Title: Regulating Visual Marketing Cues from the Lab 

Abstract: 

E-commerce websites often use salient visual elements, called marketing cues, to steer consumers towards specific choices. Current regulations focus on the algorithms that determine which choices are promoted,, but do not restrict the cues themselves.  In this paper, I study the welfare effects of marketing cues in a lab experiment. I measure the performance of subjects in a choice task with induced values during which one of the alternatives receives a visual cue, varying the cue and the algorithm. I find that a brown and a green circle found on the website of a food retailer are equally helpful if they always appear on the best item, but uneven harmful for more realistic algorithms. I analyze the results in light of a static model of rational attention and identify conditions under which they can be considered externally valid. I also illustrate how the choice of a cue can affect supply-supply incentives regarding prices and the algorithm. Finally, I discuss the potential of regulations restricting which cues can be used. 

Title: Attentional capture by visual marketing cues: computational modeling and experimental evidence 

Abstract:

Visual marketing cues are ubiquitous in online shopping environments, yet the underlying attentional mechanisms are still imperfectly understood. Introducing the effect of cues in standard computational models of multi-alternative multi-attribute decision-making, I generate predictions on choices and response times depending on whether the cues are product-specific, attribute-specific or both and how salient they are. I then test these predictions in an online product choice experiment with induced preferences