Marketing manipulation a consumers survival manual

Marketing
Manipulation
A Consumer's Survival Manual


World Scientific–Now Publishers Series in Business
ISSN: 2251-3442

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Published:
Vol. 14 Marketing Manipulation: A Consumer’s Survival Manual

by Michael Kamins
Vol. 13 Project Risk Analysis Made Ridiculously Simple

by Lev Virine and Michael Trumper
Vol. 12 Real Options in Energy and Commodity Markets

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Vol. 11 Global Sourcing of Services: Strategies, Issues and Challenges

edited by Shailendra C. Jain Palvia and Prashant Palvia
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Marketing for Economists and Life Scientists: Viewing Marketing Tools as
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by Amir Heiman and David Zilberman
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World Scientific – Now Publishers Series in Business: Vol.14

Marketing
Manipulation
A Consumer's Survival Manual

Michael Kamins
Claremont College, USA

World Scientific


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kamins, Michael A., author.
Title: Marketing manipulation : a consumer’s survival manual / Michael Kamins
(Claremont College, USA).
Description: New Jersey : World Scientific, [2018] |
Series: World Scientific-Now Publishers series in business ; Volume 14
Identifiers: LCCN 2018011140 | ISBN 9789813234703 (hc : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Consumer behavior. | Marketing--Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC HF5415.32 .K35 2018 | DDC 381.3/3--dc23
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Copyright © 2019 by Michael Kamins
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About the Author

Michael A. Kamins is currently a Professor of Marketing at the Peter F.
Drucker School of Management at Claremont College. He was previously
a Professor of Marketing, Area Head and Director of Research at Stony
Brook University (SUNY) at the Harriman College of Business. He also
taught for 25 years at the University of Southern California as well as at
the Bernard M. Baruch College of the City of New York (CUNY) and
New York University.

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Contents

About the Author

v

Chapter 1.

The Impact of the Marketing Environment

1

Chapter 2.

System I Processing

15

Chapter 3.

Cognitive Biases and System II Processing

25

Chapter 4.

Social Biases

57

Chapter 5.

Memory Biases

69

Chapter 6.

The Problem of Inertia

85

Chapter 7.

Price and Its Influence Upon Choice

93

Chapter 8.

Deceptive Products: Consumer Confusion,
Secondary Meaning and Dilution

109

Marketing Manipulation by the Drug
Companies is Enough to Make You Sick!

123

Selling Tactics That Have the Potential to Deceive

139

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

vii


viii

Chapter 11.

Contents

Deceptive Advertising and Promotional
Techniques

151

Chapter 12.

Political Advertising and Deception

175

Chapter 13.

Manipulative Marketing Research from
Questionnaire Design to Results

191

Winning Strategies for Online Purchases
(eBay, Priceline and StubHub)

209

Wrapping It All Up

225

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.
Index

233


Chapter 1

The Impact of the Marketing Environment

Imagine that you are taking your weekly trip to the supermarket to buy
groceries with your significant other, and as you pass by the cereal aisle,
you reach for a box of Kelloggs’ Frosted Flakes and quickly place it into
your shopping basket. Your significant other, whose main role in life seems
to be to serve as the critic of what you eat and how you lead your life in
general, tells you: “Get that stuff out of the shopping cart, first of all, it’s
not good for you and secondly it’s for kids!” You counter her arguments
by telling her that everyone who knows Tony The Tiger, the spokes-tiger
for Frosted Flakes knows that they are GREATTTTTTTTT for you, taste
good, and moreover as Kelloggs’ own advertising just recently suggested,
are not ONLY just for kids, but for adults too, so there!
But is your choice of Kelloggs’ Frosted Flakes a decision as simple
as merely tossing it into your shopping cart? Let’s back up just a bit
and examine more deeply what influenced you to choose Frosted Flakes
in the first place, and what factors contributed to your belief that it is
“great” for you and great tasting to boot! A colleague of mine from
Stony Brook University studied this very question and found out that
the advertising characters that one is exposed to in childhood influence

your brand evaluations when you become an adult.1 So for those of you
who had warm and fuzzy feelings when you were a kid about the Burger
1 See Connell, Paul M., Merrie Brucks, and Jesper H. Nielsen. “How childhood advertising
exposure can create biased product evaluations that persist into adulthood.” Journal of
Consumer Research 41(1) (2014): 119–134.

