LIFESTYLE-USA: What You See May Be What You Buy

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Oct 10 1995 (IPS) - Movie-goers who see a film starring Sean Connery are likely to buy women’s hair care products afterward. Those who who see a Kevin Costner film go out and purchase men’s hair care products.

Barbra Streisand movies apparently make people want to buy bathroom items after the show, and the recent hit film ‘Batman Forever’ is linked to an increase in the sale of… women’s undergarments.

These and other statistics are the result of a recent study by a U.S. consultancy firm tracing the effect of cienema on retail sales.

Although the results may seem bizarre, the WalkerGroup/CNI consultancy group, contends they show that what people watch on the screen helps determine what they buy afterward.

“We did this study to show how incidental stimuli can affect how people shop,” says Jackie Bivins, director of retail marketing at WalkerGroup/CNI. “Movies are a perfect example. They take our emotions in a certain direction, and that direction puts us in the mood to buy one type of product or another.”

In the United States, movies increasingly are shown in huge, multi-screen cinemas, or “multiplexes”. More often than not, these theatres are located in equally large shopping malls, so audiences can watch a film and shop afterward.

That habit, in turn, has prompted retail store owners to seek ways of finding out just what films and stars make people buy which products, and arrange their stores accordingly.

That practice is called “envirobranding” – setting an environment to shop that matches the various other elements surrounding the shopper.

The WalkerGroup/CNI survey thus studied precisely which products would show better sales depending on type of film, specific stars and even specific blockbusters.

“Through envirobranding, we believe retailers can achieve increased sales and greater customer loyalty, no matter what movie is playing in the mall,” Bivins says.

Still, she admits, there is room for error in her survey. No one can really explain why sales in women’s brassieres went up 5 percent in malls where ‘Batman Forever’ was playing. Nor can the 12 percent increase in shampoo, tissue and toilet paper sales following a Barbra Streisand movie be readily clarified.

Sometimes, it seems, the reason for the sales increase simply may be that a specific movie attracts a specific type of audience to the shopping mall. (MORE)

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