Academic study finds that easy options may result in lower satisfaction longer-term
Humans are complex animals, often flying in the face of what would seem to be obvious.
Take for example, when choosing between products. You might think that an easy-to-read advertisement would be better than one that is more complex. Certainly, investors want clearer communications according to recent surveys.
But a recent study has found that more complicated advertisements may have a positive effect on customer satisfaction.
Marketing expects at the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York State found that the difficulty for an individual to process a message, increases people's attitudes toward that message after a time delay.
Assistant professor Gaurav Jain co-authored the report and said that consumers who made a decision after a lengthier process of understanding what they were buying, felt that they had made a more informed choice.
"When people are making decisions, be it choosing between insurance products, retirement funds, or even when choosing an elected official, marketers and designers need to remember that if we can make an individual spend some time in that choosing process, it's more likely people will stick with the option they chose over time," he said.
The research was published in the Journal of Marketing Communications.
New #research indicates that consumers value difficult decisions over easy choices: https://t.co/eFh4L79lfh pic.twitter.com/b4CMjNbCx7
— RPInews (@RPInews) September 17, 2020
