Do you really consciously choose what you buy?

Apart from any big brother implications, this article seems to lack a little focus. You cast your net very wide, talking about commercial temptations, social care, people’s credit and their saving habits. There are a great many sub menues to all of these things. I have no doubt that the commercial world has a very good grasp of behavioural science and is using it daily to encourage us to spend. I also believe that there are a number of real life factors that cut across any psychological study. Financial restraints prevent most of us from acquiring the Rolls or Mediterranean yacht that we might covet. Drop a scale or two and the same is true of lesser items. I am not persuaded that Jo Public goes around salivating over the latest this or that. I believe that, for most purchases, they know exactly what they want and have thought long and hard about getting it at the right price. We all impulse buy from time to time but certainly not all the time. Human behaviour is dictated by circumstances and our reaction to them That reaction is usually a considered one and we are surely not totally impelled along by subconscious desires and thoughts. Coming to social services, these are dictated largely by what is (or is not) offered to us. We are dragged along by the system and have to make the best of what there is. As regards savings, look at the pensioner bonds. Make it attractive and people,who can, might be tempted to save. I am very suspicious of social engineering, because in this diverse world of ours, one man’s utopia is another man’s hell and most of us prefer to plough our own furrows as best we can. By all means improve our social structure by common consent and common effort. If asked, most of us will have a clear idea (not necessarily the same) of what needs to to be done locally, nationally and internationally to improve our world. The art of good governing, at any level, is to translate those ideas, supported by the majority, into reality, battling against the realities of life along the way. Try using behavioural science to counter the chancellor’s cuts, the chaos in the national health service and our growing problems with junior school places at one end and an aging population at the other. The real world transcends psychology and dictates its own terms to us.

I have a confession. I’m a very bad consumer. I have not watched commercial TV for years, so I miss out on a lot of indoctrination. When I do see advertising I take a strange delight in looking for misrepresentation. I tend to hold on to products I own if they are still doing a good job. I’m happy to replace products such as computers and phones frequently because they become obsolete but I’m quite happy with my old vacuum cleaner, washing machine and freezer.

My first introduction to the Design Council was in the 1970s when I encountered what I and my work colleagues considered to be a dangerous product that had won a DC award. I don’t know much about the DC and have always assumed it is something to do with marketing and sales promotion. On one of the pages of the DC website it says: “Our experts
Independent, informed, passionate”

I wonder how independent the DC really is.

What would impress me is detailed specifications and ten year warranties provided by the manufacturer at no additional cost.

“…what we all actually want, need and desire”. Well there’s a project destined to failure! If anything is certain it’s that we all want, need and desire totally different things. As soon as I even enter a shop this becomes clear: I want, more than anything, peace and quiet. Clearly what most other people want is music, music, music, everywhere they go. I complain to the Manager and I am told that I’m the only person who has said they don’t like it. I point out that others have the choice to use an iPod or similar if they want to listen to their choice of music, but I am being given no choice. But companies have been convinced that people buy more when there is background noise so they are not interested in real ‘choice’.
I do not believe big companies have any interest in finding out what individuals want. Want a TV that doesn’t have a black plastic surround? Want to go back to OS7 on your iPad? Want to buy toys for girls that aren’t made of pink plastic (but don’t cost an arm and a leg).
There are millions of products out there, but look up, say, fridges in Which? and you are essentially comparing minor variations of the same thing. I spent months trying to find a fridge-freezer with a large freezer and a small fridge. Can’t be done. No call for it.
You can have whatever ‘needs, wants and desires’ you like, but unless you buy into the majority taste, current fashions, today’s ‘look’, you can forget it.
As far as I can see, knowing why we make consumer choices is just another bit of psychology that will be grabbed by big companies to better target their advertising. It won’t make for more product choice because companies already know we want different things, but are only interested in the economies of scale. The only answer is a proliferation of smaller niche companies, and that is most certainly not the direction we’re heading in.

I’ve bought clothing from M&S over the years partly because of the quality and price, partly because I have never been particularly fashion conscious, and partly because they made longer-length trousers and jackets to suit my legs and arms. However, I would suggest younger people have a quite different attitude to clothes, looking for extensive wardrobes so shop for the current fashion at low cost. If they aren’t going to wear something for long durability is not important. Not M&S’s image, Leave it to the specialists.