The Vivid Medium
While an ROI of 600% should be reason enough for any brand to use catalogues, the study went further, surveying 500 random customers from the various groups to assess the perceived “vividness” of the catalogues versus the emails. What they found was that customers who received the catalogues found the product descriptions more vivid and could more easily imagine themselves wearing the product.
“Vividness is highly influential in consumer behaviour as it can increase consumer involvement and joy in the purchasing process, ultimately influencing preferences and sales,” wrote Jonathan Z Zhang of Colorado State University in HBR. “Vividness is especially important for hedonic products and services (versus utilitarian) that are purchased for fun, enjoyment and pleasure, and contain richer experiential aspects.”
While there are many studies and statistics about how many catalogues are produced and how many people read them, this is one of the few pieces of research that quantifies just what effect adding a catalogue has on sales and, by extension, the ROI of a campaign. It’s a resounding pat on the back for print catalogues and empirical evidence for the companies that already understand the power they can have for their bottom line.
