Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [133]
You Can’t Make Me Buy That!
Kmart. I felt like just leaving this section at that, but I think I should explain more. Kmart developed an idea it called the planogram, which is a diagram that shows retailers how to display their products based on colors, sizes, and other criteria to manipulate their customers to want to buy and spend the most.
Planograms are designed to create optimal visual and commercial product placement.
The use of these planograms is a form of manipulation because researchers have studied how people shop, think, and buy. Understanding these things helped them develop mechanisms to control the visual input to increase shoppers’ desire to buy.
Software, as well as whole companies, are devoted to planning and executing these planograms for the maximum effect on keeping shoppers shopping.
Three different layouts are used to manipulate shoppers:
Horizontal product placement: To increase a customer’s concentration on a certain article, a multiple horizontal placement side by side of one product is applied. Some retailers found that a minimum placement range between 15 and 30 cm of a single product is necessary to achieve an increase in customer attentiveness (see Figure 6-9).
Vertical product placement: A different method used is the vertical product placement. Here one product is placed on more than one shelf level to achieve 15–30 cm placement space (see Figure 6-10).
Figure 6-9: Placing the same or similar articles in a horizontal row increases customer focus.
Figure 6-10: The same products are placed on more than one shelf.
Block placement: Products that have something in common are placed in a block (brands). This can be done side by side, on top of each other, centered, or using magnetized hangers (see Figure 6-11).
Figure 6-11: A block placement of similar products or brands.
Planograms are not the only method of manipulating shoppers. One test done involved a shopping mall running specifically designed music loops. The result was that those shoppers stayed in the mall an average of 18% longer than when the music was not running.
In the Journal of Business Research, Jean-Charles Chebat and Richard Michon published a study they performed in a Canadian shopping mall (www.ryerson.ca/~rmichon/Publications/Ambient%20odors.pdf). The researchers pumped specially designed aromas into the air that were supposed to trigger happiness and the desire to buy. The result there was that an average of $50 more per shopper was spent in that week-long study.
Your trips to the shopping malls and grocery stores will never be the same now. However, you can learn a lot from these methods and experiments. Knowing how people group things in their brains can affect how you organize your shelves to manipulate the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of your targets.
On the topic of colors, they are a major way to manipulate the emotions of a target. Many of the same principles apply to colors as they do to product placement. The colors you choose to wear or use can affect the target. A lot of research has been done on colors and their effects. The following is a short list of some ways a particular color could affect the thinking or emotions of another person:
White: White is often associated with purity, light, and cleanliness. It gives feelings of safety and neutrality as well as goodness and faith. This is why white is often used in weddings or as the color of surrender.
Black: Black often denotes power, elegance, mystery, and strength. It is used to denote authority, depth, and stability. Black gives the feeling of calmness and tranquility. Because it contrasts with other colors, it can also be used to enhance other colors.
Red: Red is associated with excitement and joy. It is a color filled with celebration, action, and energy. It can denote good health, speed, passion, desire, and love. Red can stimulate emotions as well as increase heart rate, respiration, and