According to researchers at Stanford University, for consumers the answer is time. In a study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Professor Jennifer Aaker and PHD student Cassie Mogliner set up a lemonade stall manned by six year olds (!), with three different signs.
One had "Spend a little time and enjoy C&D's lemonade"; the second one, "Spend a little money, and enjoy C&D's lemonade"; and the third, neutral one said simply, "Enjoy C&D's lemonade." Only one sign was displayed at a time.
Customers were told they could pay between $1 and $3, the exact amount was up to them.
According to the results, the 'time' sign scored best, with customers being twice as likely to stop and paying twice as much as with the 'money' stall.
The researchers also went to a San Francisco outdoor concert, which was free, but involved queuing for good seats. Random members of the audience were asked: "How much time will you have spent to see the concert today?" or "How much money will you have spent to see the concert today?"
Despite the monetary cost of the concert being zero, simply focusing people's minds on 'time' elicited a more positive response.
"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 attitudesâ€"and to more purchases," says Jennifer Aaker. Aaker says that the one exception is 'show off' products where the value lies in how much you paid for it - so high end cars and jewellery.
User generated ads 9x more effective than ones done by brands?Finally the Stanford article throws in an unrelated, but interesting stat at the end. In talking about how brands are losing control, the piece concludes with: "One study showed that user-generated ads were nine times more effective than marketer-generated ads."
Would love to know where and when that study was carried out.
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