1


2

Marketing Manipulation

King, Ronald McDonald, Tropicana, Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, Chiquita
Banana, Captain Crunch and the like, those feelings in many cases may have
evolved into a deeper yet subconscious commitment to these icons and the
brand they represent as you grew into adulthood. No, I am not insinuating
that you had an affair with any of these characters, nor can I conclude
that you obsess over them day and night. What I can conclude, however,
is that the positive feelings you had toward these advertising characters
when you were a kid are alive and well today when you are an adult
and you may not even know it! The feelings that you hold toward these
characters can potentially result in a preference for the brands that feature
them, and ultimately an “enduring bias” toward the quality of the brands
they represent. In the case of Frosted Flakes, this bias toward Tony the Tiger
may reflect itself in the degree of nutritional health benefits that you believe
the product conveys to you. In other words, if you liked Ronald McDonald
as a child, the fries that you eat as an adult are perceived as healthier than
other brands; if you liked Tony the Tiger as a child, then as an adult you are
more likely to perceive the cereal as healthier than those not familiar with

this 1950s icon.
It is easy to simply discount these findings about Tony as just a figment
of the imagination of some mad academic researchers in an ivory tower
with lots of student subjects, time on their hands and a computer to analyze
the resulting data. But these findings spanned two countries and focused
on actual consumers outside of the classroom. Indeed, the cynic might
argue: “everyone knows these characters are just that — characters, they
have no impact on me now, and had no impact on me then, why would
anyone prefer a food just because it had an advertised character?” The
answer comes from a study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and
Obesity.2 This research, using identical products (graham crackers, gummy
fruit snacks and carrots), found that the packaging that contained a cartoon
character as opposed to one that did not resulted in significantly more

2 See Roberto, Christina A., Jenny Baik, Jennifer L. Harris, and Kelly D. Brownell. “Influence

of licensed characters on children’s taste and snack preferences.” Pediatrics 126(1) (2010):
88–93. See also Lapierre, Matthew A., Sarah E. Vaala, and Deborah L. Linebarger. “Influence
of licensed spokes-characters and health cues on children’s ratings of cereal taste.” Archives
of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 165(3) (2011): 229–234.


The Impact of the Marketing Environment

3

4–6 year-old children preferring the snack with the cartoon character. But
the findings do not stop there; the kids actually believed that the packaging
with the cartoon character tasted better. So, the link between, the use of
advertising characters and better taste starts at a young age, that is, this is

probably as a result of extensive exposure to kids cartoon programming and
advertisements with engaging characters hawking products to their young
viewers.
This product preference can then travel across time, even decades,
influencing us as an adult to prefer the same brand that we loved as a kid,
only now, not only causing us to rationalize that our product preference
tastes better than the competition, but even that it is more healthy for
you. This led my colleague at Stony Brook to argue that parents today
should take more care in checking the labels on the products they have
loved and embraced since they were children because it is possible that
affectionate feelings for brand characters that they carry from childhood
can interfere with the relevant nutritional information on the box. It also
suggests that each of us should more carefully examine our brand choices
to make sure that childhood desires are not subconsciously leading us to
choose unhealthy foods in the present for ourselves and for our children.
That is, just because you were cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs as a child, does not
mean that “Sonny the Cuckoo bird,” (yes, that’s his name) should have a
shot at influencing your kids’ cereal choice.
By now you have probably heard enough of cartoon characters and
brand symbols, and you have made a silent vow not to let them interfere
with your product choice. So, armed with this newfound knowledge you
go back into the supermarket and re-start your shopping trip. As you begin
shopping, I implore you to begin paying attention to the background music
being played. Once you do this, you may begin to wonder why the tempo
and beat is so slow? You ask your significant other, but she says that she
doesn’t pay attention to such things, she just shops. But as you reach the
checkout, you realize that not only have you spent an inordinately longer
time in the store than you typically would want to, but you seem to have
bought more. This, while a surprise to you, is not a surprise to those
researchers who examine environmental stimuli and their impact on the

consumer. Indeed, there are many studies which have shown that slower
music tempo in a shopping environment gets the consumer to walk slower,


