Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Marketing Food

The mystery of the “short” cappuccino. – By Tim Harford – Slate Magazine
The difficulty is that if some of your products are cheap, you may lose money from customers who would willingly have paid more. So, businesses try to discourage their more lavish customers from trading down by making their cheap products look or sound unattractive, or, in the case of Starbucks, making the cheap product invisible.

This is a pretty interesting discussion of product pricing in general (and Starbucks in particular.) I try to be alert to the psychology involved in labeling and pricing stuff but I’m certainly not immune to that kind of manipulation. I realize, for example, that I tend to gravitate towards canned products with red or green labels. Those are colors of healthy kinds of food, right? They invoke memories of good flavors. White food labels don’t attract me and, in the grocery stores where I shop, the white labels are usually found on the lower-priced canned foods. (And those foods are generally found on the lower shelves where we’re less likely to see them.)

The trick is to be aware of these marketing techniques. And read ingredients on the foods you buy. I’m an old hand at that. As a vegetarian, you learn to be vigilant about reading labels. It’s amazing the number of things that have meat products in them: crackers with chicken fat, soups with chicken or beef broth, yogurts with gelatin added.

Yuck.

Anyway, my point is this: Like pretty much every other kind of retailer, grocers will happily screw you if given the opportunity. Example: the Food Lion grocery store chain is splitting into two different types of stores in our area. One of the renamed stores, called “Bloom”, is supposed to cater to a more up-scale (wealthier) customer. We’ve got one of these new “Bloom” stores near our house. The interior of the store has been painted a richer color. The display shelves are a bit nicer. The lighting is warmer. The prices are higher. About a mile away from the “Bloom” is one of the other spin-off stores, called “Bottom Dollar”. I visited that store last week and it’s not very different from the original Food Lion store. The lighting is bright fluorescent and the shelving is very basic. There are fewer choices but the prices are significantly lower. Morningstar Farms products that cost $3.99 at the old Food Lion cost only $2.99 at Bottom Dollar.

Now, I ask you, why would I buy these staple products at Bloom when I can get them for so much less only a mile further along the road at Bottom Dollar? It’s got to be a combination of things involved with self-perception and our (often flawed) idea of value: I’m wealthy enough to pay more for my food. I’m classy enough to buy the “better” brand — whether it’s actually better or not. I want to shop at a store where I don’t have to rub elbows with poorer people. I want to shop at a store where the colors are calming — and when I’m feeling calm and relaxed I’m more likely to spend more time at the store (and will probably buy more.)

Whatever. It’s something to think about.