Consumer Empowerment: How messaging and AI drove more quotes and higher preference

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Quick Case Study #1: How a simple message boosted plant-based product preference 29.6% in university experiment

While we typically cover real-world case studies, a university experiment caught my attention because it shows how a few words can change customer behavior. Here’s that story.

During a literature review, Dr. Archana Mannem discovered individuals barely noticed environmental messaging. When people did notice it, consumption choices were often influenced not by the messaging itself, but by other factors such as personal motivation to protect the environment.

“It occurred to me that as marketers we cannot change someone’s value system; however, through effective messaging we can influence their affective state. Previous behavioral research showed that when individuals feel powerful, they believe that they can independently influence outcomes,” said Dr. Archana Mannem, assistant professor of marketing, Department of Business Administration, University of Delaware.

So Mannem worked with Dr. Andrea Heintz Tangari, professor of marketing, Wayne State University, and Megan J. Baran, then a doctoral candidate in marketing at Louisiana State University, to conduct a study with 298 online panelists located in the US who were regular meat eaters.

First, they sought to understand how these panelists felt about eco-friendly options. “We measured if environmental consciousness was a personality trait of the individual. We used the green consumption values scale that was developed by Haws and colleagues (2014),” Mannem said. The participants were slightly leaning towards being environmentally conscious, with a mean value of 5.3 on a scale of 7.

They then asked participants ‘which option would you choose if you were looking to get some nuggets?’ The two options were regular chicken nuggets and Imagine Farms nuggets, a prototype example the team created of a plant-based chicken alternative.

Control: Marketing message describing impact of consumer choice

The control group saw an alternative meat product with the message of ‘plant-based products use less water, less land, and produce fewer GHG emissions’ on the product’s label.

Creative Sample #1: Control message focused on impact

Treatment: Message to empower consumers added to marketing message describing impact of consumer choice

The treatment group saw the same alternative meat product packaging with the impact message, but added a message that said, “YOU HAVE POWER to reduce your environmental impact by choosing the Imagine Farms Nuggets!”

Creative Sample #2: Treatment message adding empowerment

The team kept the message simple and straightforward so there wasn’t information overload for survey participants, but also because advertisers and manufacturers don’t have room on product labels to accommodate lengthy messages.

RESULTS: More intent to purchase after seeing empowerment messaging

When only the environmental message was displayed, 54% preferred the plant-based nuggets over the regular chicken nuggets. However, in the treatment group where the ‘power’ message was also included, 70% of individuals expressed a preference for the plant-based nuggets.

“Consumers must believe that their individual choices have the potential to drive societal change. Marketers can instill this sense of power by making small adjustments to their messaging, such as incorporating messages that evoke a feeling of personal impact and elicit confidence in the individual about their power as a consumer,” she advised.

Quick Case Study #2: How home services company decreased pricing friction with AI computer-vision tool, increased quotes 45%

PSS International Removals is a 40-year-old moving company that specializes in helping people in the United Kingdom move to another country.

BEFORE: A lengthy, friction-filled quote process

For years, getting an accurate price quote for a move from PSS International Removals required scheduling a home survey – an assessment of the items that need to be moved to estimate the shipping volume.

Potential customers could have the survey done in person or via a video call, but either way these prospects had to set aside time, wait for availability, and in many cases, rearrange their schedules.

One potential customer summed up the reason the moving company lost leads in its funnel by saying, “I didn’t have time to book a survey – I needed a rough idea of costs before even thinking about next steps.”

Creative Sample #3: Prospects had to fill out a detailed form just to start the quote process

After: AI-powered self-surveys for instant quotes

The team added an option for potential customers – an AI-powered self-survey tool, allowing customers to scan their belongings using their phone camera.

The computer-vision AI system was trained on real-world moving data, so it can automatically measure volume and estimated shipping costs in real time. It took the team about six months to plan, launch, and develop the new tool – including the AI model training, UI/UX design, and backend development.

Here’s what this means for a potential customer – instead of waiting for a survey appointment, customers could complete the process in minutes and on their own schedule.

And instead of going straight to a form, customers now had a choice of an AI self-survey or a human survey before filling out the form. They still had to complete the form for either type of survey.

Creative Sample #4: Prospects now have a choice to do a moving survey themselves

Results: Higher engagement, more completed quotes

The new process helped increase completed quotes 45%, reduced time from initial inquiry to booking by 35%, and increased lead-to-customer conversion rate by 20%. There was also a 30% decrease in the number of on-site surveys needed.

About two-thirds of customers (63%) chose the AI self-survey, but 37% still opt for a human-led survey. While the human survey has a higher conversion rate than the AI survey – 54% move forward after the human survey versus 47% for the AI – since more people choose the AI it ultimately leads to more total deals.

The move and storage service company realized a positive ROI from the project after the first three months.

“This is pay-off marketing – not just chucking money in the direction of advertising but paying to find actual points of friction in the customer’s story and eliminating them. By embracing automation and artificial intelligence where possible, we did not just improve efficiency – we made the moving process less of a burden on thousands of our customers. That's what great marketing should do,” advised Hugh Dixon, marketing manager, PSS International Removals.

Related resources

Consumer Reports Value Proposition Test: What you can learn from a 29% drop in clickthrough

Client Empowerment: Be the woman behind the woman (podcast episode #110)

Staying Relevant: How brands adapted strategies in response to social and consumer shifts