Monday, March 16, 2009

The Trouble With Choices

New! Improved! More! Better!

Marketers are constantly appealing to our subconscious desire to get the latest and greatest by using the above words to entice us into buying their products.

Interestingly, psychological research exposes a different trend: consumers don't really want new and improved products. What they do want is to feel as if they made the right choice last time they shopped, and are making the right choice this time, too. An over-abundance of new and improved can negatively impact their ability to trust the brand, since they can never really trust whether the current version is truly 'the best.'

In marketing, and in life, there is a fine balance between reinvention and improvement and steady, solid performance.

There is a lot of discussion in our society right now regarding pursuing change while also getting "back to basics." Basic financial accounting, basic values, basic foods. In fact, a lot of times it seems as if even while we're touting concepts that are New! Improved! More! Better!, we are actually seeking the values our grandparents lecture us about.

I think that we are experiencing an important turning point in our society. I don't know where we're headed, but I do hope that we can find a way to value both the new and exciting as well as the tried-and-true.

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