营销外文文献及翻译

外文文献

A marketer’s guide to behavioral economics

Apirl.2010 ? Ned Welch ? McKinsey Quarterly

Marketers have been applying behavioral economics-often unknowingly for years. A more systematic approach can unlock significant value.

Long before behavioral eco nomics had a name, marketers were using it. “Three for the price of two” offers and extended-payment layaway plans became widespread because they worked—not because marketers had run scientific studies showing that people prefer a supposedly free incentive to an equivalent price discount or that people often behave irrationally when thinking about future consequences. Yet despite marketing’s inadvertent leadership in using principles of behavioral economics, few companies use them in a systematic way. In this article, we highlight four practical techniques that should be part of every marketer’s tool kit.

1. Make a product’s cost less painful

In almost every purchasing decision, consumers have the option to do nothing: they can always save their money for an other day. That’s why the marketer’s task is not just to beat competitors but also to persuade shoppers to part with their money in the first place. According to economic principle, the pain of payment should be identical for every dollar we spend. In marketing practice, however, many factors influence the way consumers value a dollar and how much pain they feel upon spending it.

Retailers know that allowing consumers to delay payment can dramatically increase their willingness to buy. One reason delayed payments work is perfectly logical: the time value of money makes future payments less costly than immediate ones. But there is a second, less rational basis for this phenomenon. Payments, like all losses, are viscerally unpleasant. But emotions experienced in the present—now—are especially important. Even small delays in payment can soften the immediate sting of parting with your money and remove an important barrier to purchase.

Another way to minimize the pain of payment is to understand the ways “mental a ccounting” affects decision making. Consumers use different mental accounts for money they obtain from different sources rather than treating every dollar they own equally, as economists believe they do, or should. Commonly observed mental accounts include windfall gains, pocket money, income, and savings. Windfall gains and pocket money are usually the easiest for consumers to spend. Income is less easy to relinquish, and savings the most difficult of all.

Technology creates new frontiers for harnessing mental accounting to benefit both consumers and marketers. A credit card marketer, for instance, could offer a Web-based or mobile-device application that gives consumers real-time feedback on spending against predefined budget and revenue categories—green, say, for below budget, red for above budget, and so on. The budget-conscious consumer is likely to find value in such accounts (although they are not strictly rational) and to concentrate spending on a card that makes use of them. This would not only incre ase the issuer’s interchange fees and

financing income but also improve the issuer’s view of its customers’ overall financial situation. Finally, of course, such an application would make a genuine contribution to these consumers’ desire to live within the ir means.

2. Harness the power of a default option

The evidence is overwhelming that presenting one option as a default increases the chance it will be chosen. Defaults—what you get if you don’t actively make a choice—work partly by instilling a perception of ownership before any purchase takes place, because the pleasure we derive from gains is less intense than the pain from equivalent losses. When we’re “given” something by default, it becomes more valued than it would have been otherwise—and we are more loath to part with it.

Savvy marketers can harness these principles. An Italian telecom company, for example, increased the acceptance rate of an offer made to customers when they called to cancel their service. Originally, a script informed them that they would receive 100 free calls if they kept their plan. The script was reworded to say, “We have already credited your account with 100 calls—how could you use those?” Many customers did not want to give up free talk time they felt they already owned.

Defaults work best when decision makers are too indifferent, confused, or conflicted to consider their options. That principle is particularly relevant in a world that’s increasingly awash with choices—a default eliminates the need to make a decision. The default, however, must also be a good choice for most people. Attempting to mislead customers will ultimately backfire by breeding distrust.

3. Don’t overwhelm consumers with choice

When a default option isn’t possible, marketers must be wary of generating “ch oice overload,” which makes consumers less likely to purchase. In a classic field experiment, some grocery store shoppers were offered the chance to taste a selection of 24 jams, while others were offered only 6. The greater variety drew more shoppers to sample the jams, but few made a purchase. By contrast, although fewer consumers stopped to taste the 6 jams on offer, sales from this group were more than five times higher.

Large in-store assortments work against marketers in at least two ways. First, these choices make consumers work harder to find their preferred option, a potential barrier to purchase. Second, large assortments increase the likelihood that each choice will become imbued with a “negative halo”—a heightened awareness that every option requires you to forgo desirable features available in some other product. Reducing the number of options makes people likelier not only to reach a decision but also to feel more satisfied with their choice.

