Coke vs. Pepsi

 A couple (well 3) of the CI gang (we need a better name for this) decided to put their tongues where their mouths were (a bad mix-ed metaphor) and see if their loyalty to Coke and Pepsi were based on real or percieved differences. They write:

"After your lecture yesterday we decided to test your experiment to see if we could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. We did a blind triangle test and out of the 3 of us, only Sammie got it correct all 3 trials. I got 1 right on my 2nd trial and Keziah didn't get any right. We attached two pictures in case you wanted to see how we did it and we thought it might be a good blog post. In the picture, from left to right is Sammie, me (Monika), and Keziah."

Update! More data has arrived thanks to Alex, who had a 50% success rate in his sample. This brings our sample of 7 and our success rate at identifying a difference to  43%. 

Let's have the data keep coming in!

Could you sell 2,000 boxes of cookies?

There was an article in the WSJ today on Girl Scout cookies. Besides the weak pun in the opening sentence, there is a lot to recommend about this article - and it really addresses some of the key issues that we cover in class.

First, there is really an interesting point regarding product line and reducing the size of the product line. They discuss a lot of operational issues regarding why you want less choice - all of which I agree with. In marketing we always talk about the marginal increase in sales you get with additional options. Their 5 most popular choices account for 77% of their sales. Economically, when you think about distributing your fixed costs over a greater number of goods, if the variable costs don't increase (which in this case they may due to inventory costs) then shouldn't we always consider expanding our product lines? Don't we want that other 23% of sales? What would the Paradox of Choice say about this?

Secondly, think about how this product is sold. What are customer's really buying? What needs do the cookies satisfy? How do consumers choose how many boxes to buy (or whether to buy at all)?  Does this change how they can design their product line?

Third, did you know that Girl Scout cookie names are regional? I grew up with Samoas in New Jersey. I just thought that the the GSA has changed the name of the cookie by the time I moved to Texas - I didn't realize that regionally they are called Caramel deLites. Have they always been called that in Texas? (The same is true with Tagalongs being called Peanut Butter Patties) 

Fourth, costs have been going up and sales have been pretty flat. So, besides trying to increase their sales through MBA style boot camps, they are using the technique we just discussed in class of downsizing their product: there will be one ounce less of cookie in each box.

By the way, 14-year-old Peach Norman Owen of Cincinnati sold 2,000 boxes of cookies last year. Think about just the sheer size of that!

No matter what they say, size does matter...

The new sizes of coffee at Starbucks got me thinking about the two related problems that we have in the US in regarding dietary consumption: we eat unhealthy foods and we eat too much of them. That's right, we have the perfect storm of poor nutrition quality in obscene stomach-stretching quantities. Consumers are really bad at knowing when we're full and judging how much we've eaten (let alone how healthy something is). And we as marketers take full advantage of this. We realize that we can increase sales not only by having you consume more often, but also by having you consume more in each sitting.

We use contextual information to make our judgments of how much we're supposed to eat. The amount of popcorn we eat at a movie is dependent upon the size of the container that we are given before we enter the theater. If we have a soup bowl fill up secretly from the bottom while you're consuming it, you'll eat more because you judge how much soup to drink by the progress you've made down the bowl. We judge how big our portions should be by how much of the dinner plate it fills up - and plates have been increasing in diameter (from 8.5" in 1960 to 10" in 1970 to 12" today).  We decide how much popcorn to eat at movies by the size of the container we are given.We know we should stop eating as we get to the bottom of our bag of chips, so we'll eat more if we eat out of a container where we don't touch the sides. We'll drink more if we drink from a larger straw (thanks McDonald's!) or a beer can with a wider opening (thanks Coors!).

