I recently gave a lecture at Ecobee, a smart home product company in Canada. In this lecture, I compared two different approaches when bundling multiple smart home products.
One is product-centered bundling; they can select a hero product or a product that contributes to their sales significantly and then attach additional products randomly. The other is human-centered (service-centered) bundling; they can select multiple products to form a service which helps consumers achieve their goals.
The product-centered bundling was previously employed among Samsung designers; they selected Galaxy mobile phone or Samsung TV and then added smart door lock or smart plug to create Multi Device Experience. However, we proposed them to adopt the human-centered (service-centered) approach.
The more I become interested in cognitive interventions, the more I delve into motivational goals. This is because we are able to change their behaviors if we know why consumers do what they do. I wish Ecobee designers apply goal to solve their business problems.
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Reference 1
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2018). A theory of goal systems. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Department, Vol. 34, pp. 331–378). Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Academic Press.
The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological ad- vantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation, and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues, including activity experience, goal commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis.
Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al. 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.
Through the years, the Duncan Anderson Design Lecture Series has invited top professionals to share their knowledge and experience with design students at CSULB. This coming year marks the expansion of that series to a bi-monthly event. Thanks to Cecelia Anderson-Malcolm and the Duncan Anderson Endowment, CSULB now has an ongoing design lecture series to rival those at private design schools. The CSULB Industrial Design Program is working closely with IDSA-LA, and its student chapters, to schedule an exciting line-up of speakers. Please let your chapter officers know of professionals you want to meet and hear at future events.
In this lecture, I introduced why designers have to adopt behavioral science to understand customer experience deeply. For instance, prospect theory neatly elucidates why once people have a single extraordinary experience, they can no longer revert to previously satisfactory mundane experiences. It is because the extraordinary experience can become a reference point, while the mundane experiences transform into sources of negative affect. Since loss looms larger than gain, people avoid mundane experiences.
This paper presents a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develops an alternative model, called prospect theory. Choices among risky prospects exhibit several pervasive effects that are inconsistent with the basic tenets of utility theory. In particular, people underweight outcomes that are merely probable in comparison with outcomes that are obtained with certainty. This tendency, called the certainty effect, contributes to risk aversion in choices involving sure gains and to risk seeking in choices involving sure losses. In addition, people generally discard components that are shared by all prospects under consideration. This tendency, called the isolation effect, leads to inconsistent preferences when the same choice is presented in different forms. An alternative theory of choice is developed, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights. The value function is normally concave for gains, commonly convex for losses, and is generally steeper for losses than for gains. Decision weights are generally lower than the corresponding probabilities, except in the range of low probabilities. Overweighting of low probabilities may contribute to the attractiveness of both insurance and gambling.
Objective: Impulse buying is a recognized phenomenon as consumers have abundant shopping opportunities. We investigate whether orderly space encourages consumers to buy impulsively and whether this relationship is moderated by self-construal. Specifically, we hypothesize that consumers show greater impulse buying intentions when space is orderly than disorderly. We also hypothesize that when interdependent self-construal is primed, the effect of orderly space on consumers’ increased impulse buying intentions will be attenuated. Background: Our hypotheses are based on the research about emotions that consumers experience while they shop in a retail store. When the store is orderly, consumers experience pleasure. In contrast, disorganized shelves, unsorted merchandise, and messy clothing racks evoke negative emotions. A recent study shows consumers’ positive emotional responses to a retail environment result in heightened impulse buying. Methods: Two experiments were carried out to test the two hypotheses. Experiment 1 employed a 2 (space order: orderly vs. disorderly) between-subjects design. Participants randomly received one of the two store images and were asked to indicate their impulse-buying intentions. Experiment 2 employed a 2 (space order: orderly vs. disorderly) × 2 (self-construal: independent vs. interdependent) between-subjects design. Participants were randomly given one of the two store images and one of the two self-construal priming tasks to measure their impulse buying intentions. Results: As hypothesized, Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants exerted stronger impulse-buying intentions in an orderly space. Experiment 2 also showed that when participants were primed by inter- dependent self-construal, their impulse buying intentions did not differ, regardless of whether the space was orderly. Implications: Our findings provide insights for offline store managers. To nudge visitors to buy impulsively, managers should organize their spaces orderly. However, the effect of space order on consumers’ impulse buying will disappear when consumers’ interdependent self-construal is activated. Our findings contribute to the academic research into the factors that lead consumers to buy impulsively.