4. Position your preferred option carefully

Economists assume that everything has a price: your willingness to pay may be higher than mine, but each of us has a maximum price we’d be willing to pay. How marketers position a product, though, can change the equation. Consider the experience of the jewelry sto re owner whose consignment of turquoise jewelry wasn’t selling. Displaying it more prominently didn’t achieve anything, nor did increased efforts by her sales staff. Exasperated, she gave her sales manager instructions to mark the lot down “x?” and departed on a buying trip. On her return, she found that the manager misread the note and had mistakenly doubled the price of the items—and sold the lot.2 In this case,

shoppers almost certainly didn’t base their purchases on an absolute maximum price. Instead, t hey made inferences from the price about the jewelry’s quality, which generated a context-specific willingness to pay.

The power of this kind of relative positioning explains why marketers sometimes benefit from offering a few clearly inferior options. Eve n if they don’t sell, they may increase sales of slightly better products the store really wants to move. Similarly, many restaurants find that the second-most-expensive bottle of wine is very popular—and so is the second-cheapest. Customers who buy the former feel they are getting something special but not going over the top. Those who buy the latter feel they are getting a bargain but not being cheap. Sony found the same thing with headphones: consumers buy them at a given price if there is a more expensive option—but not if they are the most expensive option on offer.

Another way to position choices relates not to the products a company offers but to the way it displays them. Our research suggests, for instance, that ice cream shoppers in grocery stores look at the brand first, flavor second, and price last. Organizing supermarket aisles according to way consumers prefer to buy specific products makes customers both happier and less likely to base their purchase decisions on price—allowing retailers to sell higher-priced, higher-margin products. (This explains why aisles are rarely organized by price.) For thermostats, by contrast, people generally start with price, then function, and finally brand. The merchandise layout should therefore be quite different.

Marketers have long been aware that irrationality helps shape consumer behavior. Behavioral economics can make that irrationality more predictable. Understanding exactly how small changes to the details of an offer can influence the way people react to it is crucial to unlocking significant value—often at very low cost.

不可或缺的营销四技巧

多年来，营销商一直在运用行为经济学，但往往是不自觉地运用。一种更系统的做法则能为营销商开发出巨大的价值。

早在行为经济学成为一门学说之前，营销者就已经在使用它了。“买三送一”的招揽和延长付款时间的“先用后付”计划已被商家广泛采用，之所以这样，是因为这些做法很有效，而并不是因为营销商做了什么科学研究，证明了人们更喜欢得到看似免费的奖励，不那么喜欢同等程度的价格折扣，或是证明了人们在考虑将来的后果时常常表现得不理性。然而，尽管营销在运用行为经济学原理方面无意间走到了前头，但却很少有商家能够以系统的方法来运用这些原理。本文重点介绍了四种实用的营销技巧，它们应成为每一位营销商不可缺少的工具。

1. 减轻人们花钱买产品时的心痛感

几乎在每一项购买决策中，消费者都可以选择不买：他们总是可以把钱留下来，改日再买。正因为如此，营销商的任务不仅仅是打败竞争对手，而且还要说服购物者从一开始就掏出钱来。根据经济学原理，对于我们花出的每一元钱，支付的痛感应该都是同样的剧烈。不过，在营销实践中，许多因素会影响人们如何看待一元钱的价值，影响他们在花这一元钱时痛感的程度。

零售商都知道，让消费者推迟付款的安排能极大地提高买家的购买意愿。推迟付款之所以有效，其中的一个原因是非常符合逻辑的：金钱的时间价值使得将来付款比立即付款更便宜。但这种现象的背后，还有另外一个不是那么理性的原因。付款，就像所有其他损失一样，让人本能地觉得不爽。但此时此刻的情感体验是极其重要的。所以，即使是略微推迟付款，也能减轻马上拿钱出去的那种刺痛感，从而消除阻止人们购买的一个大障碍。

另一个能够最大程度地减轻付款痛苦的方法是，了解“心理会计”影响购买决策的各种方式。消费者会将他们从不同来源获得的钱划分到不同的“心理账户”中，而不是像经济学家认为他们会或应该的那样，平等地看待所拥有的每一元钱。常见的“心理账户”有意外之财、零花钱、收入和储蓄等。通常，意外之财和零花钱是消费者最容易花出去的钱。收入不太容易花出去，而花掉储蓄是最难的。

技术创造了一些利用“心理会计”的新领域，让消费者和营销商都受益。例如，信用卡营销商可以提供一项基于互联网或移动设备的应用，向消费者实时反馈支

出与预先确定的预算及收入类别的比较情况，比如说，绿色表示低于预算，红色表示超出预算等等。这些账户的设置并不完全符合理性，但对预算十分在意的消费者可能会觉得这类账户很有价值，并且把支出集中在利用这类账户的卡上。这样，不仅能增加发卡公司的交易费收入和融资收益，还能让发卡公司更好地了解其客户的总体财务状况。当然，这样一项应用程序最终能够为那些希望量入为出的消费者做出真正的贡献。

