As I said at the beginning of the semester, every year we see at least one article that will talk about too much choice and how companies are pairing their product lines to increase profits... We saw it in the Girl Scout Cookies, and now from today's WSJ it's here in the toothpaste aisle.
I think this article brings up some interesting questions. Some of the ones that come to my mind are:
Why do companies have to learn this lesson year after year? Or is there really something more complex going on here? Are companies seeing advantages by launching all these new products and line extensions? Are the different benefits these products offer wanted by smaller and smaller segements; is this a case of hyper-segmentation? Or in the consumers' mind are they just meaningless distinctions and not true differentiators?
To some extent, I think consumers look for particular toothpaste attributes, but beyond the one or two necessities, they don't care. Last time I bought toothpaste, I made my sister pick me out a tube. She picked the cheapest. I was just fine with that. Sure I may generally pick Crest or Colgate, but I really just don't care that much. It's like POC says, the more choices we have, the more it just stresses us out. Cutting back on toothpaste options is a good idea.
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