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JULY | AUGUST 2015 BizEd 15 Color Correction WHETHER PEOPLE VIEW IMAGES in color or in black-and-white can significantly a'ect the choices they make, say researchers from The Ohio State University in Columbus. "Marketers may take it for granted that color is always the best pre- sentation format for advertising," says assistant marketing professor Xiaoyan Deng from OSU's Fisher College of Business. "While color is desirable in most situations, it's not desirable in all situations." Deng worked on the study with three co-authors, who in- clude doctoral student Hyojin Lee and professor of marketing H. Rao Unnava from Fisher and Kentaro Fujita, a professor in OSU's psychology department. The group asked 94 college students to choose one of two radios to rent for a camping trip to a remote site where only one radio station would be avail- able, based on either color or black-and-white pictures of their options. They could choose to rent either a basic analog radio for US$10 per day or a digital radio with preset station buttons for $18 per day. Of those shown the images in color, 50 percent chose the digital radio, even though they would pay more for features they could not use. Only 25 percent of those who saw the images in black-and-white chose the fancier model. The researchers explain that the use of black-and-white imag- ery draws more attention to an item's larger, more important features, while color draws more attention to its finer details. In another experiment, 287 participants were shown images of two types of shoes—high heels and rain boots—and asked to sort them by type. Half of the shoes were a solid color; the other half were polka-dotted. Ninety-seven percent of those shown black-and-white images focused on the shoes' more general features, sorting heels with heels and boots with boots. However, only 89 percent of those shown color images sorted correctly. The other 11 percent focused more on the finer details of color and pattern, placing the solid-color shoes in one group and the polka-dotted shoes in another. This phenomenon could have implications not just on ads for products, but also on ads for big-picture future-oriented services, such as those related to retirement planning. By manipulating color, Deng adds, "we can a'ect peo- ple's choices." "The E'ect of Black-and-White Versus Color Imagery on Construal Level" appeared in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. TEXT TO IMPRESS Researchers at Harvard University in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, recently asked two colleges in the U.K. to send text messages to 1,179 adult learners in literacy and math courses. Each message was written to improve students' motivation, planning, or social connection to the school. In the ex- periment, the dropout rate among students who received the motivational messages fell to 16 percent, compared to 25 percent for the control group. Texts to help students plan their homework included reminders such as "It never hurts to plan ahead [so] de- cide when you will practice," and texts to motivate students included statements such as "Keep up the hard work and keep improving." Messages meant to encourage students to maintain social connections within the course included encouragements such as "Well done, you've reached the mid-term break! Time to practice what you've learned and stay connected," along with a link to the college's Facebook page. Texts addressed students by name and were "signed" by the college. The students' attendance rate remained high even three weeks after the messages were sent. The authors conclude that "the returns on investment for this low-cost intervention are high enough to justify its use." Researchers included professors from Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as from The Behavioural Insights Team, a government think tank in the U.K. dedicated to the behavioral sciences. The study was funded by the U.K. govern- ment's Department for Business, Innova- tion and Skills. "Curbing adult student attrition: Evidence from a field experiment" is available at ssrn.com/abstract=2563757. Only 25 percent of those who saw the images in black-and- white chose the fancier model.