Guy Kawasaki had a great post the other day on his
blog.
If you want customers to be happy, give them less product Information. Here's a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information."
He cites a
study conducted by the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business.
The researchers used three experiments to arrive at their conclusion. Two of them were consumer test-style experiments in which subjects were asked for their opinion of chocolate in one and hand lotion in the other. In each experiment, one group of subjects was given lots of information about the product, the other group much less. In each instance, the subjects who had little information were more optimistic about the chocolate or hand lotion than those who had more information.
In the third experiment, subjects were given the opportunity to pick a video to watch. They were told one of the movies had received uniformly good reviews from critics, while the other received mixed reviews. Although more of the subjects selected the movie they were told had received uniformly good reviews, those who selected the movie believing it had mixed reviews were more optimistic about their choice.
What is amazing about the study is how the power of justification kicks in when product information is lacking. Consumers will exert a lot of energy convincing themselves that they made a great choice. The full study will be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.