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> It is named after Austrian architect Victor Gruen, who disapproved of such manipulative techniques. That's cold. I quite wonder why. Nevertheless, I found t
by mminer237 2y ago
> It is named after Austrian architect Victor Gruen, who disapproved of such manipulative techniques.
That's cold. I quite wonder why.
Nevertheless, I found this article extremely difficult to read. Its "Description" barely describes it, seems to contradict itself, and somehow just makes my head hurt trying to parse it. Is this attempting self-exemplification?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ClassyJacket 2y agoI always heard this explained simply as supermarkets putting milk at the back so you have to walk past a bunch of other stuff to get it.
- cool_dude85 2y agoThere's a few good books on the psychology behind this kind of thing in retail by Paco Underhill. Best, I think, is Why We Buy.
- marcod 2y agoI feel like that is a separate effect... making you walk past items you might want to get you to buy them vs intentionally confusing you so you forget what you came in for in the first place, which makes you more susceptible the the previous and many other effects.
- mminer237 2y agoI get the effectiveness of that—you're essentially getting free advertising for everything walked past. The article just doesn't seem to describe that. It talks about "hyperreality", confusing customers, making them calm, and placing things in attractive positions.
- twelvechairs 2y agoWhen Gruen used it, it was about the shopping center itself definitely not 'items on a shelf' like many use it today. He wanted shopping centers to be like the a nice European town or city shopping street - self-contained shops around the outside and 'town square' type broad pedestrian spaces in the middle that were open, public/community focussed, full of light and trees, and hopefully connected for pedestrians to other areas of a town. He saw this as a good alternative to the car-clogged main streets (with frequently no open space and narrow, poorly maintained footpaths) that were common in post WWII America. What he objected to was the 'square'/circulation area becoming psychologically overwhelming experiences (complex layout, sensory overload, full of advertising billboards, constant changes, no links to other pedestrian areas, etc.) which was adopted by most shopping centres as their studies showed that it meant people bought more (I think he called it 'a machine for spending' or similar) but (for Gruen at least) it killed any sense of a true benign European 'pedestrian street' or 'town square' that he wanted to bring to America.