If you are a marketer selling products that tier up in price, here’s a brave thought.

I came across an interesting piece of consumer research this week called To Profit or to Assist? The basic finding is pretty simple.

Consumers became more willing to follow the company's recommendation when the recommended product was relatively cheaper than the alternatives.

The mechanism is persuasion knowledge. Consumers appear to ask themselves:

“Are you recommending this because it is good for me, or because it is good for you?”

In a world where brands are pushing you to upgrade, go premium, add this and get the bigger package, it’s really brave to say: “You don't need it.”

For instance, a service business could say:

“We could do a big strategy project here. But I don't think you need one. Let's fix these three things first.”

Or a consumer brand could say:

“You could buy the $1,500 model. But honestly, for what you've told us you need, the $900 one will do everything you want.”

You're deliberately giving up the opportunity to make a little more money today, to give people a reason to trust what you tell them tomorrow.

In today’s short term world, that’s brave too.

And from a creative point of view, “You don’t need it” is a fantastic brief. There’s tension in it, it’s unexpected, and it gives a creative team something much more interesting to work with than another version of “ours is better”.

The research is here: To Profit or to Assist? How Relative Price Influences the Effectiveness of Company Recommendations, Journal of Consumer Research.