Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

A piece in the New York Times Year in Ideas Issue jumped out at me. Two-Birds-With-One-Stone-Resistance highlights research conducted at the University of Chicago that demonstrates people’s tendency to be reluctant to use something that serves two purposes, choosing instead the option that is designed with only a single purpose in mind. In the experiment cited, subjects were asked to fill out surveys with either a ball point pen or a pen with a laser-pointer. Only 17 percent of the respondents who were aware of the dual purpose of the laser-pointer pen selected it to fill out he survey, as opposed to about half of the subjects when they were unaware of the dual purpose of the pen. “Connecting one tool or method to multiple goals weakens the mental association between that means and any other goal”, says the article.
 
Why is this relevant? Think of the Google homepage. Does it do anything other than allow you to search? What about the Yahoo homepage? Where are users more likely to go to perform a search, a site that just does search or a site that has multiple purposes? Sites that stay focused on their core offerings are more likely to be considered by users faced with a wide array of choices than those that try and be anything and everything to customers. Photo credit: JumpinJack
 
Whitney Browne