We all use it, we all need it and we all buy it every week: toi­let paper.^1.

Buy­ing toi­let paper is one of those many decisions we make in the super­mar­ket every time we visit. The amount of energy we are will­ing to invest in a decision depends on the level of involve­ment we have with the product.^2.

Research sug­gests that the type of toi­let paper we use is a mat­ter of low involve­ment.^3. Low involve­ment products are hard to sell because, by defin­i­tion, con­sumers don’t pay much atten­tion to them. This is why mar­keters developed tech­niques to increase the level of involve­ment and in effect cre­ate a mar­ket where one pre­vi­ously did not exist. This prac­tice star­ted in the 1890s when the Scott Paper Com­pany became the first to offer toi­let paper on a roll and advert­ise it with a range of images show­ing luxury.

Product involve­ment demon­strates the import­ance of the mean­ing of the object to the ego struc­ture or the consumer’s inner self. The products we pur­chase are an exten­sion of our self, a means to con­struct an iden­tity.^4. Toi­let paper man­u­fac­tur­ers have used this psy­cho­lo­gical con­struct to cap­ture the mar­ket. In super­mar­ket aisles we are bom­barded by a pleth­ora of types of toi­let paper to choose from. The bewil­der­ing array of choices ranges from one, two or even three ply, scen­ted, non-scented, hypo-allergenic, recycled, non-bleached, rain­forest cer­ti­fied and so on, and so on. There is a type of toi­let paper for every seg­ment in the mar­ket. It is only because we are sub­jec­ted to this wide range of choices that we are forced to make it.

involved con­sumers pay higher prices

The main reason toi­let paper man­u­fac­tur­ers spend so much money on devel­op­ing new types of toi­let paper and advert­ising their product is because they want us to care about toi­let paper. Not only by devel­op­ing a product vari­ant for every ima­gin­able pref­er­ence, but also by adding emo­tion to an oth­er­wise bor­ing product. Toi­let paper advert­ising fea­tures cute puppy dogs, baby’s and other images that trig­ger emo­tions. When con­sumers are involved they are hes­it­ant to choose lower price altern­at­ives and sup­pli­ers of toi­let paper use this by cre­at­ing a high level of involve­ment and char­ging higher prices than they oth­er­wise could.^5.

This is no bet­ter illus­trated than by what I observed dur­ing a recent visit to a super­mar­ket in Kangaroo Flat in Aus­tralia. They sell rolls of spe­cially prin­ted Christ­mas toi­let paper for $4.49 each, almost ten times as much as nor­mal toi­let paper. Clean­ing your bot­tom with jolly mes­sages and images makes life just that much more worth living.

Christ­mas is a time when people are pre­pared to spend money on silly items and a roll of spe­cial toi­let paper can provide a lot of value because it becomes an instant con­ver­sa­tion starter, as evid­enced by this post.

1. This post is inspired by a dis­cus­sion between Ian Wat­son and prof. Rhett Walker on this topic. [↩]
2. Zaich­kowsky, J. L. (1985). Meas­ur­ing the involve­ment con­struct. Journal of Con­sumer Research, 12(3), 341–352. [↩]
3. Ratch­ford, B. T. (1987). New insights about the FCB grid. Journal of Advert­ising Research, 27(4), 24–38. [↩]
4. Belk, R. W. (1988). Pos­ses­sions and the exten­ded self. Journal of Con­sumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. [↩]
5. Cohen, M. (2000). Con­sumer involvement–driving up the cost. Con­sumer Policy Review, 10(4), 122–125. [↩]

The release of a new iPhone model or other Apple gad­get always seems to be accom­pan­ied by long queues of people. Even though cus­tom­ers can pre-order their desired gad­gets, stocks always seem to run low quickly and there are always lines of people in front of the iconic Apple stores come release date. Just like fast food com­pan­ies have lim­ited time offers on themed bur­gers, Apple sim­u­lates scarcity to stim­u­late demand.

In the epic battle between Sam­sung and Apple queues of cus­tom­ers are used to cre­ate the per­cep­tion of increased value. Sam­sung has recently taken a line out of Apple’s book and estab­lished a store close to the flag­ship Apple store in Sydney, selling $2 phones. Eager punters for this great deal did of course quickly queued up in front of the Sam­sung store.^1.

Accord­ing to Robert Cialdini, scarcity is one of the Six Weapons of Influ­ence, a power­ful way to influ­ence con­sumer atti­tudes.^2.

The use of scarcity to gen­er­ate demand has recently been sci­en­tific­ally val­id­ated by Jef­frey Parker and Don­ald Lehmann at Columbia Uni­ver­sity.^3. Parker and Lehmann found that retail­ers can shift demand to a more prof­it­able brand by keep­ing it less fully stocked.

Scarcity has a largely pos­it­ive effect on con­sumer pref­er­ences when they believe that it is cre­ated by mar­ket forces. Scarcity is not a pos­it­ive influ­ence when cre­ated by acci­dental causes, such as failed deliv­ery. The power bal­ance is, how­ever, always in favor of the mar­keter as they con­trol the flow of information.

1. Ben Grubb, Sam­sung ambushes Apple’s iPhone 4S launch in Sydney, Sydney Morn­ing Her­ald, 12 Octo­ber 2011. [↩]
2. Cialdini, R. (2007). Influ­ence sci­ence and prac­tice. Gard­ners Books Ltd. [↩]
3. Parker, J. R., & Lehmann, D. R. (2011). When Shelf-Based Scarcity Impacts Con­sumer Pref­er­ences. Journal of Retail­ing, 87(2), 142–155. [↩]