Harvard Business Review

Have any of you read this magazine ? It might take a big slice out of your wallet [ 12 issues for $165 !! ] but I was lucky to stumble across it at my uncle's place. I've borrowed two recent issues and was just going through one of them - it is soooo coooooool.

Let me tell you about this fantastic article I just read on Marketing.

Companies often invent evocative labels like Super Size, Value Size, Big Gulp or Whopper. Consumers have varied opinions but clear ones nonetheless, about product size on the basis of labels. For example - customers agreed that "petite" is smaller than "short", that "single" falls between "small" and "medium", and that "tall" is larger than "medium" or "double". So one may wonder whether their perceptions of serving size would affect how much of a product they actually ate.

In a seperate study, Rotary Club members were individually served 8 ounce portions of eggs, labelled either medium or large. Those given medium portions ate, on an average, 35% more than those whose portions were labelled as large. The Rotarian's perceptions had obviously influenced their behaviour.

Companies should test whether their own view of the product labels match their customers' perceptions. Starbucks understood this when it labelled its smallest coffee "tall".
One can also consider how labels can affect consumption : Would some customers buy two servings of a product if it were "regular" instead of "large" ?