Medium, Please
by Dave on January 9, 2011
Years ago, in one of my first jobs, I worked in the marketing department of a company that owned, among other things, a huge chain of coffee shops. Not quite Starbucks or Costa Coffee, but still pretty big.
We had the task of encouraging more sales of the large size coffee as that’s where we made the most money (the markup was, and I suppose is with all coffee shops, astonishing). Large, sadly, wasn’t our most popular coffee size – medium was. We needed to find a way to change that.
We managed it by simply relabeling the large size of coffee as “medium”. The old medium became “small” and we introduced a new “large” – a huge, expensive coffee that we didn’t expect, and never really thought, anyone would buy.
Despite the change we found the vast majority of customers, when asked what size, would still reply “medium, please”.
5 comments
I think this is a good example of buying psychology. You don’t want to buy the largest, because then you might buy a too large coffee. The small one might not satisfy your need, so you go for the safe choice – medium.
by Martin LeBlanc on January 9, 2011 at 1:28 pm. #
Not a bad strategy for coffee. But when you start applying to food like french fries (both McDonald’s and Burger King resized their fries offering years ago), it’s no wonder America has an obesity epidemic. Bigger is not always better.
by Jason Periton on January 9, 2011 at 5:09 pm. #
Jason: Bigger is better if you care about money. Hense it’s a company doing this.
by matt on January 9, 2011 at 5:55 pm. #
Same would of happened if you just increased prices.
Your medium now cost your previous large etc…
by Jouni Osmala on January 9, 2011 at 6:13 pm. #
@Jouni – the difference here though is that customers actually get more coffee for their medium, rather than only an increase in price. Similarly, if you liked your medium coffee before, you can still get the exact same quantity for the same price – it’s just called “small” instead.
by Dave on January 9, 2011 at 6:56 pm. #