Survey debunks impulse-buy notion

By DITA DE BONI

Recent research from the University of Auckland suggests infomercial sales rely less on impulse than previously assumed.

Pure animal purchasing a la Homer Simpson is not the norm, with a recent survey showing only 13 per cent of infomercial customers make a split-second, spur-of-the-moment decision to buy.

Sixty-five per cent of survey respondents admitted to some degree of planning before brandishing their credit cards.

Dr Brett Martin and Tom Agee, senior lecturers at the Department of Marketing, sent mail surveys with more than 150 questions apiece to past infomercial-product buyers.

Close to 900 people answered the survey and provided a fairly unified picture of the infomercial demographic: almost 80 per cent of respondents were females, more than half were aged between 20-39, and the majority were married or living with partners.

"Infomercials really are a highly successful but under-researched area of marketing," says Dr Martin.

"Conventional wisdom suggest infomercials thrive on the 'impulse' purchase. The distinction is not always made between impulse and planned purchases, which are quite different processes."

The findings revealed people were much more likely to make an impulse purchase when they were infrequent viewers of infomercials and when they thought less about the need for a product before buying.

The survey also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, impulse purchasers had a lower interest in the product once they had bought it.

Planned purchasers, on the other hand, were more likely to have children aged between 5 and 14, were frequent viewers of infomercials and were persuaded by testimonials by people they could relate to and spokespeople perceived as having expertise in the area of product interest, like Tiger Woods selling golf clubs.

"Basically, if someone is interested, [he or she] will seek out more information about a product before purchase," says Dr Martin.

"We found also that the more an ad made someone think - the more testimonials and demonstrations - the more likely the viewer was to believe the ad was a good one."

Generally infomercials were seen as effective ads by people who valued expert comments, product demonstrations and bonus offers, watched infomercials frequently and were aged 40-plus.

Regular infomercial watchers are more likely to weigh up the pros and cons of a purchase.