Turker Sener’s Reviews > Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion > Status Update

“If you were a billiard-table dealer, which would you advertise—the $329 model or the $3,000 model? The chances are you would promote the low-priced item and hope to trade the customer up when he comes to buy. But G. Warren Kelley, new business promotion manager at Brunswick, says you could be wrong.... To prove his point, Kelley has actual sales figures from a representative store.. During the first week, customers... were shown the low end of the line. and then encouraged to consider more expensive mod-els—the traditional trading-up approach.. The average table sale that week was $550.. However, during the second week, customers... were led instantly to a $3,000 table, regardless of what they wanted to see.and then allowed to shop the rest of the line, in declining order of price and quality. The result of selling down was an average sale of over $1,000.”