The Philosophy of Making Comparisons

A few days ago, I read a piece of interesting marketing story in a magazine, which reflects a common psychological phenomenon.

William.Inc failed to market its bread maker when the product firstly made its appearance. People showed disinterest in this new kind of machine and the sales volume was quite limited.

In order to change the awkward situation, the manager sought help from a company specializing in marketing and researching. After days of study, this marketing company put forward a suggestion for the selling of the bread maker. The asked William.Inc to produce another type of bread maker, whose size was bigger and the price of which was higher than the existing one.

Then, the magical thing happened. Within one week, the sales volume of the smaller bread maker expanded rapidly, even the bread had found its market. Then, what is the secret lying behind this interesting phenomenon?

There are two choices for the customers to choose from when the bigger bread makers start to sell. The customers can then make comparison between the two machines. If the customers have to buy one bread maker, the smaller and the cheaper one would be the better choice. For the customers haven't much knowledge on the bread makers. The only standard they have in mind is the price. That is the very reason why the bread makers of William.Inc have been the hot sellers since then.

From the successful case of William.Inc, we can see that actually these marketing experts are well informed with some important aspects of anthroponomy. People seldom make decisions without making some comparisons. There doesn't exist something called the value calculator, which tells us the real value of a specific product. In fact, in most cases, we concentrate a lot on the relative advantages and disadvantages this specific item possesses comparing with other similar ones, in order to evaluate the true value of the specific item.

However, one aspect of the theory of relativity often causes some misunderstanding to us, that is, not only do we prefer to make comparisons between different things, but also we like to make comparisons in a collective way between those which are easy to compare, not the other way around.

In our daily life, we also encounter such kind of situations quite often. We are at lost sometimes in the middle of the various products and items. Usually we have little knowledge toward the products. We make our decisions often by comparing the similar items.

For example, if we are in need of a celebrity dress for a dinner party, in most cases, we would ask help from our friends or list out some shops to make some comparisons and then decide which one is our better choice for the dinner party. Although it is a good solution to our problem, it is wise for us to consider deeply and then pick out the right one.