Learning Lessons from: The Simpsons

Back to the econ lab at UCL, and this time the experiment was mercifully short, unlike Experiment 11 which I participated in last time. This one was a market research experiment, a lot more enjoyable but also less wholesome to pick apart.

Part A took us to a website with 20 digital cameras on it. The website had 6 specifications for each camera: price, weight, digital zoom, optical zoom, pixel size, screen size. We weren’t allowed to take notes (every detail had to be done by recall) but we had as much time as we needed to browse through as much (or as little) of the selection as we wanted. We told that we had the option of buying one of these cameras at the end, and the econ lab will pay £20 towards it!

Being the poor student type, I mainly focused on the price. I found myself trying to save time by screening out any digital cameras over £100 and not learning any of the specifications. This came to be a problem when they started asking me multiple choice questions on the cameras’ specifications, how sure I was of my choice and how much I liked each camera. In the end I narrowed it down to the cheapest camera I could find, a Kodak Easyshare C713 (not an endorsement in any way ) which I thought was very reasonable at the reduced price of £40.

So after getting paid to buy a digital camera, I wondered what was my next challenge. I actually laughed out loud when they told me that Part B involved watching an episode of The Simpsons (Treehouse of Horror VII for the hardcore fans). There were two commercial breaks between the mini-stories and we had a button for skipping to the next commercial if we wanted, but the commercial breaks were for a fixed time so you couldn’t actually fast forward. Now I have to admit, the commercials they selected were actually good, I haven’t seen any of them before and I only used the skip button twice.

At the end I had to recall as many brand names as possible which were advertised during the commercial break, which was surprisingly difficult despite the quality of the commercials. Then I was tested on a list of brand names, whether their ad came up during the commercial break, how attractive it is to me and how likely I am to buy their product during the next three years. It all felt very market research rather than economics, but I don’t mind, this is the dream job: getting paid to watch commercials!

Part C was very short, there were 10 Mini Coopers (same model, different colours) on show and we had to guess the market share of each colour. I think it mainly focused on whether people preferred cars with different coloured roofs to bodies or the same, but after estimating some numbers it seemed like I preferred roofs to be the same colour as the body.

The final part (I’m pretty sure the four parts had nothing to do with each other) tested us on whether we preferred/trusted reviews of products with star grades out of 5 or generic comments in words such as “I am very happy with this product”. I would’ve thought that the two methods of communicating satisfaction were the same to me but I found myself giving more weighting to the worded comments, despite how generic they are.

An interesting one and a half hours, even better that I was getting paid for it. Market research like this is vital in figuring out pricing strategies, aesthetics and advertising. Hell, people often don’t even know what they want for themselves, much less others. As I always say, “Supply is a science, demand is the art.”

[Editor’s note: this is the eighth instalment of the Learning Lessons series, detailing the author’s exploits on the London lecture circuit. For further information or to subscribe to the mailing list, contact arthurmauk@gmail.com]