Do We Get More When We Pay More? Is Price A Subliminal Sales Tactic

Twenty Volunteers had their brains scanned using fMRI while they tasted what they believed were five different Cabernets, each with a different price. Reality was that there were only three different wines two of which were poured twice, once at a high price and once at a low price.

You've probably already guessed what happened right?

Yep.

The volunteers rated the wines according to their prices. Cheap wine tasted cheap and everyone's favorite was the most expensive.

Here is what is really interesting. The testers not only said they liked the wine more but the fMRI also showed an increase in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain that has been suggested may encode for pleasantness of experience.

According to Baba Shiv and Antonio Rangel of the California Institute of Technology who co-authored the study, (the previous link includes a video interview with Shiv) changing a marketing variable such as price can have a measurable effect on pleasure related brain activity.

Something as simple as a price change can have massive impact on the what people perceive. And, price can pre-condition the expectation. People have been conditioned to expect more out of something that costs more whether it is wine or a vacation or a hotel or a car.

In what ways can you leverage price and expectation to pre-condition your buyers to experience your product or service as being better?

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