To Compare or Not To Compare: That is a Question.How marketers can influence consumer decisions when they have and don’t have a feature-based competitive advantage

By Paul Conner
June 8, 2011
Our apologies to Bill Shakespeare for destroying his famous quote.  Perhaps we can recover by providing marketers some better-spoken advice related to selling their products and services.
Our advice is based upon well-founded research on “construal levels.”  Simply stated, construal levels refer to particular cognitive styles consumers use when they evaluate and decide whether or not to purchase a particular product or service.
Basically, two levels of construal are most often distinguished:
High construal means that people (i.e., consumers) process and evaluate stimuli (i.e., products/services) based on simple, general, and (often) absolute features.  When in high construal, consumers are less likely to compare and trade off the nitty-gritty details of products and services.  For instance, in high construal consumers may only consider how it feels to “Just Do It” when considering Nike apparel.
Low construal means that people (i.e., consumers) process and evaluate stimuli (i.e., products/services) based on detailed, specific, and (often) relative features.  When in low construal, consumers are more likely to compare and trade off the nitty-gritty details of products and services.  For instance, in low construal consumers may compare the higher cost of “Just Doing It” with Nike apparel to the lower cost of exercising adequately with Champion apparel.
In essence, these different construal levels influence the degree to which consumers compare and trade-off the features of competitive products and services.
These construal level findings provide marketers wonderful flexibility!  All else equal…

o   When their products or services compare well against the competitors’ features, marketers should create low construal and execute comparative, relative appeals.
o   When their products and services don’t compare well against the competitors’ features, marketers should create high construal and execute non-comparative, absolute appeals.
Recent support for this direction comes from the Khan, Zhu, and Kalra (2011) research referenced below.  In a series of studies in which they manipulated construal levels, they found that…

  • In a test of “the compromise effect,” consumers were more likely to choose a compromise product when in low construal (and less likely in high construal) because in low construal they focused on comparing product features, which more often drove them to the product with the most balanced feature set.  (High construal led consumers to more often choose a product with one salient positive feature, ignoring the trade-off its salient negative feature.)
  • In a test of the “background-contrast effect,” consumers were more likely to be influenced by a previous “background” choice when in low construal (and less likely in high construal) because in low construal they focused on comparing the background choice to the current choice, which accentuated the relatively more or less beneficial features of the current choice.  (As with the compromise effect test, high construal led consumers to more often choose a product with one salient positive feature, ignoring the trade-off of its salient negative feature.)
  • In a test of the “attraction effect” (aka, asymmetric dominance), consumers were less likely to prefer a slightly more beneficial product when in low construal (and more likely in high construal) because when they deliberately evaluated the product features, they realized that there was really not much difference.  (Note:  High construal led consumers to more often choose the slightly beneficial product because implicit, non-deliberative comparisons enhanced the appeal of this product beyond its slight but rational feature advantage.)

Given these results the question becomes – how do marketers put consumers in high vs. low construal levels? There are a number of ways, but Construal Level Research most often generalizes approaches around the concept of functional or psychological distance.  More specifically, this refers to (1) temporal distance (how near or far in time product delivery is), (2) spatial distance (how near or far in physical distance product delivery is), and (3) social distance (how near or far in status or personal relationship the product is).  (Note:  The Khan et al. studies reviewed here demonstrate choice effects of high and low construal levels created by temporal and spatial distance, but not social distance).
The general rule is that increasing functional or psychological distance raises the construal level.  For instance, to evoke higher construal via temporal distance have consumers think of life more in the distant future vs. the near future.  To evoke higher construal via spatial distance, have delivery or pick up of the product farther away vs. closer.
More succinctly stating practical applications of these results, Khan et al. say, “This research also makes important managerial contributions.  For example, we show that subtle marketing cues, such as retailer’s shipping and pick up policies, systematically influence the level of trade-offs and context effects in consumer choice.  The findings are notable given that most retailers emphasize closer pickup location and faster order delivery.  The results indicate that these strategies may not always be optimal.  For example, offering ground shipping, instead of overnight shipping, may actually make consumers more likely to buy a premium product rather than a counterpart in a middle price range.  Likewise, asking customers to pick up online orders at local stores that are farther away may lead to even greater choice share for dominating products in the market.”
So TO COMPARE OR NOT TO COMPARE – THAT IS A QUESTION – and the question to be considered in light of these construal level effects.  But caution is noted, lest marketers try to apply these results without taking into consideration other context effects.  What we know from recent “choice architecture” studies is that there are myriad context effects that must be considered.  Perhaps the best application of these results is to use them in testing different approaches for creating desired construal levels that lead to desired sales results.  For that purpose, Sentient Decision Science stands highly qualified and willing to help.
 
REFERENCES
Khan, U., Zhu, M., and Kalra, A.  (2011). When Trade-Offs Matter:  The Effect of Choice Construal on Context Effects.  Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (1), 62-71.
Fujita, K., Henderson, M.D., Eng, J., Trope, Y., and Liberman, N.  (2006). Spatial Distance and Mental Construal of Social Events.  Psychological Science, 17 (4), 278-282.
Liberman, N., Sagristano, M.D., and Trope, Y.  (2002). The Effect of Temporal Distance on Level of Mental Construal.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 523-534.

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