4

Marketing Manipulation

and when you walk slower you notice more things, and when you notice
more things . . . guess what . . . you purchase more things.3 I guess a side
benefit to this environmental manipulation, however, is that you are getting
free dancing lessons in the supermarket as you subconsciously move to the
beat of the music. Who knows maybe one day you can fulfill your secret
dream of getting on the hit show, “Dancing with the Stars.”
So now you are avoiding brand characters and trying to walk quicker
than the music that’s playing in the background so you are not influenced
to buy items you didn’t plan on buying in the first place. All of a sudden,
you notice that it’s cold and drafty in the supermarket, so you put on
your extra sweater but still the tip of your nose has a certain chill. By
putting on that extra layer of clothing you are engaging in a physical
process called thermoregulation, defined as an attempt to keep our internal
temperature within certain boundaries.4 However a set of researchers from
my Alma Mater, Bernard M. Baruch College, claim that humans, aside from
thermoregulating themselves on the physical dimension of warm–cold, also
engage in a mental form of thermoregulation via decision-making styles.5
For example, someone who is referred to as a “Hot-Head” is an individual
who defers to his/her emotions, whereas someone who is described as “cool
and calculated” typically is seen as taking one’s time to think from an indepth carefully considered cognitive perspective. Is it possible that when
an individual is feeling cold, that they may adopt a decision-making style
that is emotional or warm in nature, and that when one is warm they may

thermoregulate by adopting a more calculating (cool) and cognitive decision
style? Hadi, Block, and King (2012) studied this phenomenon in a series of
experiments designed to examine the cognitive approach consumers took
to a decision choice involving the consumption of a relatively unhealthy
rich chocolate cake versus a more calorie-deprived fruit salad for a snack.

3 Milliman, Ronald E. “Using background music to affect the behavior of supermarket

shoppers.” The Journal of Marketing 13(2) (1982): 286–289.
4 Brunjes, Peter C., and Jeffrey R. Alberts. “Olfactory stimulation induces filial preferences

for huddling in rat pups.” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 93(3)
(1979): 897–906.
5 Hadi, Rhonda, Lauren Block, and Dan King. “Mental thermoregulation: affective and
cognitive pathways for non-physical temperature regulation.” NA — Advances in Consumer
Research 40 (2012): 42–47.


The Impact of the Marketing Environment

5

When subjects were previously asked to drink a hot liquid, (used to induce
feelings of warmth), more than twice as many individuals chose the fruit
salad as opposed to the chocolate cake. Moreover, when another group of
subjects was asked to drink the iced drink first, the majority then chose the
chocolate cake. What do these findings suggest? If one is feeling overly
hot, then pursuing a cognitive decision approach which is perceived as
cool should be utilized as a form of thermoregulation. Therefore, the more
healthy fruit salad should be more decidedly chosen over the unhealthy

chocolate cake in this condition, as it indeed was. Likewise, if one is cold,
and warmth is needed to self-regulate via thermo-regulation, then the more
emotive decision-making approach should be taken, and more individuals
should chose the chocolate cake over the fruit salad, as was found.
For those doubting Thomases among you who think that this result
is strange, consider the authors’ second experiment where the focus
involved the dollar amount of insurance the owner would purchase for
an antique clock. The clock was either described as having significant
sentimental value or not. Subjects were again exposed to the hot/cold
drinking manipulation discussed previously. After drinking the contents
of the glass, subjects were then given the clock manipulation where either
the sentimental value was expressed or it was not. Findings showed that
consumers were willing to purchase generally higher amounts of insurance
for the “sentimental” family heirloom clock, relative to the identical clock
that was not described as such, but only when subjects had consumed the
cold drink. But why? . . . because drinking the cold drink led to the need for
mental thermoregulation, which manifested itself in affective or emotional
(warm) thinking, as those participating in the experiment got in touch with
their sentimental selves. These individuals felt the emotional need to insure
the antique clock against loss when the sentimental value of the clock was
highlighted by the experimenter.
This temperature effect on decision-making also was shown to be
evident in a series of studies conducted in Israel led by a researcher from
the Hebrew University.6 Tapping into prior research which shows that

6 Zwebner, Yonat, Leonard Lee, and Jacob Goldenberg. “The temperature premium: Warm

temperatures increase product valuation.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 24(2) (2013):
251–259.

