KFC plays "price temptation" on Crazy Thursday: The truth behind the anchoring effect

It seems that it is not unfamiliar for brands to use the anchoring effect in pricing to influence consumers' purchasing decisions. This article will combine the current market hot spots and analyze the brand's marketing links according to the 4P theory commonly used in marketing. Interested friends can take a look together.

"Crazy Thursday" has a long history and continues to be supported by KFC fans due to the popularity of "Crazy Thursday" literature and the large quantity and good price. Recently, when TOP was looking for topics in his daily life, he found an interesting pricing phenomenon in the chats of netizens -

KFC meal pricing

The price for set 1, which includes a cup of lemon tea and a small portion of popcorn chicken, is 9.9 yuan, while the price for set 2, which includes double the lemon tea, is 19.9 yuan.

At first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with the pricing of the two packages, but if you think about it further, if users buy two packages of package one, they can get two cups of lemon tea and two servings of popcorn chicken for 19.8 yuan. Not only does it give them two more servings of popcorn chicken than package two, but they also save 1 cent.

Once the internal logic is discovered, consumers can rush to buy Package 1 to get a bargain, so what is the point of Package 2 at this time?

This seemingly unintentional price loophole actually hides the merchant's precise control of user consumption psychology.

I believe that people who understand the marketing industry are familiar with the "anchoring effect". As a term originally born in the field of psychology research, the general meaning of the anchoring effect is that when people need to make a quantitative estimate of a certain time, they will use a specific value as the starting value, which constrains the estimated value like an anchor. When making decisions, people will unconsciously give too much weight to the information they first obtained.

In other words, the starting value of the "anchor" is a reference standard. When the standard is set there, people's estimates tend to fluctuate around it and will not deviate too far. Therefore, in the marketing industry, brands usually apply the "anchor effect" to products, pricing, etc. to influence consumers' purchasing decisions.

Looking back at "Crazy Thursday", we can find that KFC's contradiction in pricing is actually a manifestation of the "anchoring effect": the significance of the second set meal as an "anchor" may not be sales, but to provide users with a price reference. When users compare the prices of two adjacent sets and find that the first set is much more cost-effective at the same price, they will obviously feel that they have picked up a bargain, which increases their desire to buy.

The "little trick" of "Crazy Four" in pricing is just a microcosm of the application of anchoring effect in the marketing industry. Looking at the overall situation, which other brands and marketing links have worked hard on the anchoring effect? ​​According to the 4P theory commonly used in marketing, TOP will take you through it in combination with current market hotspots.

1. Products

The 4P theory states that when a brand develops a product, it requires the product to have a unique selling point and puts the product’s functional demands first.

Everyone understands the theory, but how do we discover the selling points and how do we understand and summarize the functional demands of the product?

When lacking good ideas, brands may be able to leverage the anchoring effect to quickly open up new markets and accumulate original traffic with the help of native brands.

For example, Weibo developed the Weibo Lite (international version) based on the original version, which has fewer advertisements, is smaller in size, and uses normal timeline logic to display information flow, which has won good reputation;

Weibo International Edition

JD.com's Special Price Edition (Extreme Speed ​​Edition) was created to tap into the consumption potential of a wider range of lower-tier cities outside of first- and second-tier cities. It has fewer functions, more streamlined products, and relatively more welfare activities. It is not only conducive to attracting bottom-line market users, but also can bring the same favorable prices to consumers in first- and second-tier cities as JD.com's main site.

Coincidentally, platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and iQiyi have all launched fast versions of their own applications. Although some functions are restricted, they basically do not affect normal use and take up less storage space.

When these applications that are tightly bundled with the standard version of the product are released, users who have small size requirements will unconsciously compare the two and thus form a preconceived good impression of them.

On the other hand, in pursuit of uniqueness, brands sometimes deviate from their core principles and go against the “anchoring effect”.

For example, when developing new products, some brands will consciously open up multiple product lines to avoid users from forming stereotypes about new products due to the anchoring effect. This phenomenon is particularly common in the field of smart devices.

Most consumers have now adapted to the speed of mobile phone updates and iterations, but when it comes to the English letters in the suffixes of various mobile phone models, many people are in a state of knowing what they are but not why they are.

Take Huawei mobile phones as an example. The suffix X means the phone has a large screen and a large battery; i means the basic version; s means the performance upgrade version; e means the low-end version; pro means the professional version upgrade version with more functions than the standard version; plus means the enhanced version. The reason why the suffixes of mobile phones are becoming more and more diverse is largely to differentiate users from the original standard version of the brand.

Huawei mobile phone models in different series

In addition to the field of smart technology, in the skin care category, Estee Lauder owns the mid-to-low-end brand Clinique and the high-end brand La Mer; in the automotive field, BYD, which focuses on the mid-to-low-end market, launched the high-end automobile brand "Yangwang" last year. These are changes made by the brand to intentionally avoid the anchoring effect when entering the high-end market.

2. Price

Formulating different pricing strategies according to different market positioning is the most basic pricing principle for brands. However, in reality, brand pricing still requires specific analysis of specific issues.

In TOP’s opinion, pricing that applies the anchoring effect can be generally divided into low-price strategy and cost-effective strategy.

