At Heavenly ski resort and Kirkwood ski resort, a full set of colorful condiments stood quietly near the dining area. They include ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, ranch, barbecue sauce, and even Bull’s Eye sauce. All were arranged in a neat row of colorful pumps, like Lego.
I noticed that every container, no matter the flavor, was marked with the same brand, Heinz. I always thought Heinz was only about ketchup, its hero product. But here, it offered more than that.
Usually, consumers determine the success of brand extension. But in this case, the producer takes the lead. By offering a well-designed and complete set, Heinz makes it easy for lodge managers to decide. Once the managers accept the set, skiers follow. They cannot select a different kind of mustard like Dijon, or switch to another brand. Brand extension may not be shaped only by end users like us, but rather co-created by those in the middle who make the decisions behind the scenes.
The same rule applies to the student cafe in Stanford. There is a set of container of mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard with Heinz and then there are a few Tabasco pumps.
Two studies were conducted to obtain insights on how consumers form attitudes toward brand extensions, (i.e., use of an established brand name to enter a new product category). In one study, reactions to 20 brand extension concepts involving six well-known brand names were examined. Attitude toward the extension was higher when (1) there was both a perception of “fit” between the two product classes along one of three dimensions and a perception of high quality for the original brand or (2) the extension was not regarded as too easy to make. A second study examined the effectiveness of different positioning strategies for extensions. The experimental findings show that potentially negative associations can be neutralized more effectively by elaborating on the attributes of the brand extension than by reminding consumers of the positive associations with the original brand.
One woman became known for drawing colorful lines. She gave her time and money to paint a big wall in San Francisco.
This 90-minute documentary made me stop and question. Why do these artists offer their talent so freely, expecting nothing in return? Am I overlooking something more meaningful that I should be pursuing?
I often move between two minds, and lately this swing feels even more intense. When I attend AI seminars, efficiency becomes my top priority. When I speak with museum curators, I feel drawn to beauty or simply to helping others. Art and AI seem to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Nostalgia has a strong presence in the marketing of goods and services. The current research asked whether its effectiveness is driven by its weakening of the desire for money. Six experiments demonstrated that feeling nostalgic decreased people’s desire for money. Using multiple operationalizations of desire for money, nostalgia (vs. neutral) condition participants were willing to pay more for products (experiment 1), parted with more money but not more time (experiment 2), valued money less (experiments 3 and 4), were willing to put less effort into obtaining money (experiment 5), and drew smaller coins (experiment 6). Process evidence indicated that nostalgia’s weakening of the desire for money was due to its capacity to foster social connectedness (experiments 5 and 6). Implications for price sen- sitivity, willingness to pay, consumer spending, and donation behavior are dis- cussed. Nostalgia may be so commonly used in marketing because it encourages consumers to part with their money.
I had the honor of judging four runner-up teams in Track 2 at the Sunstone Innovation Challenge at CSU Long Beach. Together with three other judges, we reviewed business plans and live pitches.
The four teams presented ideas and shared insights on product-market fit (PMF), market size (TAM, SAM, SOM), and go-to-market strategies across channels. They also laid out pre-launch timelines and key metrics to measure success.
Our judging rubric covered from market opportunity and business model to market validation and team structure. Each judge brought a unique perspective, focusing on aspects such as the scalability and/or financial strength of the business model.
I observed that understanding materials and experience with prototyping were critical when teams developed product concepts, and a deep understanding of customer needs was essential when generating service concepts.
Ultimately, the team, “Rise and UnWind,” was finalized with its clever idea of a coffee shop by day and speakeasy by night, supported by the team’s experience in the F&B industry.
On a sunny Saturday, I watched a classic movie titled To Be or Not to Be at the Stanford Theatre, a historic theater in Palo Alto. This movie experience felt like quiet therapy. I want to keep returning to this theatre for several reasons.
First, the analog ticketing gave me human connection. I received a red paper ticket at the tall glass booth, and another person inside cut it in half and handed it back. This mechanical process made me feel warmly connected.
Second, it was affordable in an expensive area. The ticket was $7, which is cheaper than a typical restaurant tip, and a small popcorn was only $1.50. In a place like Palo Alto where everything feels expensive, this low price made me feel comfortable.
Third, and most important, was the atmosphere. Most of the audience were senior couples, quietly watching the movie. Nobody used smartphones and nobody spoke loudly. I did not interact with them, but I felt comfort simply being near them. This calm environment helped me slow down my thoughts that dynamic AI talks never could. Although we often study seniors, we know little about how we feel when quietly sharing space with seniors. Perhaps, we enjoy being near them, watching them chat softly and walk slowly.