6

Marketing Manipulation

physical warmth leads to social warmth and appreciation of others,7 and
that brands are often used as a device to reflect one’s own identity,8 the
authors maintained that when the consumer is physically warm or even
feeling hot, their willingness to pay for a variety of different products is
significantly greater than when they are not feeling hot and bothered. For
example, in one of their experiments, subjects were placed into a room
where the ambient temperature was set at either 79◦ (warm) or 65◦ (cool).
Next, participants were told that they would be presented with images
of a number of products that were available for purchase. The results
showed that participants in the warm room were willing to pay more for
the products than those in the cooler room across 11 different product
categories. The researchers claimed that the effect found was driven by
the emotional warmth driven toward the product that the physical warmth
had induced. So, if we value products more and are willing to pay higher
prices for them when we are uncomfortably hot, those of you who late at
night are sitting in a hot room at your computer trying to snipe on eBay,
may be better served to put some ice cubes on your head, turn on the air
conditioner, go to bed, and place your bids in the morning. You may find
that the amount you wish to bid is lower, consistent with the temperature in
the room.
But if physical warmth triggers emotional warmth toward others and
toward the products we consume, does it also possibly influence those who
we seek for advice when making key decisions? Research in decisionmaking with financial consequences makes the claim that consumers are
disposed toward using others’ opinions as input into choice decisions when
individuals are warm. That is, a tendency to “conform to the crowd” was

evident in research recently conducted at a Hong Kong university, finding
that when environmental conditions are warm, this increased the subjects’
perceptions of social closeness to other decision-makers, resulting in others’

7 Bargh, John A., and Idit Shalev. “The substitutability of physical and social warmth in

daily life.” Emotion 12(1) (2012): 154. Also the implications that physical warmth leads to
closeness to others has humongous implications for dating. If this is true then don’t go on
a date in Alaska during the Winter.
8 See Fournier, Susan. “Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in
consumer research.” Journal of Consumer Research 24(4) (1998): 343–373.


The Impact of the Marketing Environment

7

opinions being given greater weight in decision-making.9 This research
used none other than the racetrack to test this proposition. In this context, it
was found that on days when the temperature at the track was warmer, there
was a greater tendency for bettors to place bets on what is known as the
“chalk” or, in simple parlance, the favorite horse. This is because betting
on the favorite represents what is generally known to be the “wisdom of the
crowd.” After all, that is why the horse is the favorite, because more people
think that he/she will win the race! Justify’s Triple Crown win at Belmont
occurred on a warm day where the temperature reached 83 degrees. Coupled
with the fact that he was the sentimental favorite, many $2 win tickets were
placed on him. If history follows a pattern (see American Pharoah), many
of these tickets will never be cashed as pundits believe that they will be
worth more on eBay later than presently at the track.

So, you say, I don’t go to the racetrack and I don’t use off-track betting,
in fact I am NOT a gambler, so this segment of the book does not apply to
me! Really? I’ll bet that many of us who do not consider themselves to be
gamblers, are actively involved in “investing” in the stock market, which I
have been told is the biggest gamble of all. So as you sit at home plugging
away at your computer, making financial decisions regarding where to
allocate the money you just placed in your 401 K, if you happen to do
this task on a hot day, do you simply buy the stock that analysts all prefer?
Or maybe you go into an air conditioned room and place your money on
that penny biotech stock that someone told you could go to the moon, if it
simply completes a Phase I, II and III trial and ultimately gets approved by
the FDA. And if you are doing your tax return on a cold day or with the
air conditioning blowing down hard on your back, do you finally decide
to get “creative” with your tax return and shun the advice of your wellintended accountant? Clearly, the findings of this particular study extend
well beyond the racetrack and should bring your attention to the fact that
the air-conditioning works well in San Quentin, where socialization with
other prisoners may not be a good idea!
9 See Xun (Irene) Huang, Meng Zhang, Michael K. Hui, and Robert S. Wyer. “Physical

warmth and following the crowd: The effect of ambient temperature on preference for
popularity,” in NA — Advances in Consumer Research, 40, Zeynep Gürhan-Canli, Cele
Otnes, and Rui (Juliet) Zhu, (eds.), Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research (2012),
pp. 42–47.


