How do you sell expensive diamond engagement rings to men?
They’re not the target customer and they have no idea how much the ring should cost.
Here’s an ad by De Beers that came out shortly after WWII. Giving expensive diamond engagement rings was not really the norm back then.
Men who didn’t know how much to spend on a ring now had a range in mind. It didn’t matter if they earned $200 a month or $20000. It also set expectations for women on how much their engagement ring should cost, at the very least.
De Beers tried this with different numbers in different countries. In Japan, they used 3 months and that worked as well.
This is a prime example of behaviour science at work in marketing.
Let’s play a game
Speak out the colour in which each word is written:
Why was it slightly trickier to name the right colours for the alternate lines?
This is a famous experiment called the Stroop effect and is widely used to measure a person’s selective attention capacity and skills, as well as their processing speed ability.
Your brain is a complex part of your body and is responsible for a lot of things. It tries to automate as many things as possible to reduce the cognitive load of processing something new each time.
Effectively your brain has 2 systems:
- System 1 is sub-conscious, intuitive, fast, instinctive and plays a major role in everyday decisions.
- System 2 is conscious, reflective, reliable and the one that makes complex decisions. It is, however, also lazy and relies more on System 1 to take care of day to day processes unless required otherwise.
What does this mean for marketing?
A lot of our day to day decisions are not based on us thinking rationally.
And yet, most public policies, marketing, advertising and product development processes are built on the premise that consumers are rational.
Cognisance of this can help product managers and designers build products that are intuitive and marketers in crafting effective messaging.
A quick tip: Convenience stores place more expensive items on shelves that are at eye level and try to bury others deep down, just so you can buy pricier items more. Now that you know this, you’ll probably save some bucks on each visit. You’re welcome!
#product-design #product-management #marketing #product #data science