The Options Paradox

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.

All your campaign needs is … silence

“The goal should not be to ad to the unwantedness, but to create deliberate and appreciate value” (Helge Tenno)

What is it that people want most? That depends on the context, but in general what people want most is what is the least available.

So take this to the advertising clutter and what do you get?

Silence.

Consumers don’t want more messages nor more mumbo-jumbo trying to reach them at every possible time in every possible way.

What consumers really want is a message that creates time and space for them to relax and to listen to something which

a) removes the clutter
b) gives them air to breath (physically and mentally)
c) adds something valuable to their lives

What does this imply?

It means you should take a new approach to your campaign.

It means that you should pay as much attention to creating context as you’re paying to delivering and designing the message in itself.

Create clutterfree context and you’ll be able to add more weight to your message.

In a sense it’s about shifting from the medium is the message to …

… your message contains the medium for the message.

Impress everyone by knowing nothing

Don’t let anybody fool you (including me):

You’ll never be able to read people.

The only thing you can do is second guess them.

The more I interact with people, the more I discover that I know a lot about people but I never know as much about these people as they do.

The world’s greatest authority on knowledge about who’s sitting in front of you is … most likely the person who’s sitting in front of you.

I believe that nobody knows yourself better than you do. And that this is true for most of us.

(Just before you let out the narcicist in you, keep the following in mind: no matter how well you are acquinted with yourself, you may always discover something new about yourself thanks to somebody else.)

As a marketeer and advertiser (or listener) it’s tempting to forget that. After all aren’t we the ones who are supposed to know what people need?

Yes we are, but in order to know, we have to ask them, don’t we?

But what if we have asked them? What if I have done my research?

Then we usually come up with models and segmentations.

Now don’t these contradict what I’ve said about knowing a lot about people but still not knowing as much as they do about themselves?

It tells you something about how these models and segmentations can be approached. You should use your research as a way to define who you should talk to and where, when and how you can approach these people.

But once you have done that then you’re barely halfway. Once you’ve reached them, it’s time for you to engage.

If you want to engage then that’s when you’re really going to find out what sets these people apart from everybody else. That’s when you’re going to discover whether you really know something about people and what I mean by writing “I never know as much about these people as they do”.

If you value and respect these people’s personal authority, chances are they’ll respect and value your knowledge and experience as well. Chances are they’ll reward you for your research since it may add something to that particular thing they are most familiar with, themselves.

And if it doesn’t, so be it. But by showing what you have in common – call it mutual understanding if you like – , you’ve nevertheless given them a strong reason to connect with you. You’ve proven that ‘we’ know what we are talking about.

So what’s with the headline then? You tell me. ;-)

Picture: “Body Language @ Nomad Gallery #5885.jpg” © amayzun