Ekant Veer: University of Canterbury marketing professor reveals why we find free promotions irresistible

There's no shortage of stories where customers go crazy for free giveaways at the supermarket - and one expert has revealed why this is the case.

Between coffee shops offering a free drink after you've bought 10 or beauty retailers handing out samples if you spend enough, research has explained this is all another marketing trick to hook people in.

University of Canterbury marketing professor Ekant Veer says people like to feel like they've won things, especially if they're free.

"We feel like we're getting rewarded for our loyalty or rewarded for our good behaviour, and then it's going to work for us. We're going to get that little dopamine hit." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now you know how obsessed we all are with the
supermarket giveaways, the Disney discs, the snake Braser and so on. Well,
if you are, don't feel bad. It's not an accident.
It's psychology. It can't via as a professor of marketing
at the University of Canterbury. Hey, I can't.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
How are you going?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm very well, thank you? So what is it? Why
are we so into this stuff?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
So? This stuff works because every human, regardless of how
conscious you might be, loves to feel like they've won something,
especially if it's for free. And so when the supermarkets
are offering a way of kind of enticing you into
their shop versus someone else's, and we feel like we're
getting rewarded for our loyalty or rewarded for our good behavior,
then it's going to work for us. We're going to

(00:39):
get that little dopamine here to say, Yep, if I
keep collecting, if I keep getting this, I might get
my reward at the end.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
But does it always work? Because I love the idea
of the smeg knives and the pots and all that stuff.
But those Disney discs I just take and give them away.
They mean nothing to.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Me, exactly and what you've basically identified is that what
is valuable for you is not necessarily valuable for someone
el and vice versa. So we pick up the Disney
discs to give to friends who have younger kids. You know,
our kids are eighteen and twenty. They don't need that
sort of stuff. We ourselves are not swayed by these
sorts of promotions because we're very conscious about what impact
they have. But most of the people out there are

(01:15):
not thinking consciously about what they're buying at that time.
And it's kind of like a little bit bit of
emotional pattern the back to say thank you for coming
into New World or countdown or whatever, and here you go.
So depending on what the prize is will depend on
the target audience, and you'll see that New World, for example,
targets people very specifically based on their client base, what
worth the same. They try to find the rewards that

(01:38):
work for their people or what would attract people to
their store.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Having said that it count, I'm just reflecting on my
behavior now. And even though I hate the Disney Discs
with the passion that I cannot explain, I never ask
them not to give them to me, and I always
take them even if to give them to somebody else.
So it's working on me, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's working in you in a sense because you've got that.
But has it changed your behavior to get you into
Woolworth's is the real question. If it hasn't changed your behavior,
like you're always going into the same Wolies every time,
or you're going into the same supermarket every time, then
it's not really changed much of your behavior. But you
grabbing them, even if it's to chuck in the bin,
is another kind of social cue. If someone's offered you something,

(02:16):
it's rude to say no thanks, I don't want your hospitality,
But if you are taking it and giving it to
someone else, and then that is a way of extending
your sense of monarchy to someone else, then yeah, that's
the way that the supermarkets win as well.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Account Thanks very much, appreciate it. Itcou't be a Professor
of Marketing, University of Canterbrick. For more from Hither Duplessy
Allen Drive listen live to news talks. It'd be from
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