A vast number of organisations across the UK’s hard-pressed Live Entertainment Sectors are currently facing the dreaded double whammy of spiralling operational costs combined with reduced leisure budgets among key audience segments.
Or, at the very least, leisure budgets perceived to be reduced compared to subjective memories of past/recent levels.
And at times like these (not ‘the worst of times’, but definitely not ‘the best of times’) the obvious strategy (probably since Charles Dickens’ times) is to go high and low, i.e. you actively target the higher-end/less price-sensitive segments that are more resilient to the prevailing economic headwinds, whilst, at the same time, you create and communicate lower-cost options designed to lure in more price-conscious purchasers, AKA ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’:
Patrons on lower incomes;
Affluent (but infuriatingly market-savvy) attendees;
Purely deal-driven purchasers.
With these price-conscious patron-types in mind, the diagram below illustrates the differing roles price can play in influencing the trade-off between ‘Perceived Product Quality’ and ‘Perceived Monetary Sacrifice’ at the two latter stages of the purchase process: ‘Add-to-cart’ and ‘Place-an-order.’
Using this diagram as a jumping-off point, let’s spend a couple of minutes trying to get inside the head of the purchase decision-maker, who we’ll call ‘Prudent Lou’, or ‘P.L.’ for short.
A cursory scroll through the ticket prices on offer tells P.L. that no one alternative ‘dominates,’ the available options. Sadly, there’s no once-in-a-lifetime, seventy-five percent reduction in advertised ticket price, with complimentary (and unlimited!) champagne, pre-show and interval, followed by dinner at The Ivy with the stars of the show.
So in order to agree on a purchase, from the range of ticket options open to them, P.L. will reconstruct the ‘choice space’ in their mind, collapsing the appraisal criteria until the decision is reduced to a simple proposition that leans one way (e.g. higher quality) or the other (e.g. lower-price).
But they’re still sitting on the fence, dammit! So what will it need to make P.L. take the plunge into The Rubicon (the Roman river not the fruit drink) and progress from the motivational, goal-setting stage (Add-to-cart) to the volitional, goal implementation (Place-an-order) stage?
Well P.L. can, of course, start by absorbing the visual information that we have presented to them on the page; text, images, colours, etc.
But the problem is, that P.L. (like almost all ticket-buyers) will have only a highly limited capacity for activity such as object recognition, and are therefore only able to mentally process a tiny number of items at a time ...which creates an ‘attention bottleneck.’
But help is at hand (or 'at head' in this case)
Because access to P.L.’s attention bottleneck is guided by a “priority map” that represents P.L.’s best guess as to where they will deploy their attention next.*
And this deployment is (largely) determined by input from two sources:
The first source of contributory factors is stimulus-driven (or ‘bottom up’ in neurophysiological terms) i.e. what we put on the page in front of P.L. ...and how and where we 'put' it.
The second source is, neurophysiologically speaking, ‘top down’ and target-driven
i.e. what P.L.’s aiming to get from the purchase.
Or, more precisely, those features of the desired outcome that P.L. has stored in their memory.
If the item that P.L.’s attention is led to proves to be a dead end (or ‘distractor’) P.L.’s attention will move onto the next highest point of interest. And so on.
...they may have to kiss a lot of frogs
However, it probably won’t be easy for P.L. to backtrack and revisit any discarded information/option, because of a potentially problematic evolutionary adaptation in P.L.’s mental make-up called the ‘inhibition to return.’** Which was great for foraging for bison droppings and berries in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, but which can make P.L.’s ticket-picking a bit tricky.
And just like the territorial ranges of P.L.s hunter-gatherer ancestors, there is (Praise The Lord!) a limit to the ticket-price options that P.L. will actively consider; the range and concentration of task-acceptable comparisons known as the Latitude Of Acceptance (or LOA Curve).***
But hold on a minute. Have you spotted the wrinkle here yet? Not so much the elephant in the room as an entire herd of Mesolithic bison roaming a Shoreditch-loft window-box?
Not everyone is buying a single ticket for themselves.
In fact, more often than not our decision-maker won’t be a 'P.L'. but an 'L.P.', a Lead Purchaser.
And accountability to others adds a whole new layer of contextual complexity to the entire ticket-purchasing process, as shown in the diagram below.****
But accountability also gives us in The Business of Pleasure the opportunity to (subtly) nudge P.L. (acting as L.P.) a bit higher up the price table as they progress along the purchasing journey.
Because even a mean hombre like The Man With No Name (pictured) would be prepared to pay a few dollars more to secure the approbation and/or undying love of those accompanying him to the show. And who might (metaphorically) gun him down in front of the Grand Saloon if he screws up and buys them submarginal seats for a top show.
DT
9 November, 2024
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