Objective Proficiency p 36. Large Succulent, Fleshy, Pulpy Fruit. Extra Listening

What is your favourite fruit? Without a doubt, mine is mango.



What is the most that you would pay for a good mango?
How much would you fork out for the best mango in the world?

This mango in question is very much a luxury item. However, it is – without doubt – the best mango that you will ever eat.

So what would you pay for it? $10? $15? More? Less?




Now hold that figure in your mind. What I want to do now is persuade you to raise your price. In order to do this, I am going to provide you with more information about the mango on offer. Are you ready?

• Taste: The mango is perfectly ripe and incredibly sweet. It is quite simply the most delicious mango that you have ever tasted.
• Variety: It is an Irwin mango – a variety that was developed in the USA and is popular in Japan, Australia, and Taiwan.
• Size: It is quite a large mango. Personally, I could eat it all in one go. But I am a greedy pig. I think that most people would make it last for a day or two.
• Aesthetics: The skin is a beautiful sunset red and the flesh is dark yellow.
• Cultivation and care: The mango is grown in such a way that the sun hits all sides. This means that it is red all over – much like a newspaper (lol!). There are no green or yellow patches. In addition, each mango is grown in its own special net. The net catches the fruit gently when it falls off the branch naturally.
• Texture: The mango is smooth and fiberless. It is very juicy.
• Presentation: This is quite cool: the mango comes in a presentation box and the box is gift-wrapped.
• Identity: This mango is an experience. And since no two experiences are the same, the fruit has a unique serial number pressed (debossed) into its skin.

So, have you changed your mind? Would pay more for it now? If so, how much more?

We are going to make an experiment. Half of you will be told how much it really costs before you make a decision, the other half won't. Let's see what happens.

The mango was featured in a video by a fruit-loving man called Jared Rydelek. Jared travels the world and uploads videos about strange places and exotic fruit. In his YouTube channel description, he writes:

Why fruit? Finding exotic fruit that is unavailable to the rest of the world is a bit like a treasure hunt. Finding something I never knew existed is a thrilling experience whether or not the fruit actually tastes good. Some of the fruits I find are tasty, some are disgusting, some are dangerous to eat, but all of them are interesting.

After introducing, describing, and reviewing the special mango, Jared tells us that he would pay $20 for it.

Was that higher or lower than the figure that you chose? I would guess that it was higher. You see, there was an important piece of information about the mango that I didn't give you. Watch the video and you'll find out.


Now let's move from mangoes to a type of cognitive bias called anchoring.

Let me explain:
Most people would not pay $20 for a mango. That would be crazy. And I am guessing that the figure that you chose was less than that. But in the video, that is the figure that Jared said he would pay for the item. And my guess is that his figure was high because he had some information that I did not give you – the price of the mango ($80).

Let's find out if the students who knew the mango's price would have paid more for it than those who didn't.


Prices are often arbitrary. A product's price does not necessarily reflect its value. Unfortunately for consumers, our ability to value a product objectively will be severely influenced by the price tag. And I believe that we just witnessed this in the video – Jared claimed that he would pay $20 for a mango because it was priced at $80.

Being aware of the price of something hinders our ability to value it objectively. And this is fundamental in retail and marketing. You might pay $90 for a pair of jeans when you know that they had been priced earlier at $180. And you might have considered that $90 was a bargain. But was it really? Were the jeans actually worth $180 in the first place? It is difficult to say because you didn't value the jeans for what they were. You based your decision on the anchor price of $180. It's a trick. And a very effective one. And we are all susceptible to it.

In the world of negotiation, there is a school of thought that says that the first price to be mentioned will set the actual figure that parties eventually agree on. This is the anchoring effect.

NB: the description of the mango contained a reference to very funny joke. This is what I wrote:

Cultivation and care: The mango is grown in such a way that the sun hits all sides. This means that it is red all over – much like a newspaper.

Well, it turns out that a few people didn't understand the joke. And as you will see, this is not surprising. It requires some knowledge of British culture and complex grammar.

The original joke that I referred to is very well known. The joke is a grammatically complex pun. It exploits two words which sound the same (homophones) and the words are:

• Red, white, and blue
• Have you read Harry Potter?

So here is the joke. Are you ready? I have to use phonetic transcription:

Q: What is black and white and /red/ all over?
A: A newspaper.

The question leads us believe that /red/ refers to the colour. But it is actually a past participle. And to make the joke more complex, it also involves a passive question form.
 
So the question is actually:

What is black and white and read all over?

I have two more jokes that exploit past participle puns.

Customer: Waiter, waiter! This coffee tastes like mud.
Waiter: Of course it does, sir. It was ground just a moment ago.

Customer: Waiter, waiter! What is this?
Waiter: It's /bi:n/ soup, sir.
Customer: I don't care what it's /bi:n/. What is it now?
  

1. Create an activity to learn vocabulary related to food (texture and consistency, taste and smells, variety, size, aesthetics, etc.)