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 kstater
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| Post-experience Advertising and Cognitive Dissonance |
| 2010.08.19 02:52:27 | |
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The subject line sounds rather complex and deep, but the question it raises is rather simple: Can ads impact your customer’s impression of your company after the sale? The majority of the articles, white papers and research studies I read focus on influencing the customer prior to the sale. But what about after the sale? Can your ads lessen their recall of a bad experience or even improve a good one? In general terms, cognitive dissonance is post purchase doubt. When we as consumers finally decide to buy a product, a flat screen for example, we’ve probably evaluated several options – many of which have favorable attributes; after making tradeoffs based upon our requirements, we pick what we feel best meets our needs at the moment. For example, one model may have better speakers but the final choice has the control buttons on the front. So as we sit down to watch the first movie, we pat ourselves on the back for the wise purchase, mention to our spouse how handy it is that the controls are on the front, and tell ourselves that the sound quality from the speakers is just fine. The more time we spend researching a purchase, and the more the item costs, the greater the need for us psychologically to reduce cognitive dissonance. We seek ways to reaffirm that we’ve made a wise decision. Companies that are successful in helping consumers reduce dissonance, are the most successful at developing customer advocates. I recently read a 1999 research study by Braun, “Post-experience Advertising Effects on Consumer Memory” that detailed an experiment in which test subjects sampled bad-tasking orange juice. Participants immediately rated the OJ based on flavor and overall satisfaction; they were then shown ads featuring delicious orange juice – then asked to rerate their recall of the juice. Their scores improved! The flavor of the orange juice hadn’t change, but their perception had. So how does advertising fit in? I often struggle with measuring the effectiveness of ads, and during this downturn, it’s even harder to justify the cost to upper management. Slashing print ad campaign budgets is often the knee jerk reaction when times are hard. So the next time you’re battling to maintain your media flight, pose these questions: Do we want to win back dissatisfied customers? What would it be worth to us if we could make them “forget” how bad it was (or soften the memory at least)? Do we want to help customers reinforce that they’ve made a wise decision? You might even be able to conduct your own study: target known dissatisfied customers with advertising, and then re-measure their satisfaction. Did it change? I’d love to hear about your results! Tags: advertising | marketing | congnitive dissonance | ads Hits: 600 | Read more or comment |