Wed 2 Jul 2008
The Fake Restaurant
Posted by admin under Uncategorized
Would you pay $14 for a fast-food burger? Would you consider it a good value? Reader Matthew Weathers blogged about an ad campaign that reminded him of Sway. Carl’s Junior set up a makeshift fancy restaurant and served $6 burgers for $14, nearly two-and-a-half-times their usual cost. The customers happily shelled out that much money and seemed delighted with the quality of the meal. Although this is not a scientific study, it presents another vivid example of value attribution: our tendency to imbue an initial value (in this case a fancy restaurant) to a product (a fast-food burger). Have you ever caught yourself making the same type of diagnostic errors, whether on a first date or making a decision at work?
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
This is your classic “water bottle” error, you know, the one where people actually believe that tap water bottled in an Evian bottle tastes better than the same tap water in a plastic cup. I sincerely believe that there’s a neuroscientific explanation for this–it’s not just in the mind but something very physical going on in the brain. And plus, who are these people willing to shell out $16 for a burger? Perhaps one way to prevent such an error from occurring is to teach kids at a very early age intelligent financial behavior and habits.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Is it worth asking…whether the $14 burger does taste better in some real, measurable way? Chefs say we eat with our eyes first…perhaps it’s not unreasonable to say that sprucing up the table settings actually makes the food taste better on some empirically measurable scale.
Put another way, is “error” really the right word to use when a person is considering a whole meal experience, factoring input from all senses into enjoyment?
August 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Er, doesn’t the entire phenomenon of branding piggy-back on this error? In fact, isn’t the whole point of brand campaigns to differentiate your product by imbuing the brand name with emotional commitment, then transferring that brand name to other contexts?
Does Coke really taste better than RC Cola, or does the multi-billion dollar advertising spend and product placement that Coke does every year build it up in my mind to where I think it tastes better?
Perhaps this applies in the romantic front, too, where the right clothes and appearance can make us enjoy, date, and even marry someone whose behavior we wouldn’t tolerate for a second if they hadn’t made the right initial impression. (”Wow! Look at those clothes, those eyes, the Coke they’re drinking… they must be someone I want to spend the rest of my life with!!”)
August 28th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
One should also note that customers pay for the experiential aspect at a restaurant. And believe me, the experience of eating at a Carl’s Jr. is much different than a clean restaurant with tablecloths and servers. Do I think a $14 burger anywhere is a good value, NO. $14 is clearly a stretch, but that makes its $6 burger (that ironically now costs about $5.49) still seem like a great value, and drives home the idea that it is a restaurant quality burger.