••• consumer psychology
Unplanned fun is better than planned fun
In a series of studies, researchers found that scheduling a leisure activity led people to anticipate less enjoyment and actually enjoy the event less than if the same activities were unplanned. That doesn’t mean you can’t plan at all: The research showed that roughly planning an event (but not giving a specific time) led to similar levels of enjoyment as unplanned events.
“Scheduling our fun activities leads them to take on qualities of work,” says Selin Malkoc, co-author of the study and assistant professor of marketing at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, who conducted the study with Gabriela Tonietto, a doctoral student at Washington University in St. Louis. Their results are published in the Journal of Marketing Research.
In the paper (“The calendar mindset: scheduling takes the fun out and puts the work in”), they report on 13 separate studies that looked at how scheduling leisure activities affects the way we think about and experience them. Those who scheduled getting frozen yogurt with their friend, for example, rated the activity as feeling more like a “commitment” and “chore” than those who imagined the impromptu get-together.
The results have implications for leisure companies that provide experiences for their customers, Malkoc says. For example, some amusement parks offer tickets for their most popular rides that allow people to avoid long lines. But this research suggests that people will enjoy these rides less if the tickets are set for a particular time. Instead, the parks should give people a window of time to board the ride, which would be the equivalent of rough scheduling in this study.
••• shopper insights
What drives in-store vs. online purchases?
In a study by Nuremberg, Germany, researcher GfK, shoppers within 17 industries across APAC, LATAM, Europe, North America and the Middle East were asked about what swayed their decision the last time they were deciding whether to purchase something online versus in a store. The most important factors that influenced the decision to buy online rather than in-store include saving money (55 percent), easier shopping (28 percent), abetter selection of goods (26 percent), faster shopping (25 percent), access to better information online (21 percent) and because they routinely shop there already.
For purchases where shoppers chose to buy in-store rather than online, the leading factor was being able to see and feel the products before they buy (51 percent). A third (33 percent) said shopping is easier in-store, followed by easier returns (29 percent), because they routinely shop there already (28 percent) and a tie between getting better information and saving money (both 22 percent).