Imagine getting a promotion and being publicly praised by the boss for your hard work. On the way home, do you buy a fancy watch or comfy couch?
A research study into buying habits of "happy" consumers says you will probably go for the watch because its showiness complements your feeling of pride. Buy the bling, you’ve earned it.
The study, to be published in August in the Journal of Consumer Research but available now at Journals.UChicago.edu/jcr, also found that contentment makes consumers seek familiar places to "savour and integrate" their pleasant emotions.
When it comes to clothes, the person with pride buys flashy suits while the contented person picks track suits. One is for public display and approval, the other for private comfort and pleasure, says the study, titled "Rose-Coloured Glasses Have Many Shades."
Business professors at the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University asked participants to select which consumer products they would buy after reading short stories designed to induce pride or contentment. Those who read the pride story picked "display" products such as a watch, laptop, computer or shoes, while the contented group picked home products such as a bed, vacuum cleaner or dishwasher.
The researchers recommend that retailers use lighting, advertising, store displays and service to induce "a specific positive emotion."
Brent Barr, marketing professor at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, said 85% of our purchases are made "at the store counter," so the in-store experience is important.
He said stores can put up pictures of Olympic athletes, for example, or other heroes such as astronauts. This will induce pride in shoppers who "believe they have the same attributes."
Retailers who want to create an atmosphere of contentment–say, they sell track pants or furniture–"need places to sit and music that is not overwhelming."
David McDermid, co-ordinator of visual marketing for Seneca College, said stores draw shoppers inside by using flashy window displays–think Holt Renfrew–that showcase their wares. Here’s where the emotional shopping experience begins, he said.
His students practise window decorating at the community college. These days, they have Olympic-themed windows and windows dedicated to raising funds for Haiti relief. Both themes inspire pride, McDermid said, as they appeal to our nationalism as well as our altruism.
