Given the combination product features, pricing, and sometimes, as Leon mentions, positioning statements, businesses could determine which product features, price, and positioning statement consumers will prefer the most. Ultimately, the analysis would help businesses determine which set or combination is most preferred by consumers, and which set or combination will not work at all for them.
Leon presented his arguments in a two-fold manner: first, he discussed the issue of consumer choice using his marketing insight and by citing historical examples in marketing strategies of specific brands and products, and second, he further strengthened his arguments about consumer choices and their differences between consumer-to-business and business-to-business transactions through a scientific/statistical method called the conjoint analysis. And in both ways, I agreed with what Leon had explicated about free consumer choices.
Ultimately, Leon argued that "completely free choice" is not the ideal scenario in the consumer marketing industry, mainly because sometimes, consumers are not the best choosers of products they need. Indeed, I agree with the author when he insinuated that complete freedom in consumer choice is...
Ultimately, consumer choice will always be dependent by the technologies to manufacture or produce these products, and as long as these technologies but a restraint on the multitude of features that consumers can have in a product, then consumers will always have limited or restrained choices.
Even the usage of conjoint analysis implied that to a certain degree, while business owners value consumers' choice and preference in choosing product sets or combinations, these sets or combinations will still be determined by businesses. In fact, the idea of conjoint analysis presenting predetermined sets or combinations to choose from suggest that the feasible product features consumers can have are only limited to the sets presented to consumers. That is, conjoint analysis allows consumers to choose what they product features, price, and positioning they prefer given the sets or combinations predetermined by business owners/manufacturers.
Work cited:
Leon, G. "You choose, you lose." (Faxed material).
