TakeAway: In today’s economy, motivating consumers to pull the trigger and purchase (now) is job one for most marketers.
Sometimes, the answer may be as simple as changing the brand message to emphasize time instead of money … or vice versa.
If buyers are “experiential”, focus on time; if they’re “possessive”, focus on money.
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Excerpted Knowledge@Wharton, “Time vs. Money: Analyzing Which One Rules Consumer Choices, ” September 16, 2009
Pick up a magazine or turn on the TV and prepare for a flood of marketing messages about how you spend your time and money … Yet with all this talk of time and money, little is known about how consumers’ attitudes and behaviors are influenced by a product’s association with these concepts …
A new paper … argues that when companies weigh whether to go for an ad campaign with a time or a money theme, they should be aware that each evokes strong reactions from consumers …
Emphasis on time … typically leads to more favorable consumer attitudes and purchasing decisions because … time is less fungible than money … and people feel less accountable for how they spend their time because it can be more difficult to measure than monetary outlays. These two characteristics — fungibility and ambiguity — are important differentiators in how consumers think about time and money …
When money matters … for the prestige possession, subjects reported greater feelings of personal connection when they were primed to recall the money spent on the product … those who highly valued the mere possession of the product had more favorable attitudes when prompted to consider the money involved in the purchase …
Ultimately, the researchers conclude: “Brands can cultivate consumer relationships by first considering how consumers most identify with the product (through experience or possession) and then highlighting either their time or money spent accordingly.” …
Edit by TJS
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Full Article
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2341
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The Homa Files 
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