How much is too much?!

Have you ever really paid attention to how many different products there are at something as simple as a grocery store? The thought might have crossed my mind, however I had never noticed how many options consumers had until I began reading the book The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. In the first chapter he begins talking about how many different products there are in even just one section of the grocery store. The main point in the book is that the more choices that people have, the more harmful it can be.

The dress I spent way too much
time picking out! 

One of the very first thoughts I had while reading this chapter was helping my sister shop for a formal dress for her first high school dance. Her dress shopping experience was so much different than mine, in the fact she had many less options. When I began shopping for my dress for winter formal, the online world was my oyster. I spent countless nights browsing at least a dozen different websites trying to find the absolute best dress out there. Don't get me wrong it was a great dress and I loved it (I still to this day love it), but the amount of stress that came as a result of searching for a dress with hundreds of thousands of dresses to choose from was overwhelming.

My little sister all dressed up for her first high school dance! 

When it came to taking my little sister to buy her first formal dress this fall, it was much less stressful. My family is from a small town in Eastern Montana so when my sister got to come to Bozeman to go dress shopping, she was over the moon with excitement. Now to paint a picture of my little sister, she is about 5 feet tall and weighs maybe like 10 pounds. We were on the hunt for a size zero dress that would be easy to alter because we needed to cut about 6 feet off of the bottom. We went to every bridal shop in town and finally found one with about 6 dress options. She immediately didn't like 3 of them, so she was left with 3 to choose from. After trying the 3 dresses on, she fell in love with this pretty blue dress (It reminded me of Elsa).



While I was searching for my dress, I was stressed out for weeks trying to make the right decision. My little sister laughed and giggled the whole dress buying process. Thinking back on Schwartz's thoughts, maybe having too many choices can be awful.

Online Dating vs. Dating Apps

Online dating has been around for years, however the face of online dating changed with apps like Tinder. Is marketing the cause? Or is it something else? I have seen ads on TV or the internet for sites like Match.com and eharmony, however I have never seen an ad on TV or the internet for Tinder. How do these apps become so popular without any advertising?

It seems as though Tinder has no apparent advertising strategy as an outsider looking in, however the marketing of the product has been incredible. Online dating sites often have long questionnaires to create meaningful matches. With apps like Tinder, the beginning contact is similar to seeing someone across a bar or party and going over to talk to them. Tinder doesn't strive to create lifelong partners, it is a
n app meant to be more about meeting people you might not have run into, not creating lasting relationships.

Tinder is a simple app that really strives to be straightforward. Along with its simplicity it is slightly addictive, almost feeling more like a game than a dating app. The folks at Tinder don't seem to be incredibly concerned with brand loyalty either. Although Tinder doesn't have an extensive advertising campaign with TV commercials or billboards its marketing strategy and laidback vibe seem to be working really well.

Sexism in Marketing

We have all seen those outrageous sexist advertisements from the early to mid-1900s, but is sexism in marketing still alive and well in the world today? Of course it is!

Sexist ads from the 1950’s are so blatantly sexist it almost hurts. Here are a few examples. 

Since it isn’t 1950 anymore and women have made huge strides in the world you would think ads wouldn’t be sexist anymore. But sadly, you would be wrong. Cleaning products are still targeted at women than men, women are still sexual objects, and women are still portrayed as crazy.

These are all pretty obvious examples of sexism in ads, but what happens when marketing gets sneaky about its sexism?

So, there definitely is sexism in the marketing world! So why do women tolerate being over sexualized and paying more for deodorant in pink packaging? It is fairly obvious why haircuts and dry cleaning services cost more for women, they are more difficult and take longer. But why does making packaging pink hike up the price so much? Women are usually more in touch with their feelings, so it seems to be easier to get a woman to choose a pretty package instead of a plain package. One of the largest parts of marketing is to connect with the consumers, if it is easier to connect with a woman and get them to desire a pretty package. Women also tend to be more likely to associate status with the products they use, from their winter coat to the shampoo they use, marketers tend to market to this weakness.

Next time you are at the grocery store to pick up some new shampoo or deodorant check out the prices and see if you can outsmart those sneaky marketers!

If you want to check out a few more articles about the "pink tax" or how men and women's brains differ, check out these links. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201512/why-do-women-s-products-services-cost-more 

http://www.mastersofhealthcare.com/blog/2009/10-big-differences-between-mens-and-womens-brains/

Upon reading the book Predictably Irrational my eyes were opened to how people perceive just about everything in life. One of the biggest points that stood out to me in the book was the power of comparing. It is incredibly easy to convince a consumer to purchase the product you want them to purchase. Simply have a similar, yet not as great comparison for the consumer. The consumer will almost always choose the better of the compared products even if the other unrelated product is much better in value and overall a better product. Consumers want to know they are getting the best, and how can we determine what is best if we have nothing to compare it to? This makes me think, how ethical is it to understand consumers’ irrational behavior and use that to help urge them to buy a product or service? How do marketers use these vulnerabilities to create buzz around their product without violating consumer trust?

To many this may seem like a very fine line marketers are walking, however to me the answer seems simple. Is the product really in the consumer’s best interest? From the video McSubway Study we see that Subway markets their sandwiches as healthy, but if over indulged (eat the whole foot long) these healthy subs can become just as dangerous on your waistline as a BigMac. So, does this mean that the marketers at Subway are ethically wrong for marketing their sandwiches as healthy? Is eating a Subway sandwich over a BigMac in a consumer’s best interest? I truly believe the answer is yes. Just because a consumer does not do their research does not make a company’s marketing strategy wrong.

Want to watch the McSubway video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FgLlfNvNp8   

Consumers can be easily persuaded whether it is buying a new house, picking a girl up at a bar, or thinking wine that costs more tastes better. Marketers have a responsibility to watch out for the best interests of their consumers but consumers have just as much of a responsibility to do their research. Going back to the foot long Subway sandwich vs. the BigMac, people cannot blame Subway because they are obviously eating more food. Claiming Subway is responsible for tricking them into eating more is like eating twice as much frozen yogurt as you would ice cream and then blaming a frozen yogurt company. Eating healthy and making good choices as consumers takes a little more work and research however the payoff is well worth the work it takes.