How grocery store samples leave us wanting more

Every grocery store knows that a hungry shopper is likely to buy more. On the other side are product marketers who would love to stuff customers with samples of specific items to obtain converts to their brands. Retailers worry: could food and product sampling sate hunger, and with it, the desire to fill the grocery basket?

 Baba Shiv, professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford, Calif., has found evidence that product sampling in fact can do what a good French appetizer is intended to do: whet the appetite for more, even in someone who was not hungry to begin with. Not only can sampling stimulate the desire for more of the same product, but it can also spark an overall desire for anything pleasurable. Such a phenomenon is likely, then, to stimulate buying.

In a series of four studies conducted by Shiv and his colleagues, students were given small samples of a sweet drink or chocolate, and another group nothing, before having them settle down to watch a film in a room with a selection of readily available food or drink items. Those who had been “cued” with the samples consistently ate and drank more during the film than those who hadn’t.

One study also indicated that presenting people with a good-tasting sample may activate a general motivation for anything rewarding. Those offered a sweet drink sample not only drank more soda during the film, but also afterward indicated a stronger desire for a series of consumer goods and experiences. The effect was the greatest for pleasure-oriented items.

Working off the hunch that brain chemistry might be at play, at the start of this particular study Shiv and his colleagues rated people on the behavior activation system (BAS) scale, a self-assessed measure of one’s tendency to “go for what one wants.” Sure enough, test-subjects who scored higher on the BAS scale consumed the most soda, led by those given the sweet drink sample beforehand. When asked afterward to rate their desire for several consumer products and experiences, these same participants also recorded the highest overall ratings.

In a final study, participants who sniffed a good-smelling substance (scented spray) drank more soda than those who sniffed a neutral-smelling substance (water), and far more than those who sniffed a bad-smelling compound (ammonia).

One noteworthy finding was that once the whetted appetite is sated, the effects of taste or odor samples don’t linger. The marketing implication is that customers who taste a morsel of cheese may reward themselves quickly by buying something luxurious and be done with it. Retailers, Shiv suggests, therefore may want to set up sample stations at strategic locations within a store to keep stimulating in customers the urge to indulge themselves.

Overall, however, the results of the studies suggest that stores can’t go wrong by making samples available. An ounce of mango salsa may turn out to be worth a pound of caviar.

Presidents remembered for the good and the bad

When shown a list of all U.S. presidents since and including Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked to pick the best, more people (25 percent) pick Ronald Reagan than any other president. However, this support is lopsidedly partisan. Fifty percent of Republicans choose Reagan compared to only 6 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of Independents, according to research from Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive.
 When asked to say who they think was the worst president since World War II, many more people (34 percent) choose George W. Bush than anyone else. Here again the replies are strongly partisan. Fifty-eight percent of Democrats and 37 percent of Independents, but only 9 percent of Republicans, think George W. Bush the worst recent president.

When asked to choose the best presidents in U.S. history from a list including all recent presidents and some of the other most famous presidents, a 20 percent plurality choose Abraham Lincoln, and a further 13 percent pick him as the second best. Ronald Reagan comes second on the list (14 percent see him as the best and 11 percent as the second best), ahead of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, George Washington, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman or Theodore Roosevelt.

It may be worth noting that perceptions of previous presidents change and will continue to change as time passes - with Harry Truman often mentioned as an example of a president whose reputation has improved over time.

Do birds of a political feather flock together?

Americans often know a wide variety of people quite different from themselves. However, this level of familiarity doesn’t extend equally to all groups, especially in the realm of political affiliation, according to study results from Ellison Research, Phoenix.

The study asked Americans whether (and how well) they know a variety of different kinds of people. Relationships fell into four different categories: you currently know someone like this very well, you currently know someone like this casually, you used to know someone like this and you have never known someone like this.

Many Americans do not know anyone from the opposite side of the political spectrum. Just 47 percent of Americans who do not call themselves politically conservative say they know someone very well who is a conservative, while 24 percent have never known a conservative. Similarly, 42 percent of all adults who do not call themselves politically liberal know a liberal individual, while 25 percent have never known a liberal.

Liberals and conservatives are about equally likely to isolate themselves from the other side. Fifty percent of political conservatives don’t currently know any liberals very well, and 43 percent of political liberals don’t know any conservatives very well. Interestingly, political moderates are much more likely than people on either end of the spectrum to mix primarily with their own kind. Sixty percent of all moderates don’t know any conservatives very well, and 65 percent aren’t well acquainted with any liberals.