![]() ![]() We are easily overwhelmed, and the very process of “utility maximization” that economists celebrate as the height of economic progress becomes a terrible burden. Many choices are really quite frivolous or gratuitous. ![]() We can only process so many product choices in our minds. Increasingly, it seems, branding is running up against a wall of consumer resistance. To eke out even more money, “brand extensions” try to fill up a product category with contrived niche products….or migrate into entirely new product lines. But marketers can’t leave well enough alone. ![]() Schwartz puts it, “the fact that somechoice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that morechoice is better.”ĭaniel McFadden, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, says that consumers find too many options troubling because of the “risk of misperception and miscalculation, of misunderstanding the available alternatives, of misreading one’s own tastes, of yielding to a moment’s whim and regretting it afterwards,” combined with “the stress of information acquisition.”īranding is supposed to simplify life by developing a familiarity with trustworthy products. It might even be said to tyrannize.” In other words, as Mr. “At this point,” writes Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice, “choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. The Economist notes:Īs options multiply, there may be a point at which the effort required to obtain enough information to be able to distinguish sensibly between alternatives outweighs the benefit to the consumer of the extra choice. In various tests, a limited array of choices is actually a better way to stimulate consumers to make purchases of jam, chocolates or 401(k) pension plans. “If you can have everything in 57 varieties,” the magazine writes, “making decisions becomes hard work.”īehavioral researchers have found that too much choice is “de-motivating” – i.e., people don’t buy. ![]() Tyranny of choice full#How fascinating that The Economist magazine recently devoted three full pages to the “tyranny of choice,” in which the case is made that perhaps the proliferation of choice is actually an insidious form of servitude. The fantasy takes shape that if only we make the right choice, a kind of worldly beatitude will prevail. When buying a big-ticket item – a car, a refrigerator, a camera – no one wants to make the “wrong” choice,” so we really bear down and do comparative research. But it’s also true that a life marked by boundless choice ends up being a life of hyper-calculation in pursuit of a perfection that always seems just a little bit out of reach. There’s obviously much to be said for consumer choice. And we haven’t even gotten to that classic encounter with the world of over-choice, Starbucks. I face the same problem when it comes to spaghetti sauce (with basil or garlic or mushrooms?), laundry detergent (unscented or “sea breeze” or fabric softener?), orange juice (pulp or no pulp, Vitamin D or no?). Do I want a toothpaste that whitens teeth, cleans tartar, freshens my mouth, has the flavor of cinnamon, mint or peach, or is just the plain-old “original” brand. This happens to me all the time: I’m standing in a supermarket aisle paralyzed by choices. ![]()
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