Windows Vista: The “Mojave Experiment” Campaign

Microsoft’s Windows Vista has been generally panned by the tech community, and the perception is likely hurting sales (though Microsoft says sales are fine). Nonetheless, Microsoft recently launched this Net-based ad campaign. Here’s a snapshot from the teaser site:

There are several different reasons for why this is a bad marketing campaign. For example, fooling your customers and making them appear stupid (”You idiot, this is Vista!”) is not a good way to sell a product. Another reason includes the fact that Vista is already set up on this computer with reasonable specs, so any system incompatibilities or installation difficulties have been ironed out. Finally, customers get a 10 minute “demo” of Vista - that’s hardly enough time to make a judgment about an operating system. Wil Shipley put it best in his blog,

Vista is known for people initially liking it, then after a while discovering it’s not working for them, and “downgrading” to XP. This study has told us exactly what we already knew: that, initially, people like Vista.

There is one major psychological error in this ad that I have not seen discussed, though. People are being told that they are seeing a next-generation operating system, and their expectations are instantly set to be more prone to liking the product. This is similar to the New Yorkers going to a fancy restaurant and raving over the Pizza Hut pasta dishes. These people are being set up to like something because it’s fancy or next-generation. Therefore, they are more likely to be impressed.

I’ve actually blogged about research that has shown this effect in people by having them drink the same wines but telling them one is priced higher than another. Not only do people rate the pricier wine as better tasting, but the emotional and pleasure center of their brains are more active when they drink the pricier wine! It’s a deep-rooted effect, and Microsoft is taking full advantage of that here.

Product line confusion and too much choice

The Problem:

One of the most exciting areas in mobile computing today is the “netbook.” It is an incredibly small, lightweight, inexpensive machine that runs either Linux or Windows XP. It’s generated a lot of buzz because it is one of the first truly take-everywhere laptops due to its weight of under 3 pounds. The Asus Eee PC is one of the first models of this new laptop class. The Asus Eee PC website has some mention of the different models currently available, but these are all about to be replaced by a new model line. The UK division of Asus recently published a handy chart.

By handy, I meant the most confusing product chart ever. What’s wrong with this? An examination of other big laptop manufacturers can shed some light on the issue.

The Analysis:

Dell’s website has nice big labels for Home users and a drop-down menu for “Laptops.” Within that, there are different labeled categories for each of the different laptop classes, each with descriptions of what each category of laptop is good for. The one issue: the category names are not very self-explanatory - the difference between Inspiron and XPS is not immediately clear. But the descriptions are informative, at least.

Continuing to the Apple website, the homepage has a big label for “Store.” Within that, there are large graphics that list all the Mac products. There are three lines of Apple laptops, and they are reasonably labeled: MacBook, MacBook Air (not totally descriptive), and MacBook Pro (the professional version).

When one of the laptop models, is chosen there are a few options that are ordered Good, Better, and Best. It’s not spelled out exactly, but it is implied.

The Research:

What’s the human factors lesson here? Keep the product lines simple (like Dell and Apple), put multiple configurations in a hierarchy (Apple), and give the product lines either easily identifiable names (Apple) or easy-to-understand descriptions (Dell). What Asus is doing with the Eee PC violates every one of those principles and can only lead to confusion.

The problem of too many options is the subject of Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. The central thesis is that too much choice leads to stress about the purchase and then the onset of buyer’s remorse. The book is from 2004, but some companies have not learned their lesson.

Barry Schwartz gave a talk at the 2006 TED conference and, while long, is very interesting.

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This, by the way, is one of the major problems when Windows Vista was released. Four major editions with a few other variations here and there. Confusion and (some) panic.

Which led Apple to post an attack ad based entirely on this issue!

Visit the Air Force Web Sight for more details

The military, being what it is, is very competitive. There are rivalries between the Army and Marines, for example, because they’re both ground forces. Another big rivalry is between the Navy and the Air Force to determine who has the better toys (nuclear submarines win over fighter jets, of course).

Nonetheless, after seeing a banner ad on the NBC website, I can say that at least the Navy knows how to spell, unlike the Air Force:

The only human factors lesson to be learned is to proofread your work to make a good impression on the one who is reading the advertisement. They are much more effective that way.

Price, Expectations, and Brain-Supported Lies

A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academies of the Sciences by Hilke Plassmann and colleagues starts with this abstract:

Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.

Essentially, students were placed in an fMRI scanner and drank wines that were similar in price but were told that some wines were more expensive than others. The result? Participants rated the “more expensive” wines are better, and their brains responded appropriately! Orbitofrontal cortex was activated more in response to the more expensive wines, indicating a heightened emotional response (pleasure).

The impact of this is simple: if a product is more expensive, people will gain greater pleasure from purchasing it. This is not a previously unknown result, certainly. People will often justify their more expensive purchases, but this research shows that the brain responds differently to pricier (and therefore “better”) items. Even if you have to lie to yourself that the more expensive product is better, your brain will likely reflect the reality that you’ve constructed. Mind you, this experiment is not testing that, but it is a reasonable hypothesis to draw.

This research is relevant to a big debate going on right now in the home theater world. I just bought a flat-screen TV and have been outfitting my home theater with lots of high definition content. I’ve needed new cabling to accomplish all this, and I can either buy the $100 (!!!) Monster Cables from Best Buy or $5 cables from the Internet. The question that’s been brewing online is which cables are better. Apparently, some audiophiles can’t even tell the difference between a coat hanger and $100 Monster cables, yet people still buy the expensive cables, enjoy them, and claim to be able to hear better sound. Why? This research explains why.

Can you tell the difference?