Sexy Bags

In the world of clever professors getting paid to do stuff that might justify jes' a tad o' voyeurism – like a professor of physiology (with an Italian name!) getting funding to research the impact of high heels on the health of women's legs (see my September 8^th Calf Stretching blog) – I've got another one. This one comes from Deborah Roedder Johnand and her research partner, Ji Kyung Park, professors of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, who are scheduled to release a paper (“Got to Get You Into My Life: Do Brand Personalities Rub Off on Consumers?” Journal of Consumer Research: February 2011) this December (Yeah, I know… it's got a February date!), which includes a field study of the psychological impact on women's feelings of sexiness when they carry around a Victoria's Secret shopping bag. Women use these shopping trophies as lunch bags and even as a substitute for a purse, according to the report, which obvious addresses the importance of brand identity in consumer behavior.

AOLNews.com (September 23^rd) summarizes how the field work went: "In one of four experiments, John and a colleague approached 85 women in a mall, asked them to fill out a survey -- embedded in which were questions about their self-perception -- then gave the women one of two shopping bags to walk around with for an hour. One of the bags was from Victoria's Secret. The women in that group reported to the researchers that they felt more sensual and glamorous simply for the carrying." Woo hoo! I'm thinking that there is a very cheap Christmas gift in here somewhere. According to Scienceblog.com (June 21^st) commenting on the same study, "Shoppers who carried the Victoria’s Secret bag perceived themselves as more feminine, glamorous, and good-looking than shoppers who carried the plain shopping bag… In subsequent studies, the authors [also] found that some people felt more intelligent, and more like leaders when they carried a pen embossed with an MIT logo."

Well it turns out that folks who think they can change who they are and maximize what they can accomplish (called "incremental theorists" who believe the sky's the limit) aren't the ones who favor the sexy bags and MIT pens. That joy falls to the other category of people who know their limits ("entity theorists" who don't believe anything that they do will actually change who they are). Hmmm??? These latter individuals "are also the ones most susceptible to feeling sexier carrying a Victoria's Secret shopping bag or smarter holding an MIT pen. And yet that seems antithetical to their worldview, no? After all, if they're bound by their limitations, why should these people believe anything can influence them? Well, although they've given up on what they alone can achieve, they haven't given up on what an outside agent -- say, a multinational corporation selling sexiness -- can bring to them.

"In other words, entity theorists believe their attitudes can change as long as they're not the ones doing it. 'They need a crutch,' John explains… John believes that in spite of the taxonomy's rigidity, most people are probably a mixture of entity and incremental theorists. She envisions a future for advertising that slices itself into ever finer niches to appeal to our disparate mind-sets. For the incrementalists, maybe Victoria's Secret pushes makeup kits, so that a woman is in charge of how beautiful she becomes. For the entity theorists, well, there are those racy TV ads, which we know have a way of transferring their mojo to a plain paper bag." AOLNews.com.

Interesting stuff, right, but I am picturing predatory males eschewing Match.com and chat rooms to "troll for chicks" – choosing instead a radar-like beam drilling down on women with Victoria Secret bags… especially those not actually coming out of a Victoria's Secret store. Hey, and I'm sorry Victoria (whoever you are), but your secret appears to be out. And yeah, I guess those bags under my eyes from staying up late and writing these blogs is… well… not of the "sexy" variety!

I'm Peter Dekom, and these professors got well paid to conduct this study!