Trouble of too many choices
Of the many things I have to be thankful for, one is that I am not in charge of marketing C2, Coca-Cola's new mid-calorie cola, which fills a previously unrecognised niche halfway between full-calorie Coca-Cola and zero-calorie Diet Coke. It is hard to see how you can sell it without highlighting the biggest failings of the two existing products: namely, that the diet version tastes as if someone had emptied a chemistry set into the can while the real thing, if consumed in sufficient quantities, will make you as obese as a medium-sized planet.
Bravely, Coca-Cola is promoting C2 with the tag-line: "Half the cals. All the great taste." In fact - and I have sampled the product, so I know - the slogan might just as well be: "Almost as yucky as the diet stuff, and with loads more cals too."
Perhaps some people will find a reason to drink C2, but it is hard not to see it as a product proliferation too far. In the recently published The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, author Barry Schwartz describes how, even when buying quite simple products, we are now overwhelmed by choice. Going to Gap for a pair of jeans, he finds himself having to choose between slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, stone-washed, acid-washed, distressed, button fly, zipper fly and so on. In his local supermarket, he is confronted by 275 different breakfast cereals, 175 varieties of salad dressing and 360 types of shampoo, conditioner and mousse. Choice on this scale complicates life instead of making it easier, Prof Schwartz argues.
How did it come to this? Before the industrial revolution, when people wanted to buy something it was usually custom-made for them by a local artisan. Then the role of manufacturing was taken over by distant factories that achieved scale economies through mass production. But by the 1990s the markets for many products were mature, so companies started introducing ceaseless line extensions in the hope that a wider range of products would translate into a bigger market share.
As companies catered more and more for individual tastes, some predicted the next big revolution in manufacturing would be a move from mass production to mass customisation. Instead of making products for inventory and using advertising to shift them, companies would use the internet to communicate directly with consumers and provide them with personalised products tailored to their individual needs.
Several companies tried it and gave up: Levi Strauss with design-your-own jeans, General Mills with design-your-own breakfast cereals and Procter & Gamble's Millstone Coffee with design-your-own coffee blends. A few others carried on: most famously Dell with its built-to-order computers, but also Land's End, which lets customers order tailored chinos; Nike, which will vary the colour scheme of its Nike Shox Turbo iD athletic shoe; and P&G's Reflect.com, which sells customised beauty products.
These examples aside, it is easy to explain why mass customisation never caught on. True customisation would mean giving the customer infinite choice over a product's design. Manufacturers could never afford to do this because they would end up as artisans and their scale economies would be lost. Mass customisation means offering customers just an element of choice over certain modules or components of the product while keeping the overall design unchanged.
But thanks to product proliferation consumers have no need of mass customisation: they can choose the combination of modules or components they desire from the products available in the stores. Twenty years ago Coca-Cola came in only one flavour. It now offers the basic product with a choice of interchangeable modules: flavour (original, cherry, vanilla, lemon, lime), calorie content (regular or diet) and caffeine content (with or without), and makes all the most popular combinations of modules available on the store shelves without charging any extra for the choice.
To Prof Schwartz's point: yes, product proliferation presents us with overwhelming choices; but if life is too short to spend a day choosing a pair of jeans in a store, it is certainly too short to spend a week designing them online only to find the end result fits badly and looks absurd.
This brings me to a deeper-seated reason why mass customisation has never taken off and probably never will. We all think we want to be individuals, but we do not really mean it. Nobody wants to be one of the herd, but nobody wants to be a misfit or a loner either. Like teenagers, we are torn between the urge to proclaim our personal identity and an equally powerful desire to belong. The little game that many of us play with brands is using them to proclaim our individual tastes, yet paradoxically to signal that we belong to groups of other users. The customised product fails on both counts: it says as much about you as a jar of home-made jam or a sweater that was knitted for you by your grandmother.
Imagine sharing a soft drink with a friend. "Yuck!" he says, spitting the drink out all over the table. "What the hell is this? Call this a Coke?" "Er, well, actually I had it custom-made," you reply. "It's equal measures of regular Coke and Diet Coke, mixed together." Ex-friend backs off in general direction of the door, aghast.
Now imagine sharing another soft drink with a friend. "Yuck!" he says, spitting it out all over the table. "What the hell is this? Call this a Coke?" "Haven't you heard?" you reply. "It's Coke's new mid-calorie cola, C2. Half the cals. All the great taste." "Wow," says friend, reaching for a bottle of water. "Cool."
