too many C H O I C E S

...If this isn't the best meme you have ever seen, I don't know what is!

Back to having too many choices... I was listening to Pandora Radio this morning and I heard a funny add that related directly to having too many options as consumers! Jensen Jewelers was advertising engagement rings. They were marketing their hundreds of different rings, for every budget, all with 14 different financing options. 14 financing options!!! In "The Paradox of Choice," Schwartz poses the idea that having too many choices can lead to uncertainty, regret, and a struggle to make a decision. I think this is exactly what will happen when a man walks into Jensen Jewelers.

Most people will not ever miss the choices they don't even know they have, but it is easy to regret the choice that you made. As consumers, we think more choices will lead to a more definite decision because we see everything there is and are able to choose from all of them. Contradictorily, it only makes the decision making process worse.

The following video talks about the scientific part of having to make choices and highlights a phenomenon known as decision fatigue. This states that no matter how small or large the decision, choices causes anxiety - even in win win situations where there is no 'wrong' choice! He also discusses decision paralysis, which is when consumers get overwhelmed by too many choices and they end up not making a choice all together. This is a great five minute clip to talk about the downfalls of too many choices!





And there we have it... Too many choices is stressing us out and causing us to be bad decision makers. So next time you are faced with a choice, narrow your options and don't think about it again once your decision is made.

M A X I M I Z I N G or satisficing?

In Barry Schwartz' book titled "The Paradox of Choice," he elaborates on our everyday choices and  expands on the idea of maximizers versus satisficers. Schwartz defines a maximizer as someone who seeks and accepts only the best. On the opposite end of the scale is a satisficer - someone who is willing to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. The picture below is a good representation of the process each one goes through, as well as the outcome of their choices. 

The last two days I found myself being the ultimate maximizer - and it is frusturating! My boyfriend and I were visiting a new city and when we got into town it was about lunch time. We were both hungry and neither had a preferance, just food. As we walked the streets of downtown, there were multiple restaurant options that looked good. We weren't to the end of the street yet and the hunger grew, but what if there was something better at the other end?! So we continued walking. Before long we reached the last place on the last corner of main street. We thought this had to be the place so we walked in and it was nothing like we thought. There was about three menu options (none of which were appealing), so we walked back outside and the search continued. In the end, we ended up eating at the first restaurant we saw because it looked to be the best option. By the time we got our food, we were hardly hungry anymore and the quality of the meal was extremely low, leaving us both very dissapointed.

I thought after reading this book and becoming aware of the downfalls of being a maximizer, I would surely not make this mistake any more. I was wrong. It is so easy to think there must be something better, and continue a search for something, even though what is right in front of us satisfies the need.

It is important to become aware of these things to avoid pitfalls, however it is not foolproof. We are all humans and as humans we easily sink into habits - whether its a habit of being a maximizer or a satisficer.

Z M E T

The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique is a way to discover what consumers are really thinking about something. As consumers, we often don't know the full reason for the decisions we make - we just make them subconciously. The following video is a great down and dirty description of the ZMET technique and how it was formed.





I love how Jerry Zaltman discovered his technique by seeing that people in Nepal subconciously took photos without any feet in them, since bare feet are a sign of poverty in Nepal. I found this interesting because we often do this sort of thing in our daily life without realizing it. We all have 'insecurities' that we do not want to convey - so we do everything we can to not show them.

The fact that we subconciously hide insecurities, is evidence enough for me that we often subconciously make buying decisions. Our assumptions, preconceived ideas, biases, and many other things affect our buying decisions and very little of it is actually based on the product or service itself.  If marketers and producers can get inside the head of their consumers, such as the ZMET allows, they can better understand exactly what is desireable. The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique is a very useful qualitative research technique that allows marketers to gain an insight into how consumers’ subconscious minds work. It will allow them to better satisfy the needs of consumers and reach an exact market.

H E U R I S T I C S in our lives

A heuristic is a rule or method used to solve problems faster than you would if you did all of the computing. We do not have time to make long drawn out decisions about everything we do in our lives, or we would just spend the whole day making a few decisions. Heuristics are also known as a "rule of thumb" when it comes to making decisions.

Below is an example of the scarcity heuristic... you may find that you also succumb to this!

I found this picture to be funny because it is such a good representation of how we make decisions in our lives. Without even realizing it, we so easily succumb to the scarcity heuristic. The scarcity heuristic states when an object or a resource is less readily available, we perceive it as more valuable. Just like these oranges; when they were "ordinary" oranges, nobody was buying them, when "deal of the day" was added to the basket, more people were drawn in, and when "best selling oranges" was also added, they were gone in no time. 

Researchers Worchel, Lee, and Adewole discovered that by placing the exact same cookies in two of the exact same jars, one containing ten cookies and the other containing two, consumers were more likely to choose a cookie from the jar containing less. This experiment was done in 1975, and still holds very true today. They found consumers valued the scarce cookies more because they got the impression that they must be the better cookies, or else so many people wouldn't have bought them. It did not matter if the cookies were exactly the same - the scarce ones appear to look at taste more appealing. Tricky! 

Do you find yourself doing the same thing when making a decision between several alternatives??

Marketers are very knowledgeable about the various heuristics that exist - which gives them the upper hand when appealing to consumers. They are better able to label products, place them in the perfect spot, and increase the appeal to a product that has not actually changed. This doesn't mean it is necessarily used in a negative manner, in fact it is our job as consumers to be aware of the heuristics that exist and make decisions based on facts. 

Resources:

http://www.behavioraleconomics.com/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/scarcity-heuristic/

http://www.nirandfar.com/2013/07/psychology-of-scarcity.html