8

Marketing Manipulation

So, now back to the story. Here we are, still in the supermarket, staying

away from brand characters, paying attention not to dance to the beat of
the background music that’s playing and now cognizant of the temperature
inside the supermarket itself. So when you go to choose your favorite brand
of spaghetti, you now wonder, is it truly my favorite brand, or is it the favorite
brand of my significant other, and I chose it just because they have the heat
on in the supermarket? In addition, am I feeling particularly amorous toward
my significant other because I truly love her, or is it the heating system in
the supermarket at work again or am I wearing thermal underwear? In any
event, at this point the trip to the supermarket is getting more complicated
than anyone can ever imagine. So, with the wind of the heating system
blowing at your back, and the cash register ringing up your final purchase,
you decide to take your significant other to the movies to relax, and it should
shock no one that the choice is to see a romantic movie.
You arrive early at the box office, find a good seat, and sit down with
your significant other with the sole intention of relaxing. But now, the price
you pay for being early is that before the movie begins, you typically have to
sit through 10 minutes of advertising and another 10 minutes of previews,
for movies that you have absolutely no intention of seeing and products
you have no intention of buying. So, you plan ahead and rush out to buy
some popcorn as a diversionary tactic, and start to munch quietly through
the advertising and through the previews. Interestingly, research shows that
the act of munching on popcorn serves to disrupt the process of cognitive
focus which typically involves one covertly and silently simulating the
pronunciation of the more familiar words present in the advertisement
(typically the brand name).10 If you doubt that we covertly and silently
repeat words, just think about how you behave when reading a book. Is
there anyone out there who can read without mouthing or repeating the
words in their head?11 This silent and covert simulation has been shown to

10 See for example, Stroop, J. Ridley. “Studies of interference in serial verbal reac-

tions.” Journal of experimental psychology 18(6) (1935): 643; as well as Topolinski, Sascha,
Sandy Lindner, and Anna Freudenberg. “Popcorn in the cinema: Oral interference sabotages
advertising effects.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 24(2) (2014): 169–176.
11 I admit to having the amazing ability not to repeat the words of the text silently when
reading books in Icelandic.


The Impact of the Marketing Environment

9

underlie the famous “mere exposure” effect12 where it was found that the
more a stimulus is repeated the more it is liked. You all know this effect
maybe not by its name, but certainly by its impact upon you. Simply go
back in memory to when you were a kid and heard a song on the radio. The
first time you heard it, it may have caught your ear (like Wrecking Ball,
although the visuals there was where all of the action was). The second
time you heard it, you liked it a little better, and when it became familiar
and you could sing along, you liked it a lot. A recent study conducted
in Germany found that munching on popcorn, or talking during previews,
(something that is sure to get a shussssh from the person behind you), served
to immunize the viewers from the impact of the advertising presented in
the cinema. The munching interrupted the silent repetition of the brand
name and distracted the individual from processing the advertising. So, if
you do not need what they are hawking at the cinema, and are annoyed by
seeing the advertising or previews, simply munch away, and be proud of it!
Munching may interfere with your amorous intentions however.
Our story, does not end here at the movies, rather this venue will serve as
the pushing off point for the rest of our journey exploring how without being

armed with the proper knowledge, one can be unintentionally directed to
make specific decisions and come to specific conclusions by marketing tactics designed to influence how you think, feel and act. This book is intended
to shed light on your daily adventure as a consumer in a world in which
you are exposed to an estimated range of from 200 to 5,000 advertisements
a day, telemarketing on steroids and purchase decisions that range from
buying a cup of coffee to evaluating whether you need one, two, three,
four or five blades on your safety razor to deciding which house or car to
purchase. Notice, I have not even mentioned the 25 calls on your cell phone
that you get daily which are labeled by your phone as “Potential Fraud.”13
At this point, it should be evident that factors existing in the environment
itself influence how you think, feel and act toward brands. These are factors

12 Zajonc, Robert B. “Attitudinal effects of mere exposure.” Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology Monograph Supplement 9(2) Part 2 (1968): 1–27.
13 I recently missed a meeting with the Dean of the College of Business when my cell
phone mistakenly labeled his number as a “potential fraud.” Maybe the phone knows more
than I do?


