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More Supermarket Psychology Tricks

May 7, 2009 By Mark

2263489811_e0ecbdca98[1] A trip to the supermarket can be a part of everybody’s life but have you realised some of the tricks that they play on you in order to make you spend more money, or even buy things that you might not are particularly needed. The probability of this is very high indeed I would say, most of us when we go shopping know what we want in our minds before we even walk out the door.

So here are some things you need to be aware of the next time you go shopping, and things you need to do.

Before you go make sure that you have eaten a good meal before you go, otherwise when you go to the store or shop you are far more likely to spend more money if you are hungry when you are hungry, you will probably make irrational decisions about what you buy and may buy more food than you need..

Take notice of colours

Colours are used in supermarkets, to invoke our emotions into spending more money red is used because it stands out above all other colours, also it causes our adrenaline to start and makes heart beat faster. Blue is used as a trust symbol blue invokes trust, green makes us think of fresh.

When supermarkets have offers on they will often use red for a background and white for the text. These types of offers banners as they are called will be placed at the end of isles so when we are walking up the aisle that they may be one at the end on the left, and at the bottom of the isle, so if imagine yourself walking into a supermarket and I’ll use a example of one I go to. When you first go in the door which is on the right-hand side on the left there are some strategically placed offers as you walk up the first isle there is one offer at the end of the isle, and the other four other isles which are on the left alll have latest offers at the end of them. Which will use the red and white banner advertising.

Placement of brands

Popular brands will be placed at the end of our isles, which acts as a sort of welcome in your mind to these particular products, the reason is that these are put there is because of the increase in buying traffic.

Take a list with you

Think about this for a second how many times have you been to the supermarket and bought things that you don’t particular need, or another instance where you buy far more than you need. When you take a list with you make sure you keep a focus of what exactly you need otherwise you may be tricked into buying things that you don’t particularly need.

Buy less not more

Have you ever noticed the amount of food that you buy, when you go shopping or isn’t it sometimes the case that we tend to behave as if we are in a famine, we go to the supermarket and buy enough food sometimes to feed a small army, when in actual fact we probably don’t need as much as we have bought. Studies have shown that the more we tend to have at home food wise the more we tend to eat.

It isn’t until the actual amount of food has gone down that we tend to eat less. Supermarket trolleys are designed so you can cram as much food in as is possible,if they were only shopping baskets than I dare say the majority of us probably wouldn’t buy so much

Placement of products

Nearly always fruit and vegetables will be at the front of the store, this acts as a trigger in our minds to say we have fresh produce here it’s another subconscious welcoming trick, things like dairy produce milk etc will be placed mostly at the back of the store, so that you have to walk to the end and come back down another isle and hopefully make you spend more money.

If you think about it this is quite logical if you put milk at the front of the store people are far more likely just get that one thing and leave which leaves the supermarket with lost sales.

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Filed Under: Food Marketing

Beat Supermarket Psychology

October 16, 2007 By Mark

It’s an all to familiar story how supermarkets manipulate us but the truth is they do and we like fools always go duh! Ok they know all to well that all they want out of us is money, which means we tend to buy other things as well as the food we mostly don’t need.

I’m afraid our lizard brains just aren’t that good at filtering out what we do and don’t need .

I mean come on do you really need that pack of batteries or those sugar filled sweets that will make you fatter or that bar of chocolate that is so conveniently placed near the checkout.

Here are some of the sneaky tricks supermarkets use to entice us into buying things we wouldn’t normally buy.

Ever notice how some have in house bakeries so when you go in, you have the smell of freshly baked bread wafted under your nose, it’s a nice smell alright but it has a definite purpose one is it will hopefully entice you to buy some freshly baked bread but also have you ever noticed where these tend to be well in one supermarket.

I can think of it’s in a far part of the shop so you have to walk past many other isles to get to it this will make you go to parts of the shop where more expensive items may be located, and secondly you spend more money on food when you smell food as in the bread.

Brand name items will beat at eye level so we don’t have to look very far to find them, things like own brand food which is by far much cheaper will be below eye level so hopefully you won’t see it and buy it.

The bargain or expired items food will be somewhere central to the store so even though you may buy a few of these thinking you have got a bargain, think again you will probably have the mindset of oh.

I have saved some money so being as your now in the middle of the shop and feeling good about saving some money off you go and spend some more.See this is the real reason why these items will be placed very carefully if you put them on display in the front of the shop you wouldn’t see other foods and probably buy just the cheaper items.

