A sign at a festival booth has about three seconds to stop someone. Men stopped for the headline. Women stopped for the discount and the photo of the food. Rate a few signs yourself first.
The question the shoppers answered, one sign at a time.
Tap one for the answer.
Sixteen headlines, from "Keep your food dollars local" to "Visit our booth for 50% off".
The sign stands in front of thousands of different people. They don't all read it the same way.
The headline stops people. The small print has to tell them what they stopped for.
Shoppers in metro Atlanta, recruited for this study.
A few times a year or more.
The biggest split in the study.
Organic 79, convenience 72, local 51.
169 had not.
Fresh Harvest delivers Georgia-grown groceries across metro Atlanta and needed a sign for festival booths. Sixteen headlines, sixteen lines of small print, sixteen strips along the bottom, eight photos and six colours. Each shopper rated 93 complete signs built from those parts.
"Keep your food dollars local", "Good for people and the planet" and "Do you know where your food comes from" each added nothing with women and six to eight points with men. Women stopped for the discount and the produce photo.
Age cut the other way. "Organic groceries, fair prices" added seven points with people between 35 and 54 and took ten away with people between 55 and 64.
Each is built from the parts that audience rated highest. The single best sign for everyone scores 78.
The six background colours scored within one point of each other. Colour is the designer's call.
Pick an audience and swap any part.
All sixteen, if that's what you have. Thirty minutes on a call is enough to plan the study.