10

Marketing Manipulation

that the store, movie house or even online marketer can manipulate to serve
to manipulate you. However, environmental factors in a sense are a step
away from marketing manipulation of the actual product and the way it
is promoted to the public, priced or distributed. In marketing, we often
convey the idea that a product is sold through the consideration of the
4 Ps or what is affectionately known as the “marketing mix.”14 In this

regard, Borden (1964) described the marketing manager as a “mixer of
ingredients, one who is constantly engaged in fashioning creatively a mix
of marketing procedures and policies in his efforts to produce a profitable
enterprise.” But what does this marketing chef mix? The answer is the
product itself, the price charged for it, how it is communicated to the
public through advertising and promotional techniques and finally where it
is distributed or placed. For each of these 4 Ps, (product, price, promotion,
and place), marketers can utilize techniques which can serve to influence the
public into purchasing the product, sometimes through the use of complex
psychological approaches triggering inherent consumer biases that are
either cognitive, memory or socially based. I am not saying that in each and
every purchase decision, the consumer is manipulated by corrupt marketers
to purchase their product like mindless zombies. I AM saying that there are
tools on the side of every marketer which can tilt the consumer’s decision
process a bit toward that specific seller’s offerings. An awareness of such
tools and techniques in advance would be beneficial to the consumer as
he/she moves toward purchase, specifically of higher ticket items such as
cars, household appliances, electronic items and even the purchase of one’s
home.
The purpose of this book is to describe in detail such techniques so
that the consumer is, at the very least, aware of them and, at the very best,
armed with knowledge to combat them. Hence, the chapters that follow will
focus on each of the 4 Ps as well as selling techniques used by marketers
which serve to induce purchase. We will also devote chapters to marketing
techniques used in areas involving products and services that the consumer
will most likely be exposed to on a continual basis such as prescription
drugs, political campaigns and the Internet.
14 See Borden, Neil H. “The concept of the marketing mix.” Journal of Advertising
Research 4(2) (1964): 2–7.

The Impact of the Marketing Environment

11

However, before we disembark on a thorough discussion of these
marketing mix elements, a tutorial is needed in advance to introduce the
various consumer biases (cognitive, social and memory based) that impact
the way we think, feel and act. That is, these biases represent tendencies to
think and act in certain ways that in fact can outwardly reflect rigidness and
inflexibility and ultimately poor decision-making. Such biases can lead to a
significant deviation from a standard of rationality or good judgment, but yet
seem perfectly rational to the individual. This is because the bias reflects
the way the individual has always thought or behaved in their arrival at
choice options! If marketers are aware of these biases, then they can utilize
them against the consumer by facilitating one’s brand choice consistent
with such existing biases. For example, consider the availability heuristic,
a famous cognitive bias.15 This bias reflects the ease with which one can
bring to mind exemplars or examples of a specific event resulting in an
overestimation of the likelihood that a given event occurs as a function of
recent past history. So for example, in selling insurance for the loss of one’s
credit card (in case it is lost or stolen), the vendor can emphasize the fact
that a credit card is lost or stolen in America every 5 seconds or so, or
that you (the buyer) probably know someone who has experienced identity
theft in the past year. These selling tactics simply serve to make you more
sensitive to such events happening to you and therefore more willing to
purchase the protection. Selling hurricane insurance would seemingly be a
bit easier in Texas and Florida after the recent arrival of Harvey and Irma.
When you are on the receiving end of such a selling technique in light of
being on the receiving end of such a hurricane, it is hard to resist unless

you know what the seller is attempting to do and formally which cognitive
bias they are trying to tap into.
Consider another simple example, we all know that “more is better,” or
is it?16 Aside from my profession as a marketing professor, I also frequently
serve as an expert witness in judicial cases involving marketing issues.
In this capacity, I am often asked to undertake a survey of consumers to

15 Folkes, Valerie S. “The availability heuristic and perceived risk.” Journal of Consumer

Research 15(1) (1988): 13–23.
16 Solnick, Sara J., and David Hemenway. “Is more always better? A survey on positional

concerns.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 37(3) (1998): 373–383.


