Reading Weird Behavior: Why do coffee shops dare to sell 10 pieces of mineral water? The anchoring effect is at work.

Why do some coffee shops dare to sell 10 pieces of mineral water? And put it in a conspicuous position? Does the boss know that no one is buying it? He knows very well, but the purpose is not to sell water, but to sell more coffee.

The principle behind this is the anchoring effect. In the words of friends, it means "I would rather buy expensive ones than expensive ones". This paper will comprehensively introduce the power of anchoring effect.

The anchoring effect was first put forward by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.

In the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, there is a chapter devoted to anchoring effect, but I don't think it is as profound and readable as Weird Behavior.

The author of Weird Behavior is dan ariely, who is also a diehard behavioral economist at MIT. In this book, he gave you a lot of research on behavioral economics, and the second chapter introduced the anchoring effect in detail, which I think is the most wonderful part of this book.

In order to make the context of the article clearer, I rearranged the contents of weird behavior and thinking speed. So the content of this article will be different from that in the book. I believe this is the deepest article about anchoring effect.

The anchoring effect means that when we make decisions, we will rely too much on the information we got at the beginning. This initial message is "anchor".

In order to experience the anchoring effect more intuitively, let's do a small test first.

Test 1: Please estimate 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 =?

Test 2: Please estimate 8X7x6x5x3x2x1=?

You may find that these two formulas are exactly the same, but do you estimate the same result? Kahneman did the same experiment on two groups of high school students in 1974:

The correct answer is 40320, but the focus of this experiment is not whether they are correct or not, but the estimation difference between group A and group B, which is four times worse.

The first few figures in the formula become the anchor of students' estimation, which makes them unconsciously underestimate or overestimate the final result.

You might say: this is too academic. In reality, there is enough time to calculate slowly. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, but the anchoring effect is far more than that.

The author of Weird Behavior made a famous experiment:

The result is very interesting: the bigger the last two social security numbers, the higher the average bid.

At the same time, when bidding for similar products, students will refer to the bidding of another similar product. For example, the relative prices of two kinds of wine and two kinds of computer accessories are logical. Everyone's bid for the keyboard is higher than that for the trackball, and the bid for wine in 1996 is higher than that in 1998.

This means that the anchor can be set artificially. In this experiment, the last two digits of the social security number are the anchors set by the author for students. After being anchored, students' initial decision-making and subsequent decision-making are affected.

There are also many applications in real life. The most common thing is that merchants deliberately set a price anchor and then make other things look more cost-effective.

For example, a coffee shop sells Nongfu Spring 10 yuan. After seeing it, you may think:1Who will buy mineral water in 0 yuan? It is true that few people will buy it, but mineral water is 10 yuan, and coffee in 30 yuan is not so expensive.

Similar anchors include expensive and conspicuous dishes in the menu, obviously uneconomical high or low matching in the same car, always more expensive monthly price, and seemingly more cost-effective recharge package in the game.

The next time you feel "who will buy such a worthless thing", you may find that an anchor carefully designed by the merchant may quietly change your decision.

The author did another interesting experiment:

Therefore, you may have guessed:

In this experiment, students don't know whether listening to recitation is a pleasant or painful experience, and then the author anchors the direction of bidding (paying or receiving money) through a simple question.

Moreover, once the direction is determined, future decisions will keep the direction and logic consistent. Students in group A will pay more for longer recitation, but students in group B will ask for more money.

In real life, this anchor that affects the direction often exists in the form of first impression.

How's Tik Tok? Is the tiger a straight community? How much is the product? Is there much food in Changsha? Are there many beautiful women in Sichuan? Is that colleague reliable? Do I like TA?

These tendentious questions are the anchors themselves, and the direction of the anchors will affect your subsequent decisions and judgments. So we should pay special attention to what is the first message to others and what is the first question that others will think of.

The author introduces the self-herding effect in the book, saying that we tend to make the same decisions as in the past.

For example, we tend to order the same brand of milk tea, buy similar styles of clothes and watch similar TV dramas. This is not difficult to understand, because it is a convenient and safe practice.

However, in this process, the initial decision, that is, the anchor, will continue to strengthen in subsequent decisions, so that you are too lazy to think about it later, just repeating the last decision without thinking.

The book gives examples of Starbucks coffee (expensive and delicious) and Duncan doughnut shop coffee (cheap and tasteless) in the 1980s.

When we first tried Starbucks, it was an accidental or deliberate chance, "Eh, delicious". With a good experience for the first time, you are more likely to try Starbucks again next time. Once you start repeating this process, subsequent decisions will become more and more mindless until they become your habit.