2. 利用默认选择的力量

有压倒多数的证据表明，如果提供一种选择作为默认选择，会提高这种选择被选中的可能性。默认选择是人们不用费心劳神就能得到的选择，它起作用的部分原因在于，让人们在任何购买发生之前产生了一种拥有感，因为我们从收获中得到的快乐没有从等价的失去中感受的痛苦那么强烈。当我们被默认地“给予”某样东西时，它就变得比原来没有被“给予”时更有价值，因此，我们更不愿意失去它。

精明的营销商可以利用这些原理。例如，一家意大利电信公司在顾客打电话要取消服务时，却成功地提高了向顾客提供该服务的接受率。一开始，顾客会听到一段录音告诉他们说，如果他们继续接受服务，则可获得100次免费电话。后来，这段录音改为：“我们已经向您的账户赠送100次电话，您打算如何使用呢？”结果，许多顾客不想放弃他们觉得自己已经拥有的免费通话时间。

当决策者在考虑他们的选择时觉得无所谓、困惑或矛盾时，默认选择最能发挥作用。在一个充斥着大量选择的世界里，这个原理尤其有用，一项默认选择可以让人们不必再费力作出决定。不过，对大多数人来说，这个默认选择必须是一个好的选择。如果试图误导顾客，最后只会适得其反，导致顾客的不信任。

3. 切勿让选择压垮消费者

如果不可能给出一项默认选择，营销商必须警惕“选择超载”，这会降低消费者购买的可能性。在一个经典的现场实验中，某家食品店的顾客可以品尝24种果酱，而另一些食品店的顾客只可以品尝6种。24种果酱吸引了更多顾客去品尝，但购买的人却很少。相比之下，虽然停下来品尝6种果酱的顾客相对较少，但该群体贡献的销售额却高出5倍以上。

店内品种繁多至少在两个方面对营销商不利。首先，太多的选择让消费者更

难找到自己喜欢的品种，对购买造成潜在阻碍。其次，大量的品种会增加每个选择都被“负面光环”笼罩的可能性，“负面光环”是一种被强化的感觉，好像每种选择都会让你放弃一些你想要的而且其他某个产品可以提供的功能。减少选择的数量不仅会提高人们做出决定的可能性，而且会让人们对自己的选择感觉更满意。

4. 精心定位首推品种

经济学家认为，每一种东西都有一个价格：你的花钱意愿也许比我高，但我们每个人都有一个愿意支付的最高价格。然而，营销商定位一个产品的方式却有可能打破这个公式。以一家珠宝店老板的经历为例，在她店里寄售的绿松石珠宝卖得不好。把这款珠宝放在显著位置也没有起什么作用，销售人员努力推销也无济于事。一怒之下，她指示销售经理将这批珠宝的标价降低一半，然后就出门去购物旅行了。当她回来时，她发现销售经理看错了她留下的便条，阴差阳错地把价格调高了一倍，结果把这批珠宝都卖掉了。在这个例子中，购物者显然不是根据某个绝对的最高价格来购买的。相反，他们根据价格来推断珠宝的质量，从而产生特定环境下的一种花钱意愿。

这种相对定位的力量解释了为何营销商有时候能够从提供几种明显低劣的产品选择中获益。即使这些品种卖得不好，但它们可以增加那些稍微好一些产品的销量，而后者正是商店想要卖出去的品种。类似地，许多餐馆发现第二贵的瓶装红酒非常受欢迎，还有第二便宜的瓶装红酒也是这样。购买前者的顾客觉得自己得到某种特别的东西，但又不至于太过分。购买后者的顾客觉得自己买到了便宜货，但又不显得小气。索尼公司在耳机产品上也发现了同样的现象：如果还有另一种更贵的产品，消费者就会按照特定价格购买这些产品，然而，同样是这种特定价格，如果这些产品是最贵的，消费者就不会购买。

另一种定位各种选择的方式与企业提供哪些产品无关，而是与产品的陈列方式有关。例如，我们的研究表明，食品超市里的冰淇淋购买者首先看品牌，然后看口味，最后才是看价格。根据顾客喜欢购买的产品来布置超市的通道，这样不仅让顾客更愉快，而且降低了顾客根据价格来作出购买决策的可能性，从而使商家能够卖出价格和利润更高的产品。这解释了为什么货架很少按照商品价格来布置。相比之下，人们在购买恒温器时，一般首先看价格，然后是功能，最后看品牌。因此，这种商品的布置应采取截然不同的方式。

营销商很早就知道，消费者的行为受到非理性因素的影响。行为经济学能够提高非理性因素的可预测性。如果能够确切了解产品细节上的小小变动如何影响人们对它的反应，则往往能够以很低的代价释放出巨大的价值。