Not Hungry? How about the "Ladies' Cut" Steak?

Can the label used to describe the size of a steak dramatically influence your willingness to order it at a restaurant? Are we so affected by these labels that we won't buy a product just because of how its size is described? Seems ludicrous, right? But a ton of research on "reference group influence" has shown that we go out of our way to identify with certain groups and dissociate ourselves with other groups.

But in a study recently published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, authors Katherine White and Darren Dahl wanted to see whether our desire to avoid associating with certain groups can be used to manipulate our choices. Their experiment was simple. Subjects were asked to look at a menu and pick an item to eat. They were told they were in the mood for steak, but not too hungry. The menu they were given had a 12oz steak and a 10oz steak. The 12oz steak was always referred to as the "House Cut." However, for the 10oz, half the subjects saw it labeled as "Chef's Cut" and the other half saw it labeled as "Ladies' Cut." Just this labeling had a huge effect on men. When the 10 oz was called the "Chef's Cut," 47% chose this and 53% chose the 12 oz. However, when it was labeled "Ladies' Cut," only 5.3% chose the 10oz and 94.7% chose the larger "House Cut." If you are a restaurateur, here's an easy way to move people to a larger and more expensive item on your menu. For women, of course, the "ladies' cut" label had no effect on choice. Interestingly, men also rated the 12oz steak significantly more favorably than the 10oz steak in the "ladies' cut" condition, but not in the "chef's cut" condition. This effect was dramatically reduced when subjects in a follow-up experiment were told they would be having the dinner they ordered alone in their room. Thus, it was the concern for what other people would think (if a man ordered the "ladies' cut") that drove their choices.

Isn't it fascinating how just the label given to an item can so strongly affect our choices? It becomes particularly worrying when we consider how this tendency can be used to manipulate our choices. The use of reference groups in advertising (the cool people all use the product) is an application of this effect. A third study showed the effect of "ladies' cut" on men's choices was reduced for men who had low levels of "public self-consciousness." Perhaps the way to reduce obesity is to label all servings over a certain size the "Fat Man Meal" or something like that. Or, maybe if we were all a little less concerned about what other people think, we'd be less susceptible to such manipulation.

Is Your Life Worth 2 Minutes of Time?

One of the concepts covered in my consumer behavior class is called the "commitment/consistency principle" which basically suggests that once people make some form of commitment towards something, it is more likely they will agree to another similar request to stay consistent with their earlier commitment. If you can get someone to make some sort of physical commitment, it automatically causes a psychological commitment that can then be exploited (essentially you are able to "change their mind"). For example, it has long been known that petitions have the power to not just find out what people believe but to decide what they should believe.

Imagine a pleasant, smiling person someone comes up to you and says "Excuse me, would you be willing to sign this petition in favor of cleaner water in our state?" Most people (whether they know much about the issue or even care much about the state of water, are likely to agree to this request. Now imagine you get a call the next day thanking you for signing the petition and asking whether you will donate to the cause of cleaner water in the state. Would you contribute? Plenty of research on this "foot in the door" technique has shown that people who signed the petition are much more likely to contribute than those who didn't. The interesting part is that research has also shown that the people who sign the petition actually come to believe in the cause more than people who didn't sign the petition. So, such commitments can not only affect your future behavior, but also form attitudes about things where you earlier had no firm beliefs. One of the factors that make commitments more effective at changing future behavior is making the commitment "active" ( written or verbal instead of just mental).

That was all just background for the main point of this post. I recently saw a flyer in the mail for Gerber Life Insurance (or something like that) that had this dramatic headline "Isn't your child's future worth $1 a day?" and then proceeded to explain how for this small daily cost, your child could be insured in case something should happen to you. Just looking at this ad raised a simple question in my mind. Would it make any difference to the effectiveness of the campaign if the headline instead had read "Is your child's future worth $1 a day?" While the difference in the two headlines is trivial in semantic terms, I think the cognitive process of these two questions are different. The former is almost framed as a rhetorical question while the latter almost demands that the reader make an answer. My guess is that the latter would make for a more active commitment than the former and thus may be more effective. A third version could include two check boxes below the question with YES and NO as the two options. This again seems to enhance the need for the reader to respond and thereby make a more active commitment.

Why should you care? I have no idea. I think this would make for an interesting experiment and thought I would document this idea here for possible future use. Wouldn't it be interesting if changing TWO LETTERS in an ad could have a measurable impact on the effectiveness of the ad? This is the kind of stuff that fascinates me. Now you know.