How to get what you want using decoys and deliberations

Comparisons help define the worth of products, services and even people. It’s why companies such as TripAdvisor, Amazon and Match.com are successful. Hotels are booked, items are purchased and people find dates based on how they look next to their less appealing counterparts. 

But sometimes people find it difficult to make comparisons among alternatives because they differ on too many dimensions. “People often refer to this as comparing apples with oranges,” says Madan Pillutla, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. “When you’re in that situation, and want people to pick the apple, throw a rotten apple into the mix.”

Behavioural economist Dan Ariely demonstrated how to do this when he described how Economist readers were offered a strange set of subscription choices: access to web content for $59, the print edition for $125, or a combined print-and-web subscription for $125, the same as print-only. He questioned why such a bizarre set of options existed. Surely anyone buying a print-only subscription would be out of their mind? 

This was proved right: 84% of subscribers chose the combined print-and-web option, just 16% chose to buy access to the web content and no one chose to buy just print. See how the results differed when people were given an option to buy access to web content for $59, or the combined print-and-web subscription for $125. Now 32% chose the print-and-web subscription and 68% chose the web access. The print-only became the so-called “rotten apple” when presented in with the two other options. Importantly, it also increased the combined print-and-web (apple) subscriptions. Professor Pillutla explains: “If you know that what you’re offering is superior to the decoy in every single way, you create an influential choice set. As human beings, we find it incredibly hard to ignore comparative information.”