Relativity - How Professional Marketers Manipulate Customers Into Buying More Than They Really Need?
How professional marketers manipulate customers into buying more than they really need?
Person 1: Let me begin with a simple example:
If given these 3 options, which option would you most likely choose? * Coke - 12k * Burger - 22k * Burger + Coke - 22k
Most people would skip the burger-only option and also skip the coke-only option and go for the burger-and-coke option, right? Who would want to buy the Burger option alone when both the burger and coke option is offered for the same price?
Here is one inportant thing about human behavior: humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly. (For instance, we don't know how much a six-cylinder car is worth, but we can assume it's more expensive than the four-cylinder model). And that’s how marketers manipulate us.
In this case, we may not have known whether the Coke at 12k was a better deal than the Burger option at 22k. But we certainly knew that the Burger-and-Coke option for 22k was better than the Burger option at 22k. In fact, we could reasonably deduce that in the combination package, the Coke is FREE.
Person 2:
Most people don’t know what they want unless they see it in context. We don't know what kind of racing bike we want—until we see a champ in the Tour de France ratcheting the gears on a particular model. We don't know what kind of speaker system we like—until we hear a set of speakers that sounds better than the previous one. We don't even know what we want to do with our lives—until we find a relative or a friend who is doing just what we think we should be doing. Everything is relative, and that's the point.
In the case, the decision between the Coke-only and Burger-only options would take a bit of thinking. Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant. So the M D’s marketers offered us a no-brainer:
Person 1: Let me begin with a simple example:
If given these 3 options, which option would you most likely choose? * Coke - 12k * Burger - 22k * Burger + Coke - 22k
Most people would skip the burger-only option and also skip the coke-only option and go for the burger-and-coke option, right? Who would want to buy the Burger option alone when both the burger and coke option is offered for the same price?
Here is one inportant thing about human behavior: humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly. (For instance, we don't know how much a six-cylinder car is worth, but we can assume it's more expensive than the four-cylinder model). And that’s how marketers manipulate us.
In this case, we may not have known whether the Coke at 12k was a better deal than the Burger option at 22k. But we certainly knew that the Burger-and-Coke option for 22k was better than the Burger option at 22k. In fact, we could reasonably deduce that in the combination package, the Coke is FREE.
Person 2:
Most people don’t know what they want unless they see it in context. We don't know what kind of racing bike we want—until we see a champ in the Tour de France ratcheting the gears on a particular model. We don't know what kind of speaker system we like—until we hear a set of speakers that sounds better than the previous one. We don't even know what we want to do with our lives—until we find a relative or a friend who is doing just what we think we should be doing. Everything is relative, and that's the point.
In the case, the decision between the Coke-only and Burger-only options would take a bit of thinking. Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant. So the M D’s marketers offered us a no-brainer: