New Focus: Transformative Consumer Research

MAR 3503

April 12, 2012

• Transformative Consumer Research– Research framed by a fundamental problem or

opportunity• Strives to respect, uphold, and improve life in relation to

the conditions, demands, potential, and effects of consumption

• Corporate Social Responsibility– Corporate self-regulation as part of business model

• Helps company take responsibility for actions and strive to make positive impact on the world

What is TCR?

Mick, 2006

Consumer problems

• Obesity– Soon to be the number one cause of death in the

country and then the world

Consumer problems

• Smoking– 20% of the adult population in the US smokes • 50 years ago, 50% of men smoked, 30% of women

– 1000 new smokers every day (90% start in high school)

– 60% of smokers will die due to smoking-related causes

– The current number one cause of preventable death in the world

Consumer problems

• Charitable giving– 89% of households give something – $1600 is average donation per year– Accounts for 2.2% of GDP

Consumer problems

Consumer problems

Consumer problems

• Nutrition– School lunch programs, prepackaged food, affordable food

• Medical decision making– Pharmaceutical marketing, end of life decisions

• Energy consumption– Dependence on foreign oil, dependence on fossil fuels

• Financial decision making– Credit cards, retirement, savings

• Poverty– Children in poverty, welfare, food stamps, homelessness

• Addiction– Gambling, drugs, alcohol

• Violence in the media– Children and video games, movies, TV shows

• And more…– Product safety, organ donation, sweatshops, developing markets, allocation of

resources…

Approaches to dealing with problems

• Educating and informing– Let people know there is a problem and how it can be

fixed• Reframing the problem or the solution– Change the way we think about the problem or its

solution• Make good behavior seem desirable– Change onerous into enjoyable

• Choice architecture– Make good choices easier

Educating and informing

Does calorie posting help?

• Yes? One study found a 6% drop in calories ordered at Starbucks after calorie posting (ends up being about 14 calories)

• No? One study of low-income NYC residents found a slight increase after posting, even though people believed otherwise

Can information help?

• Only r = .30 correlation between knowledge about recycling and recycling behavior

• Everyone is aware of the risks of smoking, yet people still start and continue to smoke

The best information is…

• Accurate• Vivid• Direct• Immediate

Give people accurate information

“It will take 50 minutes of jogging to burn off the calories in a bottle of

soda”

•This sign reduced the odds of a soda purchase in Baltimore corner stores by half

Give people vivid information

Give people direct information

• Stores that gave out these receipts saw increases in the number of smoothies over milkshakes, increases in no mayo orders, and increase in no cheese orders over other stores without these receipts

Give people immediate information

Feedback as information

Feedback information

Schulz et al., 2007

Reframing work

The cost of safety

• School buses used to occasionally catch on fire

• Safety features could have been added to newly built buses that would help prevent this from happening

• These features would cost about $1000 per bus

The cost of safety

• Some people were not in favor of adding these features

• Their math:• 30,000 new buses per year X $1000 = an extra

$30 million a year school districts would have to spend

• Only about 30 schoolchildren died this way per year, so each saved life cost $1 million

The cost of safety

• Fans of not burning children alive had different math

• Buses usually last 10 years, so the cost per year per bus is only $100

• The cost per school day per bus is 56¢• The cost per pupil per day is less than half of

1¢

Use reframing to make things stick

Use reframing to make things stick

$2 million per year spend on advertising $750 million per year spent on advertising

Suppose your kid watches 3 hours of TV a week, and sees a McDonald’s commercial 2x an hour:

That’s 6 McD’s commercials a week

How often would she see a commercial advocating fruits and veggies?

Once every 14 months; she would see as many McD’s commercials in two weeks as she would see fruit and veggie commercials in 14 years

Use reframing to make things stick

Reframing temptation

Mischel & Baker, 1975

Reframing

Green status

Green status

People like you…

Reuse their towels

Make bad behavior unfun

• Economic disincentives

Use reciprocity

• Which is more effective?

• If you reuse your towel, the hotel will make a donation in your name to an environmental protection organization

• Please reuse your towel; the hotel has made a donation in your name to an environmental protection organization

Goldstein, Griskevicius, & Cialdini 2008

Change the order

Downs et al., 2009

Change the default

Madrian & Shea, 2001

Change how things work

Change the rules

Frieden et al., 2005

Change the rules

Khuder et al., 2007

Change the rules

Bartecchi et al., 2006

Change the Rules

Wansink and portion size

• People eat more stale popcorn out of bigger buckets

• They eat more soup out of self-refilling bowls• They serve more ice cream with bigger scoops

and eat more out of bigger bowls• They eat more chips out of containers without

suggested stopping points

Summary

• Many of the world’s biggest problems are consumer problems

• We as consumers and marketers are in a position to help solve them– We can educate and inform– We can reframe the problem or the solution– We can make good behavior desirable– We can change the choice architecture

• Next time: Group projects!