Loyalty cards what a name whom is being loyal to who have you noticed how much you have to spend using these things to save anything, another sneaky trick everything you buy is recorded on this card and that data is put to good use your being profiled so what happens they can use this data to order more of the same product hence they won’t run out of stock and you will keep buying it.

We use a well known supermarket on line food delivery service, you can look at what you bought in previous orders a bit like your food favourites, so once I looked at mine not previous orders but what was bought when the shopping was purchased from the shop and there was all the things we used to get from the shop dare say that data was mined from the card wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

Here is how to be more prepared when you go supermarket shopping.

Know what you need have a list already made up this will stop impulse buys if you go without one your mind is more open to suggestion
Beware of BOGOF just because you buy one get one free you end up paying for it somewhere along the line this a bit like a lost leader technique and makes you want to come back to see what others there may be.
Have something to eat before you plan a shopping trip why you may ask the answer is simple when your hungry it leads to impulse buying oddly enough.
Don’t just go for the sheer hell of it shopping becomes a subconscious habit once every week is plenty enough.

Well hope you have learned something from this article about how we are constantly being manipulated by the powers that be in supermarkets, one more thing ever see any oddly shaped food in supermarkets see if you can see any next time you go shopping.

If your interested in finding out more supermarket secrets here are two videos of a documentary called supermarket secrets

Part 1

Part 2

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Filed Under: Food Marketing

Junk Food Marketing

October 9, 2007 By Mark

This is becoming somewhat of a problem in our society corporate greed drives it, obesity levels in Europe continue to rise and it’s not going to stop, children are the most targeted group for this type of advertising.

Why is that it’s simple there brains aren’t that savvy to what is being done to them also there more receptive to change than adults.

So very easy to market to advertisers use any tactics they can to win over our siblings and put in front of them as much crappy food as they can, everyone has a television these days and it’s so easy to pipe this marketing to them even though prime time television advertising is expensive they can re-coup the costs very easily.

To give you a example of how much is spent here is a figure that shocked me when I first read it 480 million pounds each year is spent on junk food television marketing.

That is a hell of a lot when you think about it, there is a reason why all this happens though from the day your child is born it has one after another advertisement bombarded at it from all sources billboard’s, television, magazines,radio Internet.

And the messages are so powerful there minds can’t fight it and just go with the flow children as young as three are being marketed to even at that age so it’s not just when there starting to grow up.

The most likely places to find this are everywhere think of say for instance any celebrity endorsement is worth it’s weight in gold if a famous pop star endorses a soft drink like Pepsi or any other well known soft drink.

Then your child thinks well if it’s good enough for Mr XYZ or whoever then I got to have it,,this is a classic example of social proof in fact celebrities are social proof all over it’s very easy with there status to influence lots of people by what they say and do, this why advertisers like to use them there like walking testimonials for the advertisers.

So if one buys it the rest will follow and children are great for social proof at school on the Internet telling there friends what they like to eat and drink.

Here is how things breakdown television is by far one of the best mediums to peddle this stuff reaches lots of people and most house holds have one so the next time your child is sitting in front of the television take note at to what he is watching that doesn’t mean the programs either.

The Internet is becoming quite high as well for our junk food marketer’s more sneaky goings on there they set sites up where kids can play games etc or have download able software which will have some sort of advertising in it, this in itself can create a viral effect of course the software will be free.

But hey that doesn’t matter they can easily re-coup there costs that piece of software could be on the desktops of 40 or 50 more children in minutes and don’t forget e-mail. It all adds up over time in fact there was a report saying not so long a ago that Internet advertising is having more spent on it than television in our country that is.

Schools have machines in full of junk food drinks how you can call these vending machines is beyond me may as well put on the front I dispense junk because that is there primary purpose.

What you need you need to do is catch this manipulation early if you can and educate your child that to them it’s a business and that is all it is you can’t control all that your child sees but at least make a effort other wise you may have a obese child in years to come.

A ex football player named Ian Wright in our country did a series on television called Ian Wrights unfit kids some of the things you saw where quite surprising one poor child was 50% body fat very over weight for his age unless something is done more children.

Will become obese later on in life because of the marketing they have been subjected to at such early ages, lets see if we can change that and why not start right now.

One last thing don’t stand there in full view of your on child eating a big mac or some other crappy food that only tells him to eat and your doing the marketing men a favour.