This is how marketing manipulates our brain: the number 9 on a price tag is crucial

INFLUENCE OF MARKETING ON PURCHASING CHOICES –

Have you ever heard of the neuromarketingIt's a real science that explores commercial techniques to increase product sales and brand strength through the combination of factors related to neurology and psychology. In practice, our brain, our emotionsOur behaviors are scrutinized to identify the most subtle and pervasive seduction techniques. All to push us to buy. Up to a subtle art of deception, which can drag us towards compulsive spending, often useless, and therefore waste..

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NEUROMARKETING AND CONSUMERS –

One of the fundamental laws of neuromarketing, now enshrined in the management centers of large-scale distribution, concerns the use of the number 9. Pay attention: the most seductive proposals, in terms of numbers and therefore potential savings, that are made to the customers of a supermarket or a hypermarket always end with the number 9. 9,99, 10,99, 50,99 euros, and so on. Why? The neuromarketing answer doesn't concern, as one might imagine, the small difference between the fraction, which ends in 9, and the round number, which ends in zero. The repeated use of the number 9 on price tags is linked to the fact that the brain tends to reduce the processing time of information, especially in highly stimuli-filled environments, such as supermarkets and department stores in general. And in this process, the first digits become decisive; they are the ones that count: therefore, according to our brain's analysis, the difference between 9 and 0 becomes a chasm. And it leads us to purchase.

NEUROMARKETING AND NEW FRONTIERS OF CONSUMER RESEARCH –

Confirmation of this theory comes from research by two psychologists at the University of Vienna, Claus Ebster and Birgit Neumayr, who conducted the following experiment: they sent a double catalog, a few days apart, to a sample of female customers. In the first version, the products were priced in round numbers, from 7 to 120 euros; in the second version, however, the prices were adjusted based on the number 9, from 6,99 to 119,99. As you can see, the difference in terms of wallet is irrelevant. Yet, purchases with the second version of the catalog, the one set based on the number 9, increased by 10 percent. But the most interesting thing is the fact that it wasn't the number of purchases that increased, but the average amount: a confirmation of our brain's processing that favors the accumulation of knowledge. grocery and it swells.

HOW MARKETING INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR –

It is important to uncover and understand these mechanisms, even if they may seem complex while in reality they are simple, to be able to take control of one's own choices. And decide for yourself if and when to make a purchase, without wasting money.

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