We love to have choice. Choice is at the
very heart of freedom and without it we could hardly claim to have any
autonomy. Without choice we wouldn’t have capitalism, religion, the need for
law, not to mention thousands of ice cream flavours. It is a supposition that
the more choices one has the better, and indeed having choice is essential to
our sense of well-being and today we have more of it than ever and yet it seems
we do not benefit from it psychologically. In fact we seem to suffer from
having too much of it.
I frequently find myself frustrated by
having to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to choose a toothbrush or
toothpaste thinking why can’t each brand simply make me the best product they
can instead of offering me multiple variations of features and 4 in 1 benefits
all the way upto 12 in 1! Why would I forgo tartar control at the expense of
whiter teeth when I can have it all? Its more than simply buyers remorse; it’s
a sense of frustration that I have to needlessly choose because of some
long-tail marketing strategy.
But you can have too much of a good thing.
Studies have shown that though more personal choice is desired and more
intrinsically motivational, that wrongly supposes we have an innate ability to manage
more choice or feel any satisfaction as a result of making a choice. In a
series of studies conducted at Colombia and Stanford measuring response and
satisfaction to having extensive vs limited options in class essay topics, ice-cream
varieties and jam sampling booths, each concluded somewhat counter intuitively
that less choice results in more satisfaction and ultimately more purchases.
The studies concluded that though people
were happy with having more choice they become frustrated with the responsibility
of making the right choice and invariably less satisfied with the ones they
make compared to those who had fewer choices. The phenomenon of choice overload has neurological,
sociological and even existential root causes. Also called the “tyranny of
choice” in the 2000 Barry Schwartz book “Paradox of Choice”, it plays a part in
every aspect of our lives from potato chip flavours to the spouses we choose.
Some brands have used limiting choice to
great affect. Apple laptops today come as one great laptop with three
variations of size, they don’t even have colour options! But instead of
“choice”, you have any even more powerful “ultra-choice”; customization within
the ios platform and great selection of apps. Telcos could do wonders for their
brands if they adopted a mass customization approach to their marketing rather
than compartmentalizing different divisions and appearing to give me choice.
Imagine if your data plan was managed across all services (Smart phone, DSL and
wifi) and telephony rates suited to your actual usage rather than presumed
usage. Even if that meant marginally less returns in the short run for the
telco, customer satisfaction, retention and brand loyalty would more than
compensate in the long run. It would also help the telcos better manage
relationships with their customers and lead to more “share of life” and
ultimately more profit.
The future of “choice” in the marketing
world, for both brands and consumers, is in harnessing Big Data to serve new
purposes and offer innovative value. Brands offering choice through
customization that’s truly personalized and consumers outsource decision making
to hyper algorithms tapping into meta data of reviews and usage stats. We
already outsource much of our decision making to google and as our personal
data enters the mainframe we effectively make decisions for others through our
actions and opinions.
It’s a fascinating area of consumer
behavior that touches upon the illusion of free will and very topically with
the Snowden NSA scandal, on privacy and anonymity. How much of what we choose
is with our own free will, and how do our choices unwittingly define who we
are? With Big Data growing we may find ourselves free of the scourge of choice,
but at the mercy of Big Brother.
“There is a longing for a return to a time
without the need for choice, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that
choices, however wonderful, has entailed”
-Alain
de Botton, on love.
(First appeared in Venture Magazine- November 2013)
