Page 259 - The Power to Change Anything

248 INFLUENCER

buying their product, easier. For instance, consumer guru
Paco Underhill helped increase the sales of doggie treats by
making it just a little easier to take them off a shelf. Underhill
found that young and middle-aged adults were more likely to
buy animal treats than were the elderly and children. This
piqued his curiosity. He videotaped customers on the pet aisle
and quickly discovered what was keeping treat sales low among
certain age groups. Typically the staple items like pet food were
on the eye- and waist-level shelves, while treats were placed on
higher shelves.
It turns out that the young and old find it significantly more
difficult to reach items on a higher shelf. One video clip
showed an elderly woman attempting to use a carton of alu-
minum foil to knock down a package of treats. Another revealed
a child dangerously climbing shelves to try to reach the pack-
age. Moving the treats down one shelf made the behavior just
easy enough to boost sales immediately.
But not everyone is listening. In fact, Bill Friedman, one
of the biggest gurus on the effects of the environment on
human behavior, is being systematically ignored. He studies
gambling casinos. By watching thousands of hours of video of
people gambling, he has discovered an interesting fact. The fea-
tures that make a hotel attractive make gamblers miserable.
Las Vegas hotels compete on the basis of their size and
splendor. The higher the ceilings and the longer the vistas, the
more valued the hotel. Gamblers, in contrast, seek small, inti-
mate places. When you think about it, sitting in front of a one-
armed bandit and pulling a lever is actually quite boring. You’d
have to pay production-line workers good money to do such
things. What people find interesting at a casino is not the task
of gambling, but the interactions they have with other people.
The job of gambling is made more fun (a surrogate for easy),
when other people are around. Consequently, when Friedman
helps owners transform large unfriendly venues into cozy ones,
profits soar.