penny for a thought | Patrick on every & anything

Earlier this week I started a new book (YES, I know it surprising that I read things other than Digg’s daily top ten) and, amazing enough, I’m already more than halfway through it (mind you it’s barely 100 pages). Enough about my literary challenges and onto the book-at-large, “The Dip” by Seth Godin.

Seth Godin is widely known throughout the marketing community for his fun-to-read, extremely well-written and insightful books on topics like how to be remarkable, how to turn friends into customers and why all marketers are liars, just to name a few. The particular title I’m reading, “The Dip,” was released earlier this year and teaches readers when, why and how to quit. I know, I know, quiting should never be an option; and personally, I’ve grown up hearing my father yell “don’t be a quitter.” However, as Godin explains, quitting is an option and when done at the right time and in the right place it’s the best option. In fact, strategic quitting is the secret of most successful organizations.

Alright, so I’m not going to go into a full-fledged book (report) review, instead I’m talking about just one of “The Dip’s” topics; “the infinity problem.” What’s “the infinity problem?” I’m glad you asked, because it’s a problem all of us in the marketing and advertising sector face. In short, “the infinity problem” is defined by the insanely large number of choices consumers have. Think about it: you’re shopping for a digital music player and there’s a thousand different options, or you’ve run out of toilet paper and you have to choose between the the single, double, triple or quadruple roll, not to mention the 10 different brands to pick from. You get the point… no matter what product or service you’re shopping for, there’s an infinite number of choices.

Why is “the infinity problem” a problem? Put simply by Godin, when consumers are faced with so many different options they, for the most part, do one of three things: 1.) buy nothing, 2.) buy the cheapest, or 3.) buy the best. That’s why word-of-mouth is so important. After all, how else would someone know what the best product or service is? Furthermore, that’s why the web is so powerful and, in my opinion, the most efficient solution to “the infinity problem” resides on the web. Within minutes any consumer equipped with an internet connection can access just about everything they’d ever want to know about a particular product or service.