Independent theaters like the Stanford Theatre may represent the future of cinema. Multiplexes continue to be positioned as destinations for young couples, but moviegoers are turning away from them. Instead of focusing on couples looking for extraordinary experience, theaters should become places for individuals seeking quiet and reflection.
Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotypes become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was primed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes.
“…We constructed two versions of the scrambled sentence task: one elderly prime version, which contained words related to the elderly stereotype, and another, neutral version. For the elderly prime version, the critical stimuli were worried, Florida, old, lonely, grey, selfishly, careful, sentimental, wise, stubborn, courteous, bingo, withdraw, forgetful, retired, wrinkle, rigid, traditional, bitter, obedient, conservative, knits, dependent, ancient, helpless, gullible, cautious, and alone… In the neutral version, the elderly prime words were replaced with the words unrelated to the elderly stereotype (e.g., thirsty, clean, private).”
“…Participants in the elderly priming condition (M = 8.28 s) had a slower walking speed compared to participants in the neutral priming condition (M= 7.30 s), t(2S) = 2.86,p< .01, as predicted…”
“…Thus, our results are in harmony with those of Carver et al. (1983), who advanced a “behavioral schema” model as an explanation for modeling effects. According to the behavioral schema model, the perceptual and actional representations of the same type of behavior share many features in common and thus develop strong connections. As a result, if one has just perceived another person acting in a generous or an aggressive way, for example, one’s behavioral schema for generosity or aggression is activated and accessible, and so one is more likely to behave that way oneself in subsequent situations for which generosity or aggression is a relevant response.“
At first glance, this is just an ordinary drinking water tap. But Stanford University has made it something meaningful.
A sign above the tap reads:
This drinking water originates from the Tuolumne River watershed in Yosemite National Park and is conveyed to the Bay Area by a regional water system. The Tuolumne River watershed is the homeland of Indigenous peoples, especially speakers of Sierra Miwok and Northern Paiute and their descendants. These people have cared for and revered this land since time immemorial. We invite you to seek deeper knowledge about the water you draw from this tap.
A simple water tap, something people might otherwise overlook, becomes a reminder of history and respect. Story can enrich everyday experiences, making the ordinary feel significant.
Stories fascinate people and are often more easily remembered than facts. Much has been written about the power of stories in branding, but very little empirical evidence exists of their effects on consumer responses. In the present study, we investigate how a firm-originated story influences consumers’ brand experience, by comparing the brand experiences of two groups of consumers. One group was exposed to the story and one group was not. An existing brand was used in the study, which had not been launched in the focal country. In-depth interviews were conducted with individuals in the two experimental conditions. The comparison revealed remarkable differences between the two groups. Consumers who were exposed to the story described the brand in much more positive terms and were willing to pay more for the product. The study contributes to brand management research and practice by demonstrating the power of storytelling on consumer experiences. The results are also important from a managerial point of view. They demonstrate how brand stories can be used to create and reinforce positive brand associations. A review of past research in combination with the findings demonstrates that more research is needed on the effect of stories on consumer brand responses.
Tipping used to be an open-ended question. We decided the percentage and calculated the amount ourselves. Today, it has become a multipe-choice question. Pre-set options along with exact amounts are displayed on receipts or screens. This shift has changed how we feel about the act of tipping.
At Kabuto in Long Beach, the receipt offers three tipping options: 20%, 15%, or 10%, arranged from highest to lowest. It gave me a sense of flexibility, but the order and limited range pushed me toward choosing within a set range.
Lori’s Diner in San Francisco took a more assertive approach. The receipt included checkboxes for 18%, 20%, or 25%, and showed the final total for each selection. This removed the burden to calcuate, but made it harder to say no.
At Eel River Café at Garberville, the screen displayed four tipping buttons for 15%, 20%, 25%, and even 30%. Each amount was pre-calculated and shown clearly, creating a sense of obligation.
What once felt like a personal gesture of appreciation now feels more like a social obligation. As tip percentages rise and digital prompts become aggressive, the tipping experience shifts from a sincere expression of thanks to a manufactured sense of guilt.
The paper presents a model of the evolution of social norms. When a norm is costly to follow and people do not derive benefits from following it other than avoiding social disapproval, the norm erodes over time. Tip percentages, however, increased over the years, suggesting that people derive benefits from tipping including impressing others and improving their self-image as being generous and kind. The implications to the norm of not cooperating with new workers who accept lower wages are discussed; the model suggests that incumbent workers have reasons to follow this norm in addition to avoiding social disapproval.
