Scholarly Insights: AMA’s digest of the latest findings from marketing’s top researchers
Cost-conscious consumers tend to make purchases based on necessity and practicality, choosing more utilitarian (functional) options of both goods and services. But it turns out, with the right delivery, advertisers can sway consumer preferences toward more hedonic (fun) choices and even increase the amount consumers are willing to pay for them.
In a new study from the Journal of Marketing, authors Anne Roggeveen and colleagues offer some powerful new findings showing that video (dynamic) presentation formats consistently outperform still (static) images for products and services marketed for fun, leisure, and entertainment.
Like a free sample or trial, videos can provide the consumer with an experiential interaction with products and services. Videos, however, have the added benefit of allowing the marketer to maximize the appeal of their marketed service or product through lighting, make-up, music, and so forth. While some of these things still apply with static representations, the dynamic quality of a video and its ability to more closely simulate and frame an actual experience is much more immersive.
“The emergence of options such as YouTube, Vine, and Instagram gives marketers a variety of tools for displaying dynamic presentation formats. Recent social media measurements have indicated that videos tend to be liked and shared more than text-based updates,… and even brick-and-mortar retailers increasingly use display technologies to expose shoppers to dynamic rather than static displays.” There are certainly no shortage of options for the inventive marketer, and the online medium provides a nearly endless palette on which to enact some of these dynamic marketing strategies.
As the chart shows, both utilitarian and hedonic products and services experience an increase in consumer valuation when they are presented in a more dynamic format. Ultimately, however, marketers are likely to reap the greatest benefits when they combine video with products or services that emphasize recreation and fun. Even if your business traditionally serves more practical ends, video can work for you too: just try to put a little more fun in the functional.
People are willing to pay more for hedonically superior products/services when they are presented in a dynamic fashion.
Article Citation:
Anne L. Roggeveen, Dhruv Grewal, Claudia Townsend, and R. Krishnan (2015) “The Impact of Dynamic Presentation Format on Consumer Preferences for Hedonic Products and Services.” Journal of Marketing, In-Press.
Eden Ames is a digital content producer for the American Marketing Association. She may be reached at eames@ama.org.
Andy Seagram is the Journals Director for the American Marketing Association. You can reach him at aseagram@ama.org.