The Placebo Effect in Marketing: Sometimes You Just Have to Want It to Work
Published 11/1/2005
Author: Caglar Irmak, Lauren G. Block, and Gavan J. Fitzsimons
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Executive Summary
The authors examine the subject of marketing placebos and extend and support Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely’s (2005) basic findings. For the first time, the authors document a “sugar pill” placebo effect for everyday consumer products. In this study, consumers drink either an energy drink, a sugar pill placebo drink, or water (control condition). The authors find that the placebo effect manifests only for consumers who actually desire the arousing effects of an energy drink. Such consumers experience identical physiological and subjective behavioral changes as those who actually consume the energy drink.
Biography
Caglar Irmak is a doctoral candidate in the Marketing Department at Baruch College, City University of New York. He received his MBA in Marketing and BSc in Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey. His research focuses on self-regulation, consumer inference making, perceptions of control, and mind–body connection.
Lauren G. Block is Professor of Marketing at Baruch College, City University of New York. She received her doctoral degree from Columbia University, her MBA from Emory University, and her BSc from the State University of New York at Albany. Her research interests focus on the public policy implications of various forms of marketing and advertising appeals. Her work has appeared in many outlets, including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
Gavan J. Fitzsimons is Associate Professor of Marketing at Duke University. He received his doctoral degree and Master Philosophy in Marketing from Columbia University, and he received his MBA in Marketing and BSc in Chemistry from the University of Western Ontario. Professor Fitzsimons’s research focuses on better understanding how consumers can be influenced without their conscious knowledge or awareness by marketers and marketing researchers, often without any intent on the part of the marketing researcher. His research has been published in a wide range of outlets, including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Marketing Science.
J Marketing Research, Volume 42, Number 4, November 2005
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