I don’t know about you but I find too many options inconvenient.

Having a choice is fine. It’s a great way to express who I am and to explore what I want. I love to choose the clothes I’m going to wear. I love to choose the words I’m going to use. Choices are – to a certain extent – empowering and an affirmation of freedom. I can do what I want. Nice.

Or not?

More and more often the idea of too many options gives me stress and makes me choose the default option. Well, choose. Let’s say I’d rather stick to the default option because it feels safer. The net result is that I’m pretty much happy, while at the same time I feel frustrated because I didn’t explore the possibilities these options offered and I might end up paying more for something I don’t enjoy or use completely.

For years now half of my mobile phones’ widgets remain unused, sometimes because I don’t read the manual, sometimes because I know I don’t need them, but most of all because I don’t like to screw things up and ‘disturb’ the phone. Aka: I don’t want to make a mess of it.

So I get to what I call the Options Paradox: at a certain point: offering more options only makes the default more appealing.

Another story. Last year I made my first trip to New York. One evening I wanted to order a wrap in a Mexican restaurent. So I looked at the menu and picked one. What followed was a very frustrating and confusing conversation. The guy behind the counter questioned me for every single ingredient which was supposed to be in the wrap I wanted to order. What kind of bread? How should the bread be backed? Meat? Sauce? Vegetables? I’m simplifying it a little since I can’t remember all the options anymore.

I was so surprised and overwhelmed by what I was asked that I just started nodding and ended up with a role that didn’t live up to what the menu had promised me.

And the worst thing was, it was my choice. Or that’s what was understood as such. If you have all the options and still fail to pick what you want, that’s too bad for you.

Ok I hear you, I may have been a little more assertive.

But it made me think. If options are there to allow us to a) make sure we get what we want b) let us explore and enjoy freedom and c) are supposed to make us feel better about ourselves, then could it be that

• giving too many options is just what you have to do to miss the point?
• if you want people to use the default option, do you have to give them way too many options?
• if you give a lot of options and want people to explore them completely you’d offer them gradually?
• the default choice is actually the default choice and the best choice as well for a reason other than what I’ve stipulated before?

These are questions I cannot answer yet but which I’d love to be able to answer any time soon.

If you know examples or are willing to share some thoughts about the Options Paradox, feel free to contact me @ superblyhuman-at-gmail-dot-com, or leave a comment here.

Tell me how, according to you, life is going to change in 2009. The author of the most promising and inspiring comment receives a free copy of Mark Earl’s book on Herd marketing.

Be aware.

Your life is about to be discontinued.

Over at his Herd blog Mark Earls did an intriguing prediction about 2009: “this year is the one when everything is going to change”.

Easy to mock, hard to deny.

I admire Earls. Because he is so devoted to and passionate about human nature. Because he still manages to look at human life with awe.

When reading Earls you kind of know that what you know about life is that nothing is what it seems. And so is his prediction about 2009.

Further on in the post he clarifies his point:

“IMHO it’s not going to be a matter of evolving: we’re approaching a discontinuity, a singular moment, after which everything will be different.”

What will this singularity be? Maybe you know it.

So here’s my question to you:

If this year there would be one discontinuity in your life, what would it be? If there would be such a singular moment, what would happen?

Remember, from now on, everything is possible.

As a reward, I’ll send tThe author of the most promising and inspiring comment receives a copy of Mark Earls’ book on Herd marketing.

(Hint: go wild and stay true to yourself :-)).

By the way, thanks Mark for discontinuing my view on human behavior.

I just came of the phone with my dad. Wise guy. Knows a lot because he has read a lot and done a lot of different things. Unfortunatly we often fail to understand each other. At times it was like we were speaking different languages. Or, it was like we had our ears everywhere but on the sides of our heads.

But now I’ve discovered we have a mutual interest in behavioral economics. His approach? Science and process management. Mine? Communication, advertising and (creativity) coaching. I can’t wait to work on something solid, a lecture, a paper, a book perhaps. We’ll see.

Anyway, halfway the conversation he says: “One thing I’ve learned from all my readings lately is that technological innovations change minds and societies instantly, while it takes 25 years for an idea to mature, to change our minds.”

It puzzled me and I want to give it some more thoughts before I comment on it. But what’s your opinion?

“Placebos pose dilemmas for marketers, too. Their profession requires them to create perceived value. Hyping a product beyond what can be objectively proved is – depending on the degree of hype – stretching the truth or outright lying. But we’ve seen that the perception of value, in medecine, soft drinks, drugstore cosmetics, or cars, can become real value. If people actually get more satisfaction out of a product that has been hyped, has the marketer done anything worse than sell the sizzle along with the steak? As we start thinking more about placebos and the blurry boundary between beliefs and reality, these questions become more difficult to answer.” (Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational, London, p. 190-191)

Ariely’s quote puzzles me, because he makes me think about what the hell I’m doing. Am I really creating something out of nothing? Am I making the world seem brighter? And if I do so, and it has a positive effect on people, should I still care?

To me, marketing and communication have always been about touching the senses in as many ways as you can, rocking back and forth between sense (information), sensitivity (caring for the world and your environment), sensualism (heightening your sense of life) and sensation (pushing your experiences to the limit). What we make happening, is real. The sensation, the thrill, the feeling of relief, that’s what we try to convey. If a customer experiences this, we’ve realised our goal.

But what’s next? Can the product or service we promote live up to that experience? It seems like experience-marketing made this question redundant. While brandmarketing was much more about creating an imaginative world around something unsubstantial as a brand, experience marketing is about hands-on experiences with whatever you are selling, whether it is a service or a product or even an idea. It’s about delivering an instantaneous satisfaction to your future customers even before they have bought the product. So if you’re already letting them use your product, then what am I worrying about? What you experience, is what you get, right?

Not really. There’s a difference between making people see the value of a product and creating perceived value. The first is all about translating USPs into benefits. Product A can do this, which means it will save you a lot of time so you can do more of xyz. That kind of thing.

Creating perceived value is a trickier thing, especially when it comes to marketing people like presidential candidates. Where do you draw the line between showing what’s good about a person (or a service or product) and making it look good? With a candidate you’re at no point statistically sure he or she can live up to what you’re promising. To be a little cynical: you almost know it’s impossible to live up to what you’re promising. But the premise to start campaigning – which is the same premise any good marketeer uses – is that you yourself believe in what you’re selling. If you don’t, you’re already lying from the start. Suppose you do believe in something and you get it wrong afterwards,then apparantly you have nothing to blame yourself for. Apparently. After all, the placebo got the best of you, right?

I’m not talking about making something out of nothing here. That is something you can’t without lying. I’m talking about making something better which is actually just good. Sometimes you want to take people to another level, and actually inspire them to become better (which is easier for a service than for a product). This might be the ultimate marketing dream. You add perceived value because you believe (or even demand) you’re client will and can live up to it eventually.

I have the feeling I’m walking in circles here. The problem here is that there’s knowing and knowing. For most of our knowledge, we simply have to trust our senses. And because marketing is essentially a people’s business, trusting your senses and using your senses is crucial.

Human knowledge consists as much of rational input as of experiential input. Placebos meddle with both because one depends on the other and vice versa. Sometimes that’s a good thing. A placebo can get us where ratio would never let us. Sometimes it’s not and placebos keep us from seeing what’s working and what’s not.

I get the feeling as well that looking for a way out is simply asking the wrong question. Then again, what is the right question to ask here? I currently have no answer. But maybe in this kind of situation, it’s the best answer you can get.