Lessons from the Toilet Paper Aisle

Much has been written on the subject about how consumers buy things. We know that people are mostly emotional buyers with a superior rationalization engine to make them feel better about being emotionally driven. We also know that too much complication and too many choices simply paralyzes buyers and causes them to abandon both virtual and physical shopping carts faster than the NFL dropping Aaron Hernandez jerseys. As marketers, we want people to buy. That’s really game, set and match for marketers. So why, oh why do companies make simple things so complicated? Case in point: toilet paper. Have you shopped for toilet paper recently? If you have, you will notice the great variance of options that are available to you to essentially take care of our most human business. We have, double rolls, varying thickness and softness and of course giant packs of smaller rolls and smaller packs of giant rolls guaranteed to last longer. ugg femme france Yikes. It’s enough to make you want to stop eating and thus not require the product any longer. Smart companies make toilet paper. Large companies with smart people and surely to God they must have noticed how ridiculously complex this purchase has become in 2013. There is a great market opportunity for the company who says Hey man, here’s some toilet paper for you — and you don’t need a spec sheet and a slide rule to figure out what you need. I deal with a lot of tech companies and the challenge there is to make complicated things simple and understandable for consumers. asics gel nimbus 18 soldes It’s an art form, but it starts with empathy for that consumer and why they are seeking a particular product at a particular time. nike mercurial vapor ix cr se ebay Then it’s about getting rid of acronyms, hype, jargon and other stuff until you have a solid message that gets through and showcases what you want. If your message isn’t doing that, then it’s about as good as a double-mega-super sized roll of you know what. chaussure air max thea As always, I’d love to hear what you think and if your company needs assistance in making things simple and communicating better, we can help.