Marketing research has proved that restaurant goers will spend more if the menu shows prices as numerals without dollar signs or forgoes numerals altogether and spells out the prices.
Why?
The researchers are assuming that dollar signs serve to promote thrift by reminding restaurant customers that they're spending money.
And spelling out the prices makes doing math in one's head more difficult, thereby discouraging diners from focusing on how much they will be spending.
I know this is the kind of thing that makes many consumers hate advertising. Personally, I find it fascinating. It's tidbits like this that inspired me to study advertising/marketing.
Image source: Jenny Downing Source: The Consumerist
As a former menu creator for a chain of 100 restaurants, I can also tell you that we would carefully choose where the items are in a list. Those at the top and the bottom of the list are ordered more often, so we would put items there that either were higher priced, or had a lower food cost so we had a higher profit margin.
Posted by: The Masked Marketer | 16 November 2009 at 09:04 PM