Valentine’s Day Warning to Companies:Extolling Love Extinguishes Sales

Newswise — Near Valentine’s Day, images of romance are everywhere in every store, every site and part of every promotion. However, research from consumer psychologist Lisa Cavanaugh, assistant professor at the USC Marshall School of Business, reveals how the practice of highlighting relationships in advertising and promotions can have negative consequences for sales and consumers’ willingness to indulge themselves. Cavanaugh’s research “Because I (Don’t) Deserve It: How Relationship Reminders and Deservingness Influence Consumer Indulgence,” can be found in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Marketers regularly remind consumers of valued social relationships — romantic couples, close friends and family — in order to influence choice and consumption. Cavanaugh’s research explores an understudied influence — relationship reminders — and identifies a novel factor — perceived deservingness — that predicts consumers’ propensity to indulge.

Cavanaugh looked at how those individuals without particular relationships responded to marketing imbued with relationship reminders. She found that reminding consumers of relationships they don’t have reduces their perceptions of deservingness and triggers them to restrict their own indulgent consumption. This means they spend less money, choose lower-end brands of products and opt for lower-calorie foods. Those effects may be particularly profound during certain times of year, such as holidays and wedding season, when the portrayal of relationships is especially prominent in advertisements.

Methodology:

In seven experiments, Cavanaugh used different types of relationship reminders (advertisements, greeting cards, magazine articles and scenarios), measured multiple indulgent choices (personal care products, clothing and accessories) and tested the hypotheses with student and adult populations. Her findings demonstrate the robustness of the effect of deservingness on indulgence.

In one study conducted during the week before Valentine’s Day, each consumer viewed electronic greeting cards that emphasized one of two close relationship types, either romantic or platonic. Next, the participants were presented with a shopping task, choosing from economy, mid-range or higher-end brands of lip balm, shampoo, hand cream and fragrance. Finally, they indicated their current relationship status.

The results surprisingly revealed that reminders of romantic relationships caused single consumers to choose fewer high-end personal care products than their coupled counterparts. But the implications reach beyond the romantic relationship. When single consumers were reminded of close platonic relationships, they indulged as much as coupled individuals because singles have that type of valued relationship.

Implications: “Marketers may need to rethink the prevalent practice of using images of idealized relationships to sell everything from cookies to cameras,” Cavanaugh said, “because many consumers don’t have those relationships. By reminding people of relationships they don’t have, marketers inadvertently make consumers feel undeserving — less worthy of treating and rewarding themselves.”

This lack of perceived deservingness causes consumers to restrict their own indulgence across a wide range of products. Cavanaugh’s studies show that reminding consumers of relationships they don’t have, whether through a promotional email, an advertisement or a conversation in a retail store, changes which brands they buy. The effect on indulgence is not simply restricted to the brand or product advertised.

“Perceived deservingness carries over to affect subsequent choices across multiple product categories, everything from the foods you choose to the amount of money you’re willing to spend on clothing, accessories and even personal care products across retailers,” Cavanaugh said.

“By reminding consumers of relationships they do not have, marketers may not be simply mis-targeting but also self-handicapping,” Cavanaugh said. “Marketers may think of these relationship reminders as aspirational, that is, suggesting that their brand or product will be able to help you achieve the type of life you’ve always wanted. But in fact, the reactions of consumers I’ve observed in my research tell a very different story — relationship reminders often cause consumers to feel undeserving and restrict indulgence. Singles need to feel the love from marketers, too.”

Widespread images in popular culture indicate singles are supposed to console themselves with consumption. Who can forget the scenes from movies like “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Sex and the City,” that show sad singles like Bridget Jones polishing off an entire quart of ice cream or Carrie Bradshaw drowning her single gal sorrows with some NYC retail therapy? It seems like singles should indulge more, right? Cavanaugh says not necessarily.

“That misconception is what makes these findings so fascinating,” Cavanaugh said. “This evidence regarding perceived deservingness as a driver of indulgence runs counter to what existing theories and pop culture might predict about the salience of social relationships and indulgence. It is commonly assumed that when people lack valued relationships, they will feel lonely or sad and indulge more, through shopping or eating. My theory and findings based on deservingness suggest a very different pattern of behavior: Individuals choose in ways consistent with their perceptions of deservingness.”