Inglenook winery, owned by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, is famous for its fine wines and cinematic heritage. Its castle-like architecture is also impressive. However, beyond these attractions, Inglenook’s wine displays are unique.
Rather than presenting bottles in isolation, Inglenook pairs them with lifestyle products such as artisan candles, gourmet pasta, sketchbooks, and sun hats.
These combinations are not decorative. They suggest how wine is consumed and experienced in real life: during intimate dinners, relaxing moments, creative reflection, or outdoor leisure. The display turns wine into a lifestyle choice.
Likewise, Tsutaya bookstore pairs books with music, stationery, and home goods, helping visitors envision these products as part of their lifestyle.
At both the Napa winery and the Tokyo bookstore, lifestyle-oriented displays enable consumers to see how the products integrate into their daily lives, thereby increasing their perceived value.
Bundling is pervasive in today’s markets. However, the bundling literature contains inconsistencies in the use of terms and ambiguity about basic principles underlying the phenomenon. The literature also lacks an encompassing classification of the various strategies, clear rules to evaluate the legality of each strategy, and a unifying framework to indicate when each is optimal. Based on a review of the marketing, economics, and law literature, this article develops a new synthesis of the field of bundling, which provides three important benefits. First, the article clearly and consistently defines bundling terms and identifies two key dimensions that enable a comprehensive classification of bundling strategies. Second, it formulates clear rules for evaluating the legality of each of these strategies. Third, it proposes a framework of 12 propositions that suggest which bundling strategy is optimal in various contexts. The synthesis provides managers with a framework with which to understand and choose bundling strategies. It also provides researchers with promising avenues for further research.
While filling up my car at a California gas station, I often noticed three red stickers on the pumps. Initially, I thought the pumps were new. However, I soon learned that these red tapes are security stickers designed to prevent card skimming scams.
Card skimming occurs when criminals place fake card readers over the real ones to steal credit card information. If someone tries to tamper with the machine, the seal breaks.
I have been instinctively looking for these red stickers at the gas station. Interestingly, I actually feel relieved when they are not there because it means the machine has not been tampered with.
This simple visual cue further changes how I behave. Now I prefer to tap my credit card instead of inserting it.
Researchers once said consumers might hesitate to use contactless payment because of perceived risks. But at California gas stations, tapping feels safer. Real people do not behave the way academic research expects them to.
Purpose: This study develops and tests a conceptual model that combines the modified Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) with a consumer brand engagement model to predict consumers’ usage intentions toward contactless payment systems in a developed country.
Design/methodology/approach – We cooperated with a contactless payment service provider in Finland and reached out to 22,000 customers, resulting in 1,165 usable responses. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings – The study shows that the UTAUT2 and the consumer brand engagement model together explain approximately 70% of the variance in usage intention. Of the predictors, habit and consumers’ overall satisfaction have the strongest influence on usage intentions. The model also confirms the positive relationship between intention and use.
Practical implications – Understanding the reasons for both the intention to use and the continued use of contactless payments is important for merchants, banks, and other service providers. This study shows which technology adoption factors drive both the intention and the use of contactless payments. The finding that intention is mainly driven by habit and overall satisfaction and not by hedonic reasons indicates that such behaviors are difficult to change.
Originality/value – This study is among the first to examine contactless payment usage in a developed market, where over half of all point-of-sale transactions are executed using contactless payment cards and/or cell phones.
Before coming to Stanford, I never imagined that going to the gym every day would feel so natural. Yet, working out has become a regular part of my routine. Why?
It is not about willpower. Instead, two seemingly unrelated activities have effortlessly reinforced my gym habit.
First, every time I enter the gym, I pick up The Stanford Dailybefore exercising. Picking up a freshly printed newspaper feels refreshing, even though I rarely read it thoroughly.
Second, after my workout, I head straight to the outdoor swimming pool. The consistently warm water and open-air setting make swimming feel enjoyable. I have become so accustomed to this swimming pool that I do not want to miss a day even when it is raining.
My pattern suggests a strategy for making self-control tasks like exercising more sustainable. I wrap the core, demanding task (exercise) with enjoyable, effortless activities (picking up newspaper before and swimming after), like sugar-coating a bitter pill.
This strategy differs from temptation bundling, where a reward is combined with a main task at the same time, like listening to an audio book while exercising. Instead, I distribute rewards before and after the main task.
