What brands can learn from our failure to stick to diets
As ever, New Year sees many people trying to shed some of their Christmas pounds by dieting. However, many end up in February weighing just as much as they did at the beginning of the year.
Why do so many attempts at dieting fail? And more importantly, at least from an industry perspective, what can failed diets tell us about the best context in which to advertise products? The answer lies in a principle called “moral licensing”.
Social psychologists have long noted that when we adopt a positive behaviour in one area of life the benefits tend to be offset by over-compensation elsewhere. After acting virtuously people feel they’ve earned the right, or license, to indulge.
For example, people who increase their levels of exercise often negate the benefits by boosting the amount of junk food they consume.
The evidence for moral licensing is widespread. One of the most interesting experiments was conducted in 2011 by Chiou of Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan. Chiou recruited two groups of daily smokers who both received a course of placebo pills.
The first group knew what they were being given whilst the second group thought they were having multi-vitamin pills. After the course of pills was completed the groups returned and filled in an hour long survey about their behaviours. Those who thought they had taken multi-vitamins were less likely to have eaten healthily and exercised and more likely to have been binge drinking.
Of course, claimed data can be misleading. So Chiou surreptitiously monitored how many people lit up whilst filling in the survey. He found that those who had been on the supposed vitamin course were 50% more likely to smoke.
His explanation for this, was that those who had taken multi-vitamin pills thought they had done their bit in being healthy and were therefore more comfortable about indulging their desire for immediate gratification.
As ever, if this experiment was a one-off marketers would be best advised to ignore it. However, the findings have been repeated again and again. From purchasing diet drinks to installing energy efficient washing machines, psychologists have noticed the effect of ‘moral licensing’.
Uzma Khan, a marketing professor at Stanford, has shown that even thinking about behaving virtuously can have a knock-on effect. In her experiment consumers who had been primed to think about which charities they’d consider volunteering for were more likely, compared to the control group, to choose a luxury good over a more functional product.
The widespread nature of these findings means that we should be applying them to marketing. Products which appeal to a consumer’s indulgent side should target consumers in contexts where they’re feeling virtuous.
Potential options include reaching consumers in gyms, running ads around healthy eating or fitness content, or time targeting Friday afternoon’s after a hard week’s work. This could apply to a wide variety of products.
It’s not just the obvious ones like beer or chocolate, but any brands which consumers see as a treat. This covers a huge range of goods – whether it’s lattes, luxury goods or the latest fashion.
There are also opportunities in the other direction. Products which seek to appeal to a consumer’s moral side might seek to reach consumers as they have succumbed to temptation. So who knows, maybe we’ll see chuggers targeting Krispy Kreme doughnut concessions rather than congregating on Tottenham Court Road.
Twitter: @rshotton