Havi at The Fluent Self has an interesting post about the hazards of giving things away for free: People tend to save "free" things up for when they really need it.
In her example it's a free massage. The massage was offered to employees so that they'd know how that masseuse works and can recommend them to customers. The opposite happened--the employees save up their free massages for a time when they really need them.
The writer then goes on to ask the employees who aren't using their free massages what their response would be if the massages were offered for $12. The common response was along the lines of "that's a good price, I'd get one today". So offering things for free in this case produces results contrary to the intent, whereas the perception of a spectacular-but-limited-time deal would have worked.
Sometimes less is more, but too much "less" becomes...less.
Monday, April 6, 2009
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