Page 58 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

58 CHAPTER 4 INFLUENCING THE MESSY MIDDLE

But even bearing that caveat in mind, it is remarkable that, despite their
stated preference, and statistically controlling for the differences in other
variables, simply giving the shopper the option to choose their second choice
brand was enough to entice 30% away from their initial choice.

The car category is full of recognisable brands, so this result may in part
simply be down to two sets of powerful associations doing battle in the
shopper’s mind. But what if we look at another category, no less hotly
contested but with very different associated values and brand attributes?

Buying a car sits at one end of the spectrum of purchase complexity on our
product matrix, so let’s look at a related but less complex purchase - car
insurance (figure 4).

Figure 4

1st choice brand 2nd choice brand

100
100 40
75

50
60

25

0
Stated 1st choice brand Introduction of 2nd choice brand
Transfer of preference from first choice to second choice brand after introduction of second choice brand,
car insurance category.

It turns out that car insurance is also far from immune to the power of
showing up. In fact, the effect is even larger than that witnessed in the car
purchase simulation, with only two of the 31 categories in our experiment
being more prone to switching than car insurance.

Source: Google / The Behavioural Architects. 10,000 simulated car insurance purchase scenarios. n=1,000 category buyers, UK online shoppers, aged 18–65.