Focus on Time Sells More Products : Research: Stanford GSB"It’s Miller Time." "Live Richly." - What do these vastly different marketing campaigns—one selling beer, the other financial services—have in common? They both focus on experiencing, rather than possessing, products.
Here are some of the top lines from the article:
- Because a person’s experience with a product tends to foster feelings of personal connection with it, referring to time typically leads to more favorable attitudes—and to more purchases
- Research identified the different attitudes and behaviors triggered just by mentioning time rather than money
- One explanation is that our relationship with time is much more personal than our relationship with money
- Ultimately, time is a more scarce resource—once it's gone, it's gone—and therefore more meaningful to us
- How we spend our time says so much more about who we are than does how we spend our money.
- One theory is that references to money will always be negative because consumers are reminded of the cost of acquiring a product rather than the pleasure of consuming it.
- When marketing products that consumers buy for prestige value, stressing money spent seems to be more effective. Designer jeans, expensive jewelry, and high-status cars all fall into this category.
- With 'prestige' purchases, consumers feel that possessing the products reflect important aspects of themselves, and get more satisfaction from merely owning the product rather than spending time with it
The most interesting part of the article was an experiment on concert tickets with the comment - "who actually incurred a higher cost in terms of time spent—rated their satisfaction with the concert higher". Might explain the commitment of the Starbucks' consumer.
