Can Product Negative Information Promote Sales?

Several generations of marketers are practising the traditional wisdom of "Wang Po selling melon and selling their own praises". After all, why should we let

Baba Nelisiwe, Professor of business at Stanford University, BabaShiv, associate professor Zachary Thomalla (Zakary Tormala) and Danit Ein-Gar of Tel Aviv University, found that a small amount of mild negative information may actually enhance the positive impression of consumers on products or services, which is the so-called "blemishing effect".

This study will change the conventional way of marketers, such as changing online advertising (content) and

"As long as the negative information about the product is relatively small, the promotion to consumers may be more convincing, especially when consumers have already made some positive impression on products and services."

Professor Xie Wei said.

Why? When consumers have developed enough positive impressions, the negative information will highlight their positive image and even add icing on the cake.

This strengthens the influence of positive information and more positive evaluation.

However, it is only effective when consumers are "lowprocessing". They are less serious about consumer products.

If consumers find negative information before discovering positive information, or if there are too many negative information, they will fail.

The researchers convened four groups of consumers and volunteers.

Each group considered a purchase decision: climbing shoes (in two separate groups with different methods), chocolate bars, champagne cups.

In each study, volunteers were told about the positive and negative facts about the product to study the difference between "low" and "high" processing.

In order to ensure that volunteers' evaluation of product attributes was consistent with researchers' research, the study made predictions and asked subjects to evaluate the various functions of the product.

In the first study, some participants were told that climbing shoes had many advantages, including excellent designers, waterproof, complimentary shoelaces, and various colors.

The other subjects got the same information, but they were told that the shoes had only two colors.

The researchers found that when distracted, volunteers were more interested in mountaineering shoes with some advantages and some shortcomings. But when volunteers were absorbed in their work, they had the opposite effect. They preferred the "perfect" shoes.

Another study was conducted in a hot summer, and the scene was set on a campus selling chocolate bars.

Chocolate bars have many desirable functions - they are easy to be frozen and folded in half.

All the students heard the same positive information, but some were told that Qiao Ke sticks were broken.

The difference is that some students are entering the classroom to take the exam while others are walking on campus easily. The former is "low participation" and the latter is "highly involved".

The result is similar to the case of climbing shoes.

Those who are about to take exams buy more when they know that chocolate is broken; students who stroll only buy more when they know positive information.

As a whole, this series of research is very different from earlier research on purchasing behavior, which can correct the strategies used by marketers.

It is still more noticeable to encourage careful thinking and to present unique positive information.

However, in the low participation purchase behavior, most online advertisements display some negative information but have advantages.