Keywords
impulse buying, space order, self-construal, off-line store, sales
We investigate whether visceral state and temporal distance influenced their choice between a hedonic and a utilitarian product. We hypothesize that consumers are more likely to choose a hedonic product when they are hot (e.g., hungry or sexually driven) than when they are cold (e.g., not hungry or not sexually driven). We further hypothesize that the effect of visceral state on hedonic-utilitarian choice is moderated by temporal distance; hot-cold choice difference disappears when consumers make a choice in the distant future. Our two hypotheses were supported by two experiments. We discuss academic contributions and managerial implications of our findings.
A wide range of businesses actively use cute characters such as the globally popular LINE FRIENDS characters for product design to increase consumers’ product adoption. Prior research has found that whimsical cuteness—which elicits fun and playful mental representations—can lead to higher product adoption. The effectiveness, however, has been investigated mostly in indulgent contexts. This article aims to uncover the opposite phenomenon, that is, whimsical cuteness could be detrimental for product adoption, in particular, in a non-indulgent context. In a pre-test, we measured the different types of cuteness of nine LINE FRIENDS characters, selecting one pair of characters differed only in terms of whimsical cuteness. Additionally considering product newness, the main study tested whether product adoption differed depending on the level of whimsical cuteness and product newness. The results demonstrate that participants were less likely to adopt a non-indulgent product when it was highly whimsically cute compared to less whimsically cute because the indulgence provoked by fun and playful mental representations conflicted against the restraint reinforced by a product for self-control. The adverse effect increases when the product has lower product newness whereas high product newness dampens the effect. The findings suggest that practitioners should carefully consider product nature and newness when applying whimsically cute features to product design and marketing promotions. This study has originality in that it is the first to demonstrate the adverse effect of whimsical cuteness on new product adoption and verify the moderating effect of product newness.
Keywords
Whimsical cuteness, New product adoption, Product newness, Self-control, LINE FRIENDS
The key practical significance is that a product design which makes products seem whimsically cute has potentially detrimental effects on consumers’ product adoption, especially when the products are non-indulgent. Although nudge is an interesting lens for designers (Chen et al. 2019), our finding suggests that whimsical cuteness can have counter-nudging effects (Saghai 2013; Sunstein 2017) that make consumers not to adopt self-control products, contrary to the expectation of designers and marketers. For instance, cute characters with high whimsical cuteness might in fact hinder consumers’ adoption of products for self-control such as diet foods and time and study management products. Thus, practitioners should beware of using whimsically cute characters on products related to self-control (pg. 629).
This paper investigates whether including authentic information on the back labels of wine bottles enhances consumers’ confidence and purchase intentions about wine; it also assesses the moderating role of involvement and knowledge about wine. We conducted two experimental studies. Study 1 generated three findings. First, when the back label had authentic information, subjects showed higher confidence levels. Second, this effect was hold for subjects with low levels of involvement. Finally, we did not observe this effect for subjects with high levels of involvement. Study 2 extended study 1’s findings and identified the moderated mediation effect of confidence. The findings highlight the important impact on wine choice of authentic information. However, the findings also suggest that authentic information may not be sufficient to attract people with high levels of involvement and knowledge. This study’s findings provide wine producers with practical marketing insights.
In the past, researchers focusing on environmentally friendly consumption have devoted attention to the intention–action gap, suggesting that consumers have positive attitudes toward an environmentally friendly product even though they are not willing to buy it. In the present study, we borrow insights from the behavioral decision making literature on preference reversal to introduce an opposite phenomenon—that is, consumers buying an environmentally friendly product even though they do not evaluate it highly. We further rely on the research on goals to hypothesize that choice–evaluation discrepancies disappear when consumers pursue an environmentally friendly goal. A two (Mode: Choice vs. Evaluation) by three (Goal: Control vs. Quality vs. Environmentally friendly) between-subjects experimental design was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings obtained from 165 undergraduate students in Korea showed that, first, 76% of the participants chose an environmentally friendly cosmetic product whereas only 49% of the participants ranked it higher than a competing product, and, second, when participants read the sentence “You are now buying one of the two compact foundations in order to minimize the waste of buying new foundations,” the discrepancy disappeared (64% vs. 55%). Our experimental findings advance academic discussions of green consumption and the choice–evaluation discrepancy and have practical implications for eco-friendly marketing.
