010.

Chung, Karen. "Hearing with your eyes: The McGurk Effect." Intermediate Phonetics Page by Page. National Taiwan University. Web. 9 Oct 2010.

Asking the wrong questions

An example that not only shows the value of research but the importance of conducting the research correctly and asking the "right questions" is the failure of New Coke.

Coca-Cola was concerned with the fact that Pepsi was advertising the fact that consumers preferred them to Coke in taste tests. They decided to develop a new formula, eventually called New Coke.

They conducted research that included focus groups as well as taste tests. While comparing the original Coke formula to Pepsi, consumers preferred Pepsi. However, those participants were only sipping the drinks, which is not the whole experience of drinking a soft drink. Those that did drink the whole cans disliked Pepsi, saying it was too sweet.

Consumers reacted favorably to the new formula, which excited executives at Coke. However, they were not told that Coke planned to replace the old Coke with this newer version. When the product launched, people were outraged that they could no longer buy the Coke they were used to.

This lasted three months before Coca-Cola scrapped the idea and relaunched Coca-Cola Classic.



Source:
Henning, J. (2009, February 3). Coke, New Coke & the Angry Focus Group. Retrieved from http://blog.vovici.com/blog/bid/18094/Coke-New-Coke-the-Angry-Focus-Group. (2010, September 27).

Got Milk?

One of the first cases that comes to mind whenever I think of creative consumer research is the development of the got milk? campaign. As detailed in the last chapter of Jon Steel's Truth Lies and Advertising, the California Fluid Milk Processors' Advisory Board (CFMPAB) was concerned with the decline of milk consumption in California. They approached the team at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners in hopes of developing a campaign that would "reinvent" milk.

With a large budget and a client up for pretty much anything, the agency embarked on a mission to research anything about milk they could find. They looked at survey results commissioned by the CFMPAB and found that "70 percent of Californians claimed to use milk 'frequently,' while 30 percent did not." Also, by looking at the previous milk advertisements in California, they realized that those ads were targeting the 30 percent of people who didn't drink milk at all. People who don't drink milk most likely are not going to start drinking milk just because they saw an ad for it on TV. What the agency decided to do was target consumers who currently drink milk in an effort to get them to consume more milk.

So, they had to figure out how consumers use milk. Jeff Manning drew on an idea he had working on a campaign for another client. "You hardly ever use milk on its own." Whether its brownies, cookies, or cereal, milk is usually accompanied by something. A study they conducted found that "88 percent of milk is consumed in the home."In focus groups, consumers indicated that the food that went with milk was more important to them than the milk, although the milk was essential.

Now, the team started to hone into the idea of what happens when one runs out of milk. They asked people to go a week without drinking milk and to come back and share their experiences. The results were astonishing. People were distraught without their lattes and having to eat cookies without a glass of milk. The agency realized they had something and decided the strategy for the campaign would be to highlight what happens when someone runs out of milk.

A few of the ads are below.

Chocolate-chip scented!