Companies use logos to advertise appealing prices to the general public. If anyone has taken a psychology class you will understand how the brain perceives prices with a lower dollar amount as more appealing than a high dollar amount, and we almost completely do away with the remaining values in the number. It is similar to how we read words, as lnog as the frsit and lsat ltertes are in plcae, our mnid udnretsndas waht the wrod syas. We don't realize it, but we often overlook small details, such as the order letters are in, and more importantly, the value of what we purchase.
Companies understand this phenomenon, and use it to trick the consumer into buying their product because they are a better deal that competitors. Is $0.99 really a better deal than $1.00? We know its not, but don't kid yourself, I'm certain everyone reading this has fallen prey to the $0.99 cent scam. Don't keep allowing your mind to throw out the numbers that come after the decimal, you'll be proving companies right by doing so. This issue becomes a battle of the logos, your logos vs. the business logos. You know $0.99 is the SAME THING as $1.00, you know that $7.20 is not $7.00, or that $9.80 is not $9.50. In the short run, this pricing manipulation we all do to convince ourselves to purchase something may seem ok, but in the long run, those cent values add up.
So here's a suggestion, if you don't already have a piggybank, go out and buy one, or make one, and pay attention to the cent values, defeat the companies pricing! Put all the money you would have spent if you had allowed your logos to be overrun into your empty piggy bank. When you're ready, crack that thing open and find the true value of $0.01.
9 comments:
I never noticed the connection between letter order and pricing. The faster you read the less you notice letter order. They want you to buy faster to notice less about the .99 price.
yuor bcakwrads snetacne was fnnuy. At frist I thuoght it was a tpye-o.
lol
Isn't it amazing that the .99 ploy still works? It really gets on my nerves, too.
Interesting correlation. I like the way you compared the way our mind anticipates the word before processing the arrangement of the letters with the 99 cent theory.
This is also applies to the big ticket items likes cars and houses. Its obvious that $299,999 is not a much better deal for a house than $300,000 is. Yet, it's still more appealing.
Very clever how you used the miss ordered letters to make your point. I've heard of the $0.99 vs $1.00 marketing trick before, but never really thought of it as rhetoric before, good point. Whats your thought on $0.98?
Very interesting post. The psychology behind the .99 ploy is fascinating.
This is a very interesting example of how our subconscious sometimes works against us. I wrote a little bit about this in my first Rhetoric post; how essentially, our brains often operate in a way that can shape our behavior without "us" being consciously aware of it. It doesn't just work with prices and letters either. Smells, sounds, key words and phrases, faces, and many more marketing techniques are all employed to play to our emotions. The more the advertising industry gets wise to these properties of our subconscious, the more I don't trust my own brain.
The $0.99 thing has the opposite effect on me. It seems almost deceptive to me and given a choice between two equal goods, one priced $1 and the other $0.99, I'm going with the one for a buck.
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