Paying to Purchase a Conversation Topic

People want to express themselves (Berger and Heath 2008), and signaling research has found that they use products to do so (Escalas and Bettman 2003). However, sometimes people do not want to silently signal to others, they want to talk to them (Kahneman et al. 2004). Can products also play a role in facilitating conversation? Initial evidence suggests they can; displaying some self-relevant products (conversation pieces) increases the likelihood that their owner will have an enjoyable conversation (Wiener, Bettman, and Luce 2015). In this investigation, we look at whether consumers predict that non-self-relevant products can also facilitate conversation, and when they will pay a premium to purchase products that might do so. We investigate this issue by examining consumers’ likelihood to purchase expensive products that are associated with product related stories, such as those about the product’s history or making. Importantly, the stories are about the products, rather than the purchaser, and are not self-relevant. We predict that people will pay a premium for a story-associated product if they think they can use it to facilitate conversation. Conversation facilitation is not the only reason people might pay more for a product with a story. People perceive products with stories more positively (van Laer, Ludwig, and Escalas 2017) and as more authentic (Newman and Dhar 2014). Therefore, we include a situation moderator in all studies: whether the situation allows participants to use the product to facilitate conversation. In studies 1 and 2, we manipulate whether they will use it alone or socially, and in study 3 we manipulate whether they can mention it. We predict that people are more likely to purchase expensive products with stories when they can use them to facilitate conversation than when they cannot.