Digital Social Proof In The Real World

I was walking around Albertson’s a few days ago when I noticed this in one of the aisles:

This is essentially the social-media-ization of the physical shopping experience. It uses social proof to encourage you to make a purchase or at least look. Basically:

“Hey! A bunch of other people like Miracle Whip…you should too!”

Social proof is extremely powerful. We essentially want to act like other people do. Thus, when we are given information about other people (such as the like button above), it influences our behavior.

Here is a potential problem with this setup though. Do I like Miracle Whip? No. There is zero chance I was going to buy it. Did I press “Like” to see what would happen? Absolutely.

With today’s technology though, companies could route real time sales data to products in the aisle to communicate social proof. If the labels told you that 1,000 other people actually purchased Miracle Whip or only 2 people purchased Banana Flavored Rice Chex (is that a thing?) don’t you think that might influence your behavior?

What do you think?