12

Marketing Manipulation

determine how important various attributes of a product are in triggering
or motivating their purchase. For example, I once worked for a pie and
restaurant company based in California who was being sued via class action
by a group of consumer plaintiffs because the fat content on the label of
their Chicken Cordon Bleu frozen entrée was underestimated. According to
the lawsuit, a reduction in fat content on the label led California consumers
to believe that the entrée was healthier than it really was and generated
sales to the public that would not have occurred if the entrée was properly
labeled. I was asked to undertake a survey evaluating the importance of
various attributes in the purchase of a frozen dinner entrée. The findings
showed that flavor was most important, followed by value, with fat content

way down the list. Hence, the survey showed that consumers who bought
the focal brand did so mostly for other reasons than fat content, revealing
that for many consumers fat content was not critical in their decision choice
and was not heavily relied upon.
In another case, a consumer chose to sue a breath mint company
because the total weight of the package of mints listed on the package was
significantly less than the actual weight inscribed on the side of the package.
In his deposition, the plaintiff claimed that everyone purchases breath mints
mainly because of the weight of the package, and from a comparative
brand perspective, the more ounces the better. The attorney who took this
consumer’s deposition then asked him if he purchased everything as a
function of its weight inclusive of his car, he responded yes! He was then
asked if he would prefer to eat a slice of cheesecake that weighed 8 pounds
or one that weighed 8 ounces . . . the answer is still forthcoming.
But the “more the better bias” can spring up out of the blue when you
least suspect it. Consider, the shopping trip that I took today with my son to
the local CVS drugstore in search of a probiotic that my doctor said would
be good for me to take. On the shelf were different options, inclusive of
pills, that ranged from 3 billion active bacteria to 20 billion. That’s Billion
with a “B”! The idea that I could buy and consume a tablet that had almost
three times as many individual bacteria as the world’s human population,
made me feel powerful to say the least. It almost made me forget about
trying to figure out how they got all those bugs inside the pill, as well as
my possible class action suit against the company, if after counting, I found
that I was one bacterium short!


The Impact of the Marketing Environment

13

Now, without any idea regarding how to evaluate which brand of
probiotic is best, I immediately told my son that I had to have the one
with 20 billion in the pill, since after all, more bacteria is good, no? But
wait, “aren’t we told that bacteria is bad, I said?” “But this is the good kind”
my son said. “How do you know, I asked are they wearing white hats?” So
as I got to the checkout, my son yelled, don’t buy it yet, I found a pill with
100 billion in it.” “Must be a big pill I shot back, and I bought it.” After all,
more is better right?
In summary, reading this book will not make you bulletproof from
marketing manipulation, since marketing offers, like weeds, grow every
day. However, reading the book will make you attend to and critically
interpret marketing tactics and approaches that you may never have even
given a second of your time or attention to previously. The book will provide
you with a kind of X-ray vision to see through attempts to influence you
and more importantly to see repeatable patterns that marketers can and
have used to get you not only to purchase their product but to make you
think that you made the best purchase possible. In addition, we will discuss
how you can avoid cognitive, social and memory-based biases to get the
best price, particularly when you are using an online purchase environment
where price is fluid (think Priceline and eBay as examples).
So now, let’s begin the process of making you a knowledgeable
consumer. We begin in Chapter 2 by first shedding light on the way
that we as humans typically approach decisions, often through the use of
simplified and automated/unconscious heuristics (i.e., simple rules). That is,
we often use basic decision rules when facing a complex decision-making
environment, designed to help us navigate through the decision process
with some relative degree of ease. Yet, you the reader may realize that
sometimes, when it really matters, we do tend to take our time and consider
even minute details when coming to a decision, oftentimes about something

that is near and dear to us (e.g., the decision involved in the purchase of a
car or the choice regarding which university we should attend). As noted
by Kahneman (2011),17 human decision-making is currently widely seen

17 See Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Press (2011), pp. 19–31.


14

Marketing Manipulation

as being governed by two cognitive systems: automated rules or heuristics
(System I) that produce rapid actions and perceptions over which we have
little conscious control, and more deliberative or reasoned rules (System II)
that more carefully consider features of the environment, and over which we
have considerable conscious control. Understanding when and why we use
each of these different systems is a first step in being aware of our marketing
environment. It is important to note however, that, the consequences of
using “System I” by putting our mind on autopilot can make us susceptible
to a myriad of selling schemes presented by unscrupulous marketers.
For example, deceptive sales schemes used by internet marketers can be
effective by endowing websites with features that encourage decisions to
be made by System I (instinctive) processes, while suppressing features
that would activate System II (reasoned) processes. These latter processes
could otherwise serve to alert and discourage consumers from signing up
for programs and “deals” that have little real value, and for which in many
cases, the majority of consumers are not even aware that they have signed
up for in the first place!

