The Marketers Responsibility is to Remove Choice
I’ve heard a lot of marketers talk about wanting to offer choice to consumers. However, a few years ago Barry Schwartz released his best seller ‘The Paradox of Choice’. His central premise was that the more choice there was the a) harder it was to make a decision, and b) the less likely it was that someone would be happy with the decision they’ve made (ever shopped for a house and tried to get all the positive features you’ve seen into the one house, for a price you can afford)?
Schwartz went as far to say that too much choice retarded action – quoting a famous experiment that shows a store selling 6 flavours of jam will sell more than a store selling 30. Interestingly, the latest meta-study on choice has found that the answer is much more complex than that. Sometimes choice is valued, and sometimes it’s not.
Anyway, I always found it curious that marketers say they want to offer choice, as really they should be aiming to remove it. Marketers who create brands for which there is no alternative, no other choice available will win. Create a brand that’s truly differentiated, and you’ll create a brand that creates its own category – a category of 1. Google and search, Blackberry and PDA’s, iPods and MP3′s, have all at some stage been a category of one (or close to it).
…. anyone got any brands they work on that fall into a category of 1 – removing all choice.
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Daniel Oyston
Feb 14th, 2010I think it is also a problem of an ill-defined target market. Some companies try and be everything to everybody. Not sure why this is sometimes – maybe its greed, maybe its because they can’t or don’t know how to define a target market (and a profitable one) – but I suspect that the easy justification for them is that they “want to offer choice”
It never really sits with me. Do the work so that your offering provides a solution to a problem or need and do it right – then it’ll sell itself (well almost
Certainly, having a well defined target market helps focus a companies energies and provides the opportunity to be good at what they offer
Fritz Bachen
Feb 15th, 2010hi daniel I agree. Also another way to look at it is not have a defined target market at all. Have a defined needstate, or a defined occassion, or even a defined product and perhaps that opens up bigger opportunities also.
Anonymous
Feb 15th, 2010good post.
have fought this battle with clients many, many times… and usually lost.
must check out that book.
Ben Shepherd
Feb 22nd, 2010great book
Lloyd
Feb 22nd, 2010Yes i'm working on one … it's called Big Richard http://www.bigrichard.com.au
margie
Aug 12th, 2010Yellow Pages used to be!
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Sep 5th, 2010There is no other alternative of 'The Paradox of Choice" and I like it the most.
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Oct 14th, 2010I have read that book that was really very nice.
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Nov 29th, 2011It is a great book, so focused in details and great novelties.
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