Preying on impulses

Marketers spend quite a bit of time thinking about how to encourage impulse buying. In a sense, trying to encourage impulse buying is a form of gravity fighting. You're trying to get people to do something that they didn't really want to do.

[See my earlier posts on the folly of gravity fighting.
http://adam-1001words.blogspot.com/2008/06/gravity-usually-wins.html

http://adam-1001words.blogspot.com/2008/12/innovation-rule-5-dont-fight-gravity.html]

But although I do believe that trying to fight gravity is generally a foolish strategy, it does not fail entirely. There are ways to get people to do what they don't really want to do. There's quite a bit of art and science behind this. Good retailers study this carefully. They know which products to put near the cash registers. They know what kind of signage will "interrupt" people. And so on.

I'm seeing a lot more of this sort of behavior on the part of businesses. The poor state of our economy puts pressure on businesses to sell sell sell. So I'm getting lots more emails with all sorts of sales incentives.

But let's play around a bit with the notion of impulse buying. I think it's safe to say that, in general, the impulse purchase is one that the consumer didn't need. If it was a need, it would have been on the shopping list. One way or another, people manage to buy their needs (assuming they can afford to do so). You don't have to encourage the need based purchase. You may need to make sure that it's your brand or product that is selected to fill the need, but you do not have to convince people to buy what they need.

Impulse purchases, on the other hand, are not needs. They are wants. And they aren't even really significant wants or they would have ended up on the shopping list. Rather, they tickle some small non-rational fancy buried somewhere in our minds that we probably cannot explain or justify.

Since people don't need these, I would argue that they are harmful. Why? Because they consume resources for no good reason. People are spending money that they could have used for a need or a truly significant want, on something that will do almost no good for them. In more flush times, this may not be so bad. But now that consumers are genuinely strapped and many are out of work, can we morally defend business practices that encourage impulse buying?

I wonder whether devising marketing strategies to get people to impulsively buy more gum, DVDs, options for their new car, etc. is on firmer moral ground than prostitutes trying to drum up business by finding married men they know are sexually unsatisfied. (Assume for the moment that prostitution was legal.) Or the alcohol industry trying to sell to recovering alcoholics. Or the mortgage industry trying to sell homes to people who couldn't afford them. Oh wait, they actually did that. My point is that all of these situations involve impulses. The sexually unsatisfied man has impulses. The recovering alcoholic has impulses. And shoppers have impulses.

When you spend time developing strategies and tactics to get people to add a few more items - that they don't really need or want - to their shopping cart, how are you better than the prostitute, booze pusher or predatory lender? Because you just sold a pack of gum and it doesn't cost that much or really hurt anyone? OK, you have a point. But not a very strong point. I'll agree that there is a quantitative difference between "taking" someone for $1 and conning someone out of thousands or wrecking their marriage... But it's just a quantitative difference. The fundamental behavior is the same. You have used guile to get people to do something that is bad for them and good for you.

On one hand, I say "shame on you!" On the other hand, our economy is entirely dependent on this. Maybe it's shame on us all.

Seem my earlier post regarding excessive consumption and Tim Jackson's poignant comments on the issue.

A "consume to live" economy

Imagine a continuum. There. Isn't that fun? No, wait, there's more. Imagine a continuum that has on its left a "live to consume" economy and on its right a "consume to live" economy.

What do I mean by those phrases? Well, a "live to consume" economy is one where people's thoughts and activities are organized around consumption. They are all about getting more stuff. They even get stuff for their stuff (e.g., useless ornaments for their cellphones). Companies are founded and people are hired to produce all this stuff. They grow by finding new types of stuff that people can be convinced they need. Other companies produce the equipment that stuff manufacturers need to produce stuff. Other companies produce the packaging that the stuff manufacturers put their stuff in. Other companies make accessories for the stuff. And yet other companies advise stuff manufacturers on what new types of stuff they can make. Then there are the companies that "help" people who don't have enough cash on hand convince stuff-sellers to let them take some stuff now under the promise (structured in some way) that they will pay later. And so on. The desire for stuff is never satisfied and in fact, it is engineered to never be satisfied. The desire or obsession with stuff creates a constant pressure for ever more and better stuff, without which the entire edifice collapses (sound familiar?).

A "consume to live" economy is not organized this way. It may be organized around many different things but imagine just one. Imagine an economy organized around people living valuable, grounded, wholesome lives in the pursuit of nobility, excellence and wisdom. In this economy, people would consume that which they needed to live their lives in the pursuit of the above goals. They would have basic shelter and adequate nourishment. They would have whatever psychic pleasure and diversionary activities such as would be needed to maintain a state of wellness.

So if we put the "live to consume" economy on the left of our continuum and the "consume to live" economy on the right, where do you think we are today? (Let's focus on the U.S.) It seems to me that we are very far to the left. Nearly all the way. We have our needs well taken care of and have been in this position for quite a long time. So we have the luxury to focus our resources elsewhere. [Note: I am well aware that we have many homeless and poverty stricken people in the U.S. My comments relate to the society in general.]

Now you might be thinking about Maslow's hierarchy now. But we are not behaving as Maslow predicted. We are not spending our resources (time, money, attention, etc.) on self-actualization. We are spending our resources on ever more elaborate means of masturbating. Yeah, I said masturbating. We spend an ungodly amount of effort thinking about stuff, planning to produce stuff, planning to buy stuff, saving up for stuff, talking about stuff... that we have no time to think about what might be important in life. We have no time to pursue wisdom. We have no time to ennoble ourselves and those around us. And we do this because, well, it feels good. OK, maybe masturbating wasn't fair. After all, we do buy stuff for others.

Is this the right way to live? The wizards that run our economy have been intent - for a goodly number of years now - on making sure we have access to capital to buy more stuff. Problem with the economy? Make sure consumers can get credit so they can buy stuff because when they buy more stuff, companies have to produce the stuff and they need workers for that production and the workers will then have jobs which means they'll get paid so they'll have money to buy stuff...

I don't think you need a doctorate in Logic to see the problem with a "live to consume" economy.

I don't know folks. It all seems like such a waste to me.