Marketers also know that bad foods are often yummy and that we are extremely bad about tracking where our calories come from. Yes, we might expect that one fast food meal may contain almost our entire recommended daily intake of calories and fat. But would you expect that a Venti Doubly Chocolate Chip Frappuccino Blended Beverage would have 800 calories and 25 grams of fat? That is 40% of your daily calorie requirement and 38% of your daily recommended daily fat intake! No wonder there is a Starbucks on every corner - and thank goodness they have drive thrus. We wouldn't want to burn any of those calories by having to get out of the car and walking to the counter!

Trenta!!!

Here is Starbucks' blog release of their new drink size: the Trenta.

Can anyone figure out the math behind the sizes? Doesn't trenta mean 30 in Italian? Then why is Startbucks' new size 31 ozs? And how is the Trenta 7 ounces bigger than the Venti? Is the Venti 24 ounces?

What is with the size names? I have to post both the linguist's gripes with size names as well as Paul Rudd's rant.

And this graphic is troubling....

Cool Perception Video.

So I'm trying to clear my box of stuff that I mean to post. Here is the video of perceptual illusions that I meant to post.

Slight of Hand? We tell consumers what to focus on...

If a company tells me that their food is high in calcium, should I think it is healthy? What if that same food is also high in fat and sugar? Should ice cream be able to carry labeling which stresses that point?

The New York Times reports on the food industry's new food labels here.

Do nutrition labels even affect your consumption?

Podbuster Ads

We were talking in class on Tuesday about the "arms race" between the consumer and the marketer. As consumers find methods to avoid exposure to commercial messages, marketers must find ways to get around these methods. We talked about how technologies such as DVRs have lead to the latest escalation and an increase in product placement on television. Well, you may have also noticed that it's getting more difficult to just fast forward through advertisement blocks as stations try to trick you into stopping in the middle of these blocks by making you think that the show is back on. This technique is called "podbusting" and a great article and mp3 clip on this technique was on NPR this past week.

Dressed To Impress: Unilever, a conglomerate behind various products, from food (Hellmann's mayonnaise and Lipton teas) to body wash (Axe and Ponds), bought into the Mad Men aesthetic with podbuster advertisements that evoke the TV drama's look. (image and caption compliments of NPR)

Oprah in Australia

So I'm sure that y'all have been following Oprah's last season on television. After all, once she only has her own magazine and cable television network how will we know what she's up to? How will we choose what books to read?

Anyway, If you turned on the television today you'd see that Oprah is currently broadcasting episodes filmed on a "road trip" to Australia. She's taken a studio audience (some 300 people) plus her production crew down under for a tour of the country. 

Here is the best part: the Government of Australia is paying for the entire trip. All $2.9 million of it!

Of course, this can all be explained by that wonderful concept of "Exposure" we just covered in class. Quantas and many other companies have also jumped on board with this as well...  You can read all about it in the WSJ article here.

Shopping Lists

Scott Allison pointed out that there is a person who has been collecting shopping lists for years and has compiled his favorites into a website and a book. You can be your own judge whether he uses them as a window into people's minds...

Of course, I have to geek this up and present you with some behavioral insights that researchers have found by examining the shopping lists of shoppers:
 - a specific brand is listed for 22.9% of items on shopping lists
 - 52% of items purchased on a grocery trip aren't on the shoppers' grocery list.
 So it looks like there is lots of possibilities in the retail store environment to influence a shopper's choice.

Last Semester Projects

Last semester the class focused on examining how consumers can utilize their "cognitive surplus" on the web. They looked at how the movement away from unidirectional communication leads to things like co-creation/crowd sourcing and new ways that fans can create and consume their interests when they can aggregate their fandom.

This is a video exploring co-creation via the website Threadless.com:

This is a video exploring fan sites:

Pricing Decisions: What do we even price?

While in Chile we stopped in a mall and looked about in a pet store. We noticed that the price of fish was prominently displayed on the tank, yet there were no prices on the puppy cages. Is this the same in America? Does this make sense? Where else might placing prices (or excluding prices) force us to reinterpret our consumption transactions?

All things American

In other countries we're known for many things: loud, rude behavior, large people (and larger portions), and apparently our crinkle-cut chips.