Abstract: We investigated whether adding product information in mobile commerce improved consumers’ attitudes toward a product and whether this relationship was moderated by consumption goals. We conducted two field experiments in which we recruited parents in Korea and the USA and asked them how they evaluated two childcare hybrid products (HPs) newly developed by Samsung Electronics designers. The results revealed that participants exposed to additional information about the HPs evaluated them more favorably than those who were not exposed. However, this relationship disappeared when a consumption goal was activated. Our findings establish a dynamic relationship between information seeking and consumption goals, asking designers to rethink their rule of thumb in the mobile commerce context.
Keywords: information seeking; consumption goal; hybrid product; Samsung Electronics; mobile commerce
Subscription-based model attracts attention. It helps firms to stabilize profits, obtain insights, and forecast sales, enabling them sustain.
However, marketers have to pay attention to consumer psychology when they develop a subscription service. That is, pain of payment is detached from joy of enjoyment. When consumers consider subscribing a service or not, they emphasize the realized pain of payment rather than their expected joy of enjoyment. In this case, they tend to rely on “lay rationalism” and base their decisions on reason than on feeelings (Hsee et al. 2014, pg. 134). In order to use reason to guide decisions, consumers may calculate the cost effectiveness of a service rigorously (e.g., how much I will enjoy later based on how much I pay now).
Since payment-enjoyment time gap leads consumers to rely on lay rationalism, they may like a subscription service that is is easy to calculate its cost effectiveness. Take an example of the following 2 TB Dropbox service. The cost effectiveness of the two billing cycle options are easy to calculate and easy to compare because their pay period is identical (month). I subscribed this Dropbox service because I found it easy to calculate cost effectiveness.
In contrast, when cost effectiveness is difficult to calculate, a subscription service may not be chosen. Take an example of the following 3 TB Dropbox space. In this case, the cost effectiveness of the two billing cycle options are difficult to calculate and difficult to compare because their pay periods differ (year vs. month). I assume many others hesitate to choose one of the two options.
People have a lay notion of rationality—that is, the notion of using reason rather than feelings to guide decisions. Yet people differ in the degree to which they actually base their decisions on reason versus feelings. This individual difference variable is potentially general and important but is largely overlooked. The present research (1) introduces the construct of lay rationalism to capture this individual difference variable and distinguishes it from other individual difference variables; (2) develops a short, easy-to-implement scale to measure lay rationalism and demonstrates the validity and reliability of the scale; and (3) shows that lay rationalism, as measured by the scale, can predict a variety of consumer-relevant behaviors, including product preferences, savings decisions, and donation behaviors.
Starbucks Coffee Korea recently launched a set of limited edition Playmobil toy figures. Customers get one of six tall-size beverages with an accompanying Playmobil figure for $12.
Today at a nearby Starbucks, I found several customers paid extra to have a barista figure. Another Starbucks was crowded even though customers have to leave store shortly due to social distancing regulations. It suggests this campaign increases offline store traffic.
Why do adults like Starbucks toys? Although brand power and scarcity play key roles, a more deeply rooted reason is that Playmobil figures are whimsically cute. “Cute products (e.g., an ice-cream scoop shaped like a miniature person or a dress with tropical colors and pink flamingos) can have whimsical nature, which is associated with capricious humor and playful disposition. Whimsical cuteness is … associated with fun and playfulness.” (Nenkov and Scott 2014, pg. 327).
Interestingly, whimsically cute products do not necessarily appeal when they are designed for kids. Contrary to our belief, whimsical cuteness attracts adults. This argument is supported by the experimental findings obtained from a marketing paper.
This article examines the extent to which consumers engage in more indulgent consumption when they are exposed to whimsically cute products and explores the process by which such products affect indulgence. Prior research on kindchenschema (baby schema) has found that exposure to cute babies or baby animals leads to more careful behavior (see the study by Sherman, Haidt, and Coan), suggesting restraint. The present research uncovers the opposite: consumers become more indulgent in their behavior after exposure to whimsically cute products. Drawing from research on cognitive priming, kindchenschema, anthropomorphization, indulgence, and regulatory focus, this research posits that exposure to whimsically cute products primes mental representations of fun, increasing consumers’ focus on approaching self-rewards and making consumers more likely to choose indulgent options. These effects do not emerge for kindchenschema cute stimuli, since they prime mental representations of vulnerability and caretaking. Four empirical studies provide evidence for the proposed effects and their underlying process.
When two cookies were presented under “The Cookie Shop,” participants indicated significantly weaker preference for the healthy entree when they had earlier viewed the whimsically cute cookie than when they had viewed the neutral cookie. However, no such differences occurred when two cookies were presented under “The Kid’s Cookie Shop.”