This study provides the first evaluation of a newly engineered type of commitment device—a temptation bundling device. It shows that in the setting explored, where exercise was bundled with tempting audio novels, this new type of commitment device is valued by a significant portion of the population studied. Further, we find that when temptation bundling is imposed on a population, it can increase gym attendance by 51% at low cost when it is initially instituted, although as in most exercise interventions This study provides the first evaluation of a newly engineered type of commitment device—a temptation bundling device. It shows that in the setting explored, where exercise was bundled with tempting audio novels, this new type of commitment device is valued by a significant portion of the population studied. Further, we find that when temptation bundling is imposed on a population, it can increase gym attendance by 51% at low cost when it is initially instituted, although as in most exercise interventions.
At the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Hawaii, a vending machine encourages donations. I do not know who designed this Giving Machine, but I am certain it is inspired by scientifically tested ideas in psychology and behavioral economics.
Before elaborating on three specific reasons, the key to its effectiveness lines in the vending machine itself. Unlike traditional charity appeals that vaguely describe where money goes, this machine allows donors see their choices clearly. The message on the machine also states: “100% of your donation goes to the charity cause of your choice.” This transparency reduces uncertainty.
However, visual clarity is just the beginning. Beyond visibility, three behavioral economics insights make this machine highly persuasive.
First, it offers multiple options, leveraging the power of choice. Donations range from $5 (sponsoring a meal) to $100 (after-school care). When presented with multiple options, people tend to focus more on the choice itself, making them more likely to choose at least one. By offering a structured selection, the machine nudges people toward making a donation rather than passing by.
Second, it shifts the decision from who to help to what to choose. Traditional charity appeals often focus on recipients such as disaster victims. This machine instead presents donors with tangible options such as bus passes, diapers, and hygiene kits, to name a few. This shift in framing nudges donors to engage more deeply by selecting specific solutions rather than simply reacting to an emotional appeal.
Third, the machine displays a pile of selected donations at the bottom. This is exactly an application of the goal-gradient hypothesis. People accelerate their efforts as they perceive themselves closer to a goal. Seeing donations accumulate creates an illusion of progress, encouraging more contributions.
A simple vending machine, yet a masterful execution of behavioral economics insights!
Belief in one’s ability to exert control over the environment and to produce desired results is essential for an individual’s well-being. It has repeatedly been argued that perception of control is not only desirable, but is also probably a psychological and biological necessity. In this article, we review the literature supporting this claim and present evidence of a biological basis for the need for control and for choice—that is, the means by which we exercise control over the environment. Converging evidence from animal research, clinical studies, and neuroimaging suggests that the need for control is a biological imperative for survival, and a corticostriatal network is implicated as the neural substrate of this adaptive behavior.
We randomize advertising content motivated by the psychology literature on sympathy generation and framing effects in mailings to about 185,000 prospective new donors in India. We find a significant impact on the number of donors and amounts donated consistent with sympathy biases such as the “identifiable victim,” “in-group,” and “reference dependence.” A monthly reframing of the ask amount increases donors and the amount donated relative to daily reframing. A second field experiment targeted to past donors, finds that the effect of sympathy bias on giving is smaller in percentage terms but statistically and economically highly significant in terms of the magnitude of additional dollars raised. Methodologically, the paper complements the work of behavioral scholars by adopting an empirical researchers’ lens of measuring relative effect sizes and economic relevance of multiple behavioral theoretical constructs in the sympathy bias and charity domain within one field setting. Beyond the benefit of conceptual replications, the effect sizes provide guidance to managers on which behavioral theories are most managerially and economically relevant when developing advertising content.
The goal-gradient hypothesis denotes the classic finding from behaviorism that animals expend more effort as they approach a reward. Building on this hypothesis, the authors generate new propositions for the human psychology of rewards. They test these propositions using field experiments, secondary customer data, paper-and-pencil problems, and Tobit and logit models. The key findings indicate that (1) participants in a real café reward program purchase coffee more frequently the closer they are to earning a free coffee; (2) Internet users who rate songs in return for reward certificates visit the rating Web site more often, rate more songs per visit, and persist longer in the rating effort as they approach the reward goal; (3) the illusion of progress toward the goal induces purchase acceleration (e.g., customers who receive a 12-stamp coffee card with 2 preexisting “bonus” stamps complete the 10 required purchases faster than customers who receive a “regular” 10-stamp card); and (4) a stronger tendency to accelerate toward the goal predicts greater retention and faster reengagement in the program. The conceptualization and empirical findings are captured by a parsimonious goal-distance model, in which effort investment is a function of the proportion of original distance remaining to the goal. In addition, using statistical and experimental controls, the authors rule out alternative explanations for the observed goal gradients. They discuss the theoretical significance of their findings and the managerial implications for incentive systems, promotions, and customer retention.
