Marketing Manipulation A Consumer's Survival Manual World Scientific–Now Publishers Series in Business ISSN: 2251-3442 The World Scientific–Now Publishers Series in Business publishes advanced text- books, research monographs, and edited volumes on a variety of topics in business studies including accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, management, marketing, operations, and strategy. The Series includes both applied and theoretical topics that present current research and represent the state-of-the-art work in their respective fields. Contributed by academic scholars from academic and research institutions worldwide, books published under this Series will be of interest to researchers, doctoral students, and technical professionals. 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 edited by Nicola Secomandi Vol. 11 Global Sourcing of Services: Strategies, Issues and Challenges edited by Shailendra C. Jain Palvia and Prashant Palvia Vol. 10 Cross-Functional Inventory Research edited by Srinagesh Gavirneni Forthcoming: Innovative Federal Reserve Policies During the Great Financial Crisis edited by Douglas D. Evanoff, George G. Kaufman and A. G. Malliaris Marketing for Economists and Life Scientists: Viewing Marketing Tools as Informative and Risk Reduction/Demand Enhancing by Amir Heiman and David Zilberman The complete list of titles in the series can be found at https://www.worldscientific.com/series/ws-npsb (Continued at the end of the book) World Scientific – Now Publishers Series in Business: Vol.14 Marketing Manipulation A Consumer's Survival Manual Michael Kamins Claremont College, USA World Scientific Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE and now publishers Inc. PO Box 1024 Hanover, MA 02339 USA 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 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011140 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2019 by Michael Kamins All rights reserved. For any available supplementary material, please visit https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10839#t=suppl Desk Editors: Suraj Kumar/Sylvia Koh Typeset by Stallion Press Email: [email protected] Printed in Singapore About the Author Michael A. Kamins is currently a Professor of Marketing at the Peter F. DruckerSchoolofManagementatClaremontCollege.Hewaspreviously 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 NewYorkUniversity. v TTTThhhhiiiissss ppppaaaaggggeeee iiiinnnntttteeeennnnttttiiiioooonnnnaaaallllllllyyyy lllleeeefffftttt bbbbllllaaaannnnkkkk Contents AbouttheAuthor v Chapter1. TheImpactoftheMarketingEnvironment 1 Chapter2. SystemIProcessing 15 Chapter3. CognitiveBiasesandSystemIIProcessing 25 Chapter4. SocialBiases 57 Chapter5. MemoryBiases 69 Chapter6. TheProblemofInertia 85 Chapter7. PriceandItsInfluenceUponChoice 93 Chapter8. DeceptiveProducts:ConsumerConfusion, SecondaryMeaningandDilution 109 Chapter9. MarketingManipulationbytheDrug CompaniesisEnoughtoMakeYouSick! 123 Chapter10. SellingTacticsThatHavethePotentialtoDeceive 139 vii viii Contents Chapter11. DeceptiveAdvertisingandPromotional Techniques 151 Chapter12. PoliticalAdvertisingandDeception 175 Chapter13. ManipulativeMarketingResearchfrom QuestionnaireDesigntoResults 191 Chapter14. WinningStrategiesforOnlinePurchases (eBay,PricelineandStubHub) 209 Chapter15. WrappingItAllUp 225 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 yourshoppingbasket.Yoursignificantother,whosemainroleinlifeseems 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 everyonewho knows Tony The Tiger, the spokes-tiger for Frosted Flakes knows that they are GREATTTTTTTTTfor you, taste good,andmoreoverasKelloggs’ownadvertisingjustrecentlysuggested, arenotONLYjustforkids,butforadultstoo,sothere! 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 aboutthe Burger 1SeeConnell,PaulM.,MerrieBrucks,andJesperH.Nielsen.“Howchildhoodadvertising exposure can create biased product evaluations that persist into adulthood.” Journal of ConsumerResearch41(1)(2014):119–134. 1