Thinking about buying that flat screen television for the big game, but need your spouse’s say-so? A McCombs researcher has some advice for you.

Researchers have a long history of investigating how some individuals “must have” and/or “can’t have” certain attributes when buying a product. For example, some people won’t consider certain brands of cars, or insist on minimum performance levels for consumer electronics.

But what happens when another person—like your spouse—has different “must haves” than you?

Many people buy big-ticket consumer durables such as cars and televisions jointly (e.g. husband and wife together). But no one has looked into how potential husband and wife “must haves and “can’t haves” intersect. Until now.

In a paper published this December in the journal Marketing Science, researchers at McCombs and the University of Wisconsin-Madison used the husband and wife joint decision-making context of consumer electronics to build a decision-making framework and model that captures the experience, using data collected from real husband and wife couples.

Agree to Agree

When a husband and wife are making a decision they can each take mental shortcuts and exclude certain choices using their “must have” and “can’t have” rules, explains Assistant Professor of Marketing Ty Henderson, who co-authored the study with UW-Madison’s Arora Neeraj and Qing Liu.

The researchers found that when couples agree to reject alternatives (e.g. only consider 1080p televisions) the couple makes faster (and better) decisions.

When they do disagree, the researchers found that the best approach for couples is to restrict the options to the smallest possible number.

It may also help for both the husband and wife to get informed about what they’re buying, Henderson says.

The researchers found that more knowledgeable consumers base their “must haves” and “can’t haves” on product attributes, while less knowledgeable consumers tend to screen their choices based on price.

If your spouse cites a budget threshold for a joint purchase, this may be a signal that a little product education may increase their cost threshold once they better understand the value of the product attributes.

And going along with your spouse’s “must have” or “can’t have” decision criteria might make for a better decision rather than convincing them to seriously consider a brand or attribute they don’t really want.

“In the end of course, bear in mind that citing academic research doesn’t always help you win an argument at Best Buy,” Henderson concedes. “But it might help.”

See Henderson speak about his research on "Promoting a Brand with a Social Cause" Feb. 7 for the Faculty Research Presentation Series.