Research: Consumers Prefer Products with Imperfections Because They Feel More Unique

HBR.org 2017-09-20

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Mistakes occur more frequently than we’d like. And generally, when they happen, we often don’t go about advertising them to others. But companies can benefit from letting consumers know when they make mistakes with a product. Consumers perceive these products as more unique, because they think mistakes in product creation are more improbable than there being no mistakes. And the perceived rarity of mistakes increases their value.

To explore the preference for products made by mistake, we conducted a series of experimental studies and examined market sales data. In our first study, we gave consumers a choice between a new flavor of chocolate and extra money. Before making their choice, consumers learned that a chef — either mistakenly or intentionally — left a batch of chocolate in the oven for an extra five minutes, which led to the creation of the new flavor of chocolate. Consumers were more likely to choose the chocolate than extra money when they learned that the chocolate was made by mistake rather than made intentionally.

But did consumers choose the chocolate born from a mistake because the mistake happened to have turned out well — a case of serendipity or a happy accident? What about when a mistake makes the product worse? To test this, we presented consumers with a work of art that contained a blemish that detracted from its appeal. When the detracted artwork was framed as having been made by mistake (the artist accidentally blemished the artwork by dropping his pen on it) versus intentionally (the artist decided to add the blemish with his pen intentionally), consumers were more likely to purchase the artwork made by mistake and were willing to pay more for it when they decided to purchase it. This taught us that consumer attraction to products made by mistake is not just limited to cases in which a mistake enhances the product.

So why do consumers want products that are made by mistake? We proposed that intentionality bias made those mistaken creations more unique to consumers. That is, people assume that others do what they intend to do, and thus deviations from intention (or mistakes) are deemed as more improbable.

To test this underlying psychology, we varied how unique a product was. In this study, we had consumers all listen to the same hip-hop song. Before listening to the song, they learned that the producer’s breath had either accidentally or deliberately been recorded into the mix. We found that consumers were willing to pay more for the song when it was made by mistake than when it was made intentionally.

Importantly, we included a third condition in which consumers learned that the song was made accidentally but that the outcome of the mistake was not unique (many producers record their breath into their mixes). This time, consumers did not want to pay more for the song. This finding showed that consumers prefer products made by mistake only when a mistake is unique.

Lastly, we looked at auction sales of original vintage photographs — some of which were made by mistake and some of which were not — that were sold by the same dealer on eBay. The mistakes originated from a variety of causes, including double exposure, blurriness, and the photographer’s finger being in the exposure (finger bombing). These mistakes were explicitly noted in the eBay description of the photograph being sold. We wanted to see whether photographs containing arguably negative properties (for example, blurriness or finger bombing) received a premium relative to those containing no such negative property. We found that, indeed, consumers paid more for photographs containing a mistake in their creation than photographs that did not.

Companies and entrepreneurs often avoid disclosing mistakes in the creation of their products, because they fear that consumers will perceive the product negatively. Our research suggests that this strategy might not be warranted and that highlighting that a mistake was made in the creation of a product can actually amplify consumer interest in purchasing it. In other words, when it comes to making products, to err is not only human — it is also profitable.