This morning, I was watching a Malcolm Gladwell Ted Talk called Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce. In this talk, he talks about how Pyschophysicist Howard Moskowitz helped change not only Spaghetti Sauce, but the direction of food product creation.
It is hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t much food choice on the shelves of the grocery store. The consumer could get one type of sauce from a few different vendors like Prego, Chef Boyardee and Ragu.
Gladwell talks about how Moskowitz began to apply a theory that there are many variations that are desired by consumers, not just one universal ‘best’ option. It is the concept that spawned spicy and chunky style sauces.
As I was watching this Ted Talk from 2004, it occurred to me that what he was describing for the food industry has happened in the Advertising industry. If you look at the media market today, it is hard to imagine that there was a time where the options were print, tv and radio.
Now, the media market is about consumers picking the sauce they like they best. It might be Twitter or SnapChat. As a Marketer, it is tempting to want to create a ‘universal’ flavor to market to your consumers. However, I think it is important to remember that people want to create their own unique formula of media outlets.
The business who can give their audience the ability to weave this environment instead of force feeding a ‘universal’ sauce will create more engagement, and fly off the shelves.