Following the lecture discussing product placement, I was intrigued to explore these concepts in my own life by taking notice of product placement around me. Does placement really matter? Will the Placement of a product effect whether one buys it or not?

I decided to focus on a single product-the Cadbury DairyMilk chocolate collection. I went around to various supermarkets and convenience stores, and took pictures of where this product was placed. I then went on to analyze my findings.

The pictures below were taken at the small convenience store located in UBC’s Student Union Building.

This was a rather small store, and the DairyMilk chocolates were located both at the front of the store as well at the side of the store (on the right). The reason for the placement at the front was ‘impulse purchase,’ which is an unplanned decision to buy a product right before a purchase-a ‘whim’ purchase. The store attempted to create a ‘candy aisle,’ which was in the centre of the store; this is clever, as it allows those who know they want chocolate an easy access.

The next thing I noticed were the products located around the chocolate.The key is to consider what audience will most likely buy chocolate. A vital target segment for chocolate would be children, and therefore they may have placed the candy aisle next to the toy aisle, if the store happened to sell toys.
If the company was targeting women, they could have placed the chocolate next to sanitary napkins, make-up, or even gossip magazines.

When looking at the first and third picture, we notice deodorant, ziplock bags, chips, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc, located around the product. I challenge this centre-right placement, as chocolate should not be placed next to oral hygiene products (toothbrushes/toothpaste) because it reminds the audience of cavities and may deter them from purchasing the product. Even the DairyMilk ‘impulse purchase’ placement could be improved for the company, as it is currently at the bottom of the front shelf, and should be at the top; people are more likely to pick from the top than the bottom as it is more convenient, and they are more likely to see it.

The pictures below were taken at the Staples stationary store in the UBC Village.

The pictures below were taken at a relatively small Safeway on Granville Street in Marpole, Vancouver.

I have learnt through my exploration that it is key to have the product: in a convenient location, located next to the right products, located in easily seen areas. Overall, my qualitative research has illustrated that placement is vital, and definitely influences buying decisions. If I am ever trying to sell a product I will remember that PLACEMENT IS KEY!

In response to an external source’s (Seth’s) blog “BIG PROMISES CAN LEAD TO BETTER EXPERIENCES”-http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/11/big-promises-lead-to-better-experiences.html– I would like to elaborate on his theory that big promises lead to higher satisfaction.

Seth begins by stating that a $75 bottle of wine tastes better than a $14 dollar one, even if you switch the wine they hold. He explains that this is due to “the promise implied in the price,” which actually “changes the way we experience the product”.

I completely agree with this, and believe it to be true because of the fact that humans are psychological beings. We often rationalize things in our favour; so if we pay $75 for a bottle of wine, in order to justify our behaviour of spending so much on a bottle, we say “if it’s $75, it MUST be good wine!” and therefore it’s worth it.

I believe human beings often rely on others to think for them, and instead of analyzing quality and doing research on products ourselves, we depend on signals to do the work for us. In this case a “signal” could be the price, and the signal provides us with the comfort that the product is of good quality. If the price is high, we automatically believe that it must be something worth paying that much for. For instance, usually people don’t want to be cheap with the meat they buy because it could make them sick, and so we rely on the signal of price to determine if the meat is of high quality.

Seth expresses that we should keep in mind that people tend to  have better experiences when they expect to have a better experience, and goes on to say “to hold back on your promise is to deprive your customer of something valuable”.

I both agree and disagree to what he is saying. I do think when we expect to have better experiences they turn out more satisfying; for example, if a salesperson at the Apple store raves about how wonderful and well-suited the macbook air is for students, I would have high expectations of the machine. In turn, I would get that expected utility as I would  refer back to the salesperson’s confidence, which was, in itself, an indirect promise of it’s high quality.
However this could also turn out to be detrimental, in that if the promise is UNREALISTIC, I, as a customer, would end up feeling disappointed. As we learnt in class, if unrealstic expectations/promises are built (e.g. this product will make you lose 100 lbs a day), I would not go back to the seller.

Sources:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com
http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/most-expensive-wine-1.jpg