Chapter 3 sheds light on an important human behavioral tendency which
is caused by cognitive, memory-based and social biases which arise as a
function of the type of processing we use when making decisions. This
behavior, called System II processing is so prevalent among us that we tend
to ignore it, and therefore even accept it as “normal.” But its presence, if
left undetected, leads to poor decision-making and conservative choices
that hurt you financially and even emotionally. Starting with Chapter 4,
we take a deep dive into a discussion of the cognitive, memory-based and
social biases in the chapters that follow as they impact decisions. Let’s now
begin and step into the world of “Marketing Manipulation.”


Chapter 2

System I Processing

A. Pound Cake?
Just the other day, for my wife’s birthday, I decided to buy her a cake from
an upscale supermarket in our neighborhood. I knew that her favorite type
of cake was an Apple Crumble and I found one rather quickly on the shelf
which also appeared to be on sale. Lucky me, I thought as I scanned the price
asked for the cake. The packaging said, “$39.99 per pound,” and right below
this the label indicated the following: YOUR PRICE: $29.99. For a split
second, the irrational thought crossed my mind that the reason the cake is on
sale is because . . . They must know that I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t pay
retail, and because this purchase is for a special event, MY PRICE is $10.00
off . . . or maybe because I’m such a nice guy and they knew this in advance
they are giving me a price break! Then I came to my senses and realized
it really doesn’t matter why the price discount is present, just scoop it up
stupid, place it in the basket and be thankful that you purchased a great cake

for a great price. When I arrived home, I opened the cake and placed it on our
cake stand, and for the first time noticed that it seemed rather small. Then
when I looked at the package, the cake weighed in at only 12 ounces, not the
ONE pound that I had assumed. Therefore, the reason that MY PRICE was
$29.99 and not $39.99, was because I only bought ¾ of a pound! There was
no BIG sale, only an underweight cake in comparison to what I expected!
Indeed, the FTC might consider such price labeling as deceptive, since such
labeling has the potential to mislead consumers. But then again, the FTC
may come to the conclusion that I should have more carefully examined
the label in advance to discover the actual weight of the cake.
15


16

Marketing Manipulation

But what caused the deception? Well, to be honest, I actually deceived
myself as I expected that, in general, cakes are sold in pounds as a unit of
measurement, not 12 ounces. Just like coffee used to be packed in 16-ounce
cans, today one is lucky to get an 11-ounce can of coffee. The use of such
potentially deceptive pricing tactics are geared to get consumers to engage in
System I processing.1 Such processing is best described as resulting in fast,
associative, effortless and often emotionally charged actions over which one
has little conscious control. This processing involves rapid and automatic
actions or perceptions for which we have very little cognitive awareness,
almost as if we behave on automatic pilot attracted to bright lights and
environmental cues as moths are attracted to a flame. A central feature of
System I processing is that consumer perceptions and behaviors are often
driven more by the cues consumers expect to see in an environment rather

the cues that are objectively there. Hence, it is through System I processing
that my quick and false assumption that the cake weighed a pound was
derived; I simply believed it did, and so it did . . . until it didn’t.
For example, suppose that you entered a gas station that had a large sign
visible from the road which stated the price for gas purchased using “cash”
and a price for gas purchased using “credit.” Now suppose that you intended
to pay with your debit card, for gas using your debit card, the question then
is, what price would you expect to pay for your gas? Since the sign does not
indicate the price of gas when paid by the use of a debit card, the consumer
is left to his/her experience as to the price they expect to pay when using
their debit card. Hence, when the seller provides incomplete information at
the point of purchase, the consumer is left to utilize System I processing to
engage their expectations regarding what price they will pay at the pump.
What price would you expect to pay with your debit card, the “cash” price
or the “credit” price?
Consider another example, that of online marketers who offer one the
opportunity to gain detailed information on anyone in the country for the
“low” price for example of only 95 cents. One simply needs to click on
the bright orange button, to get the deal and receive 75% off of the “regular”

1 Kahneman, Daniel. “Maps of bounded rationality: A perspective on intuitive judgment and

choice.” Nobel Prize Lecture 8 (2002): 351–401.