By Ashoke Agarrwal
Sociologists and economists perceive the social and economic raison d’etre of advertising and marketing as offering more access to goods and services and information about them to economies and societies. In contrast, most marketers and practitioners of advertising would believe that their discipline is about driving choice.
Are access and choice two sides of the same coin? Semantically, more access is akin to more choice. However, look more closely, and one will find that what bridges access and choice is what marketers and advertising people term “consideration set”.
Most marketers and advertising people would want the brand they work on to belong, due to their efforts, to a consideration set of one or, failing which, the smallest consideration set possible; thus, in psychological terms, minimising access.
In this difference between the societal and economic imperative of access and its working on the ground as choice lies the conundrum of access and choice that goes beyond the world of brands into the very structure of human society.
The promise of access lies at the heart of the Internet and Social Media revolutions. Access to information, education and diverse perspectives, many believed, would be the antidote to ignorance and intolerance. The reality has proven to be almost the polar opposite. In the age of information overload, the access to knowledge that was supposed to invite us has driven us apart. In the world of 24×7 news, remote sensors and satellite imagery, half the world does not agree with the other half on who bombed a particular hospital in Gaza. Instead of fostering open-mindedness, the Internet has provided fertile ground for the growth of echo chambers, where individuals are exposed only to information that aligns with their existing beliefs. Social scientists call this phenomenon confirmation bias, where people seek out and accept information that confirms their preconceived notions while dismissing or ignoring contrary evidence. The stronger the confirmation bias, the smaller the consideration set.
As Eli Pariser, the author of “The Filter Bubble “, notes, “The Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see”.
In truth, the power of the confirmation bias and the consideration set lies in human nature. Psychologist Barry Schwartz popularised the concept of “The Paradox of Choice” in his book of the same name. Schwartz argues that while we might assume that more options lead to greater satisfaction, the reality is often the opposite. When we have an overwhelming number of choices, we become paralyzed by decision-making, leading to increased anxiety and decreased overall satisfaction with our choices; in other words, cognitive dissonance.
This paradox extends beyond shopping or entertainment choices to higher-order aspects like career decisions, lifestyle choices, and relationships.
An ancient philosophical dilemma – ‘Buridans’s Ass’ – is an extreme example of the paradox of choice. A hungry donkey placed precisely between two identical stacks of hay starves to death, unable to choose between equally appealing options.
In advertising, the paradox of choice explains the increasing prevalence of emotional and affective appeals over functional and rational appeals.
Suppose an ad was to give three rational reasons why one model of car scores over the competition; it would nudge the consumer into a rational evaluation of choices and thus into the paradox of choice. On the other hand, if the ad were to applaud the status-enhancing, sex-appeal-enhancing decision of the consumer to plonk for the model, it would nudge the consumer to a comfort-inducing nirvana of “little-choice”.
Freedom, in the most profound sense, is a complete absence of or total, unconditional access. The tramp with no possessions, money, or home has no access to all the freedom in the world; of course, he has no desire to be anything but a tramp. The billionaire who has access to anything he desires also has freedom. It is the large swathe of the world in the middle that trades freedom for access only to seek to constrain access to confirmations, biases and consideration sets.