In a prior blog we discussed some of the down sides of presenting your customer with too many choices. Now let's take a look at the converse side: having too few choices. Malcolm Gladwell is known as a pioneer in researching the way humans make decisions. Gladwell discusses the benefits of offering your customers a vast array of choices to target each different market segment. He expands on the efforts of a phychophysicist Howard Moskowitz who is famous for reinventing spaghetti sauce.
Gladwell points out that in working with various brands such as Pepsi, Vlasic and Prego, that no company will ever discover one right item that will capture the entire market. For years and years, Pepsi researched the ingredients for the perfect Pepsi, when in fact Moskowitz insisted that there is no 'perfect Pepsi' only 'perfect Pepsis'.
When working with Prego, Moskowitz found after conducting extensive research that Americans craved 'extra-chunky' spaghetti sauce as opposed to traditional plain sauce. Ten years (and 36 more flavors of spaghetti sauce) later, Prego has made 600 million dollars in revenue thanks to their line of extra chunky sauces.
While having a wide array of choice may be either beneficial or detrimental, on thing can be understood from the lessons of both Malcolm Gladwell and Sheena Iyengar: If you don't listen to your market, you may miss your biggest opportunity for growth.
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