But the interesting thing here is that when we first decided whether to try Starbucks, our anchor should be Duncan Donut Coffee, so why should we transfer the anchor to Starbucks?

This is what we will discuss next.

The author introduces two possible ways of anchor transfer:

Don't laugh, this is really a way. The example given by the author is oil price: the rise of oil price will really affect demand in the short term, but with the passage of time, everyone will gradually adapt to the new price (forget the old price) and the demand level will return to the previous level.

What the author didn't mention, however, is that there is another situation that is easier to appear than completely forgetting, and that is, "I can't remember."

For example, when shopping in the live broadcast room, anchors like to use the strategy of snapping up in a limited time. In this race against time environment, you are more likely to be guided by the content of the anchor. Your mind is full of specials emphasized by the anchor, so naturally you can't remember the old anchor, or even a batch of goods you just hoarded.

Another way to transfer the anchor is differentiation, which is completely different from the original anchor. For example, in the 1980s, Starbucks' coffee taste, product price and store decoration were significantly higher than those of Duncan Donuts.

Sounds hollow, doesn't it? Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, gave many detailed ideas in the book Injecting Heart, which was very well written. Let me quote directly, with a slight deletion:

Starbucks not only provides high-quality coffee, but also provides emotional value. This experience is so different from other coffee shops that consumers will not ask Starbucks about the low price of Duncan donuts, but will turn Starbucks into a new anchor point to measure other coffee shops.

Looking back, we know these things:

These things are closely linked and have a far-reaching impact on us. Next, I will briefly talk about several aspects.

Challenge to traditional economics

The author thinks that the existence of anchoring effect greatly challenges the price theory of traditional economics, which holds that supply and demand are independent of each other and price is the result of the balance of these two forces.

However, the anchoring effect reflects that consumers' needs are not independent and are easily influenced and manipulated. Consumers can't grasp their preferences and the price they are willing to pay, so they are easily influenced by the anchor.

At the same time, the anchoring effect also reflects the interaction between supply and demand. In the real world, anchors also come from suggested retail price/advertising price/promotion/product discount and so on. Moreover, the market price itself in turn affects consumers' willingness to buy. A typical example is the double 1 1 shopping festival.

All these show that demand is not completely independent of supply.

But it's not here. The anchoring effect also reveals our demand and sensitivity to price, not based on preference, but on memory. This analysis is wonderful, and I quote directly:

Impact on merchants/product personnel

The anchoring effect tells us that when we provide products to consumers/users, we should first look for their inner anchors.

We can find this anchor through a simple investigation, and then compare our products with this anchor to see if our products can form obvious differences at a certain key point. For example, vitality forest vs traditional carbonated drinks, healthy. Huawei mobile phone vs Apple mobile phone, take photos. Pinduoduo vs Taobao, price.

If you can't find this "key point differentiation", then maybe this field is not worth doing.

If you find it, but consumers need to pay higher prices, then the differentiation of key points may not be enough. You need to become a new anchor and master the pricing power.

To be a new anchor, you need to be completely different from the old anchor in all aspects and create new experiences. For example, Starbucks vs Duncan coffee shop, Xicha vs other milk tea, Tesla vs fuel car, Apple mobile phone vs other mobile phones.

This explains why consumer brands like to target young people around the age of 20, because these young people have just started to consume independently, their past anchors are weak, and their understanding of many consumer goods is still vague. Therefore, their anchors are easy to transfer. Once transferred, they will strengthen their existence through repeated purchases until they become loyal users of the brand.

Reflect on yourself.

The anchoring effect has too many warnings for us personally. Our decisions and judgments are so easily influenced, so how many decisions or judgments are wise?

Is it possible that we think a well-thought-out decision is just a dead end in the wrong direction? Do we think that following our inner decisions may be the result of manipulation? Is it possible that our long-standing habit stems from an accidental anchoring?

But as long as we are aware of this phenomenon, its effect on us is very limited. So the next time we want to make a big decision, we might as well look at it carefully from multiple angles and ask ourselves, "How did I make this decision?" ?

Anchoring effect is very common in life, and it has many applications in price, marketing, communication, products and so on. And there is still a lot to discuss in detail. So when I wrote this article, I deleted it several times, for fear of superficiality and writing too much.

Finally, beyond the number of words, thank you very much for reading here. I hope this article is helpful to you. I will continue to study the influence of psychological effects on business and products in the future. Remember to praise it and pay attention to it?