KFC's "Crazy Thursday" pricing mentioned at the beginning of the article is actually a typical "low-price strategy." Users find more affordable options through price comparison in the mini program, and place orders with the idea of ​​"getting a bargain", thereby promoting product sales; the "original price xxx, current price xxx" during the big promotion festival and the price reduction rhetoric of the anchor in the live broadcast room are all the same.

It is worth noting that these brands are mostly consumables or low-end goods. Under normal circumstances, these products can be consumed once or several times and will not affect daily life. Therefore, users' willingness to buy is usually mainly affected by the price.

For non-durable goods or high-priced services, pricing should not only consider the price itself, but also the degree of compatibility between price and product performance.

I believe that many consumers are often very cautious about purchasing bulk products. When faced with low-priced products, many people’s first thought is not “getting a bargain” but “what is the quality”.

Based on this, many brands usually provide consumers with multiple price options when introducing prices.

For example, a brand of leather sofas lists three price options for users:

• Package 1: Standard leather + eucalyptus three-seater 4100
• Package 2: Upgraded imported Nappa leather + pine wood three-seater 4500
• Package 3: Upgraded imported Nappa leather + pine wood large three-seater 5000

Package 2 is 400 yuan more expensive than Package 1, but the material is upgraded; while Package 3 is only 0.3m more than Package 2, but it is 500 yuan more expensive. In comparison, Package 2 is obviously more cost-effective, and users will tend to spend a little more money to buy better quality products. At this point, we can see that the role of Package 1 and Package 3 here is more as a reference comparison rather than to promote sales.

3. Promotion

Promotion refers to a series of marketing activities such as brand publicity and public relations. There are many kinds of promotional methods commonly used by the public, among which joint ventures can be regarded as one of the methods that best fits the anchoring effect.

The most common type of collaboration is with celebrities. Nowadays, when brands invite celebrities to endorse products, in addition to examining the traffic value, they also need to consider their compatibility with the brand promotion goals. This is precisely because users' choices are influenced by the celebrity's own image.

Last year, OPPO and Joe Hisaishi, Huawei and Pu Shu successively collaborated, all to convey to consumers the professionalism of the product in tuning; Heytea teamed up with fashion godfather Takumi Fujiwara to create a new product "Cool Black Meisang", shaping the brand's image of being trendy and close to young people.

Celebrity crossover collaboration

There are also technical collaborations. In recent years, many mobile phone brands have chosen to collaborate with established camera manufacturers, such as vivo and Zeiss, Xiaomi and Leica.

On the one hand, it is because camera manufacturers have significantly better lens casting technology than mobile phone manufacturers and can solve the photography problems that plague most users. On the other hand, it is also because these camera manufacturers represent authority and professionalism. When domestic mobile phones are co-branded with them, consumers' views on mobile phone performance will be adjusted according to the camera's evaluation system, which will invisibly add points to the mobile phone brand.

If you want to become a brand, the quickest way is to enter that field. As a result, more and more trendy brands are flocking to luxury brands, while luxury brands are getting closer to art. These are actually measures to change users' original impressions by leveraging the anchoring effect.

In addition, ordinal numbers naturally have an anchoring effect. Whether it is the classic print advertisement of Avis Taxi more than 50 years ago, "We are second, so we work harder", or the slogan "First in China, Second in the World" that Hisense revealed at the World Cup some time ago, they are naturally connected with other leading brands in the form of ordinal numbers, making people inevitably substitute the impression of the first-place brand into it, indirectly enhancing users' perception of the brand's image.

Avis Taxi classic print ad

Last year, high-heeled shoe brand 7or9 launched an advertisement from a female perspective, "The Second Pair of High Heels", which started from the deeper meaning represented by ordinal numbers and conveyed the brand's care for women.

The Second Pair of High Heels

The short film compares the first pair of high heels to the ignorant stage of life when one only pursues beauty, and the second pair of high heels to the stage of life when one has experienced the vicissitudes of life and remains true to oneself. The brand chooses to be the "second pair of high heels" for women, aiming to provide users with more comfortable companionship and richer emotional value.

This kind of "humility" of "not competing for the first place, only competing for the second place" allows more female users to associate their life journey with high heels, and experience the beauty of the "second pair of shoes" through comparison.

4. Channels

As for the anchoring effect in the channel, it is more reflected in the influence of the channel itself on the user's mind.

For example, JD.com specializes in first- and second-tier cities, and most of its products are self-operated, with guaranteed quality; Pinduoduo focuses on the lower-tier markets, with a wide variety of products, low prices, and a large selection space. Therefore, when Apple phones are launched on these two different platforms, users will obviously be more inclined to place orders on the former; and when it comes to buying fast-moving consumer goods, the latter becomes a better choice.

In offline stores, many food and beverage products are displayed together with well-known brands, and clothing brands are located close to luxury stores, which may deepen brand awareness and enhance brand tone to a certain extent.

Looking at the above, it is not difficult to see that the anchoring effect has permeated all aspects of brand marketing, and is like the "air" in the marketing industry. Many brands may not use it deliberately, but in the long-term rendering of the market environment, they have also invisibly developed this habit.

For brands, where to "anchor" and how to guide users is a subject worth studying; and for users, how to find the "anchor" and avoid being disturbed by it is also a necessary consumption philosophy.

Author: TOP Jun

Source: TopMarketing (ID: TMarketing), when it comes to Marketing, Top is a belief - TopMarketing.