You choose you lose: decision-making consequences

Consumer Marketing-Customer Choices

Summary and analysis of You Choose, You Lose by George Leon

In the marketing article entitled, "You Choose, You Lose" by George Leon provided an in-depth look to the issue of consumer choices, whether restrained choices are better than free choices, and vice versa. In discussing consumer choices, Leon provided current examples on how free choice has motivated and driven consumer marketing, and almost simultaneously, manufacturing and production technology, into a higher level.

Leon illustrated this statement by mentioning popular products nowadays, and how each have succumbed (or not succumbed) to free consumer choice. Burger King's "Have it your way" slogan served as the author's springboard in discussing how free consumer choice changed the way products and brands are marketed. For example, burger joints and fast food restaurants, with their standard menu offerings and standardized procedures for cooking and delivering customer service, are seeking differentiation by giving customers more choices and 'customizing' their orders by adding new ingredients and/or toppings, albeit from a standard list also.

Free consumer choice may have worked for retailers and business-to-consumer transactions, but consumer choice is somewhat restrained in B2B or business-to-business transactions. Leon used the heavy truck category as an example, illustrating how customized heavy trucks are sometimes not the best choice for consumers -- that is, in the words of the author, maybe the "customers might not be the best people to specify a truck."

In effect, Leon presented two important arguments in the article. First, that consumer choices and consumer marketing are treated differently between business-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions. Second, that sometimes, particularly in the B2B setting, free consumer choice is actually not the best choice, both for businesses and consumers.

To argue these points, the author exposed his readers to the current trends in market research when it comes to determining consumer choices. Through conjoint analysis, businesses can statistically determine which packages and product offerings would work best and will be best preferred by consumers, and also efficiently optimizing businesses' marketing and production operations.

In fact, instead of just addressing the needs of businesses, conjoint analysis actually addresses the needs of both consumers and businesses. Conjoint analysis is actually based on consumer choice and preference, with a predetermined set or combinations of different product features, or, as in the case of product packages like computers, includes different kinds of products sold as a set and at a fixed price. 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 not possible in the near future, because there will always be a certain portion of consumer choice that is influenced by business owners and their decision to produce these products and product features. 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.