I hope Storm succeeds. I am just going to bluntly say this marketing approach is
manipulative. Here is my justification:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_decision-making#Attribute_substitution
Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize in economics for his work in mathematical psychology. Kahneman truly revolutionized stock investment with
Prospect Theory.
Prospect theory is a
behavioral economic theory that describes the way people choose between
probabilistic alternatives that involve
risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known.
The theory states that people make decisions based on the potential value of losses and gains rather than the final outcome,
and that people
evaluate these losses and gains using certain heuristics.
The model is
descriptive: it tries to model real-life choices, rather than
optimal decisions. The theory was created in
1979 and developed in
1992 by
Daniel Kahneman and
Amos Tversky as a
psychologicallymore accurate description of decision making, compared to the
expected utility theory. In the original formulation the term
prospect referred to a
lottery.
If you read Thinking, Fast and Slow, economic behavior becomes more clear. How to best use resources like EBR.com is one tool towards a high-ticket purchase.
One heuristic related to overall ratings is "
Anchoring":
"Anchoring and adjustment is a heuristic used in many situations where people estimate a number.[27] According to Tversky and Kahneman's original description, it involves starting from a readily available number—the "anchor"—and shifting either up or down to reach an answer that seems plausible"
Anchoring also causes particular difficulty when many numbers are combined into a composite judgment. Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated this by asking a group of people to rapidly estimate the product 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. Another group had to estimate the same product in reverse order; 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8. Both groups underestimated the answer by a wide margin, but the latter group's average estimate was significantly smaller.
[33] The explanation in terms of anchoring is that people multiply the first few terms of each product and anchor on that figure.
[33] A less abstract task is to estimate the probability that an aircraft will crash, given that there are numerous possible faults each with a likelihood of one in a million. A common finding from studies of these tasks is that people anchor on the small component probabilities and so underestimate the total.
[33]
Another heurisitic is "Attribute Substitution":
In 2002 Daniel Kahneman and
Shane Frederick proposed a process called attribute substitution which happens without conscious awareness. According to this theory, when somebody makes a judgment (of a
target attribute) which is computationally complex, a rather more easily calculated
heuristic attribute is substituted.
[45] In effect, a difficult problem is dealt with by answering a rather simpler problem, without the person being aware this is happening.
[42] This explains why individuals can be unaware of their own biases, and why biases persist even when the subject is made aware of them. It also explains why human judgments often fail to show
regression toward the mean.
[42][45][46]
Affect heuristic - Perhaps the most important
"
Affect", in this context, is a
feeling such as fear, pleasure or surprise. It is shorter in duration than a
mood, occurring rapidly and involuntarily in response to a
stimulus. While reading the words "lung cancer" might generate an affect of
dread, the words "mother's love" can create an affect of
affection and comfort. When people use affect ("gut responses") to judge benefits or risks, they are using the affect heuristic.
[40] The affect heuristic has been used to explain why messages
framed to activate emotions are more persuasive than those framed in a purely factual way.
[41]
Because the largest market segment is
ANCHORED on price. Convincing this market segment about other
ATTRIBUTES is a very difficult sell.
These are only a few of the many more reasons why I use a
Google Sheet to compare bikes.
The following graphs illustrate Prospect Theory. The graphs illustrate why people have much less resistance towards purchasing a Storm vs. a high-end bike.