选择太多的烦恼
在许多我要庆幸的事中，有一桩就是不必负责中等卡路里含量可乐C2的营销。这是可口可乐公司(Coca-Cola)的新品，填补了介于全卡路里可口可乐与无卡路里健怡可乐之间、先前未被注意的利基空白。很难看出，你怎样才能销售这款新品，而避免强调两款现有产品的一些大缺点：这么说吧，健怡可乐的味道就像是有人把一堆化学物质统统倒进了可乐罐；而真正的可乐，如果喝上足够的量，就会让你胖得像个中型行星。
可口可乐正大胆采用“一半卡路里，完全好滋味”的广告标语来推广C2。实际上，我尝试过这个产品，所以我知道，这条广告标语最好还是这样说：“烂味如健怡，卡路里多多。”
也许一些人会找到喝C2的理由，但很难不把这看作是一种过了头的产品繁衍。在近期出版的《选择的悖论：为何多点就是少点》(The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less)一书中，作者巴里?施瓦兹(Barry Schwartz)描述说，现在我们就算在购买很简单的产品时，也会淹没在大量选择中。有人去Gap挑选一条牛仔裤，他会发现自己必须在紧身、合身、休闲、宽松、砂洗、酸洗、磨损仿古、纽扣门襟、拉锁门襟等款式中做出选择。在他家附近的超市中，他要面对275种不同的早餐麦片，175种色拉酱和360种洗发精、护发素和摩丝。施瓦兹教授认为，这么多选择非但没有让生活变得更舒适，反而把生活搞得更复杂了。
怎么会弄成这样？在工业革命之前，当人们需要买些东西时，通常由当地的手工艺者为他们定制。后来，远方的工厂接管了制造工作。这些工厂通过大规模生产实现了规模经济。但到了上世纪90年代，许多产品的市场成熟了，所以公司开始不停地进行绵延不断的产品线延伸，以期更丰富的商品能为公司带来更大的市场份额。
随着公司越来越多地去迎合个人偏好，有人预计，制造业下一次大革命将是从大规模生产转向大规模定制。公司将运用互联网来与客户直接交流，并根据他们的个别需求定制个性化产品提供给他们，而不是过去那种制造产品形成存货，并运用广告进行销售。
已经有几家公司对此进行了尝试，但后来又放弃了：利维?斯特劳斯公司(Levi Strauss)尝试推出为你定制的牛仔裤，General Mills尝试推出为你特制的早餐麦片，宝洁(Procter & Gamble)旗下的Millstone Coffee也尝试推出为你打造的混合咖啡。其它一些公司也在这么做：最出名的戴尔(Dell)跟单定制电脑，还有Land's End让客户定购量身定做的斜纹棉布裤；耐克(Nike)可变换其Nike Shox Turbo iD运动鞋的颜色设计；以及宝洁的Reflect.com出售定制的美容产品。
撇开这些例子不谈，要解释为什么大规模定制从未风行起来很容易。真正的定制将意味着为顾客提供无限的产品设计选择。但制造商可能永远无法承受这一点，因为这样一来，它们最终会沦为手工艺者，而它们的规模经济也将消失殆尽。大规模定制意味着，仅在产品的某些模块或组件上为顾客提供少许选择，同时保持产品的整体设计不变。
但由于产品不断繁衍，消费者对大规模定制不再有需求：他们可以从商店提供的产品中选择所需的模块或组件组合。20年前，可口可乐只提供一种口味，而现在提供的基本产品则有可互换的模块供选择：口味（原味、樱桃味、香草味、柠檬味、酸橙味）、卡路里含量（普通或健怡），以及咖啡因含量（含或不含）。商店货架上摆出所有最受欢迎的模块组合，且不因提供这些选择而加收任何费用。
在施瓦茨教授看来：是的，产品繁衍为我们提供了不计其数的选择；但如果因为人生太短，没时间花一整天在店里挑选一条牛仔裤，那么人生当然也太短，更没时间花一周在线设计这些裤子，却最终发现设计出来的裤子不但不合身，而且样子很古怪。
这让我想到一个更深刻的原因，可以解释为何大规模定制从未风行、而且可能永远也不会风行。我们都认为，我们希望自己独特，但我们并不完全是这个意思。没人希望自己是完全从众、没有个性的人，但也没人希望自己不合时宜或者不合群。就像十来岁的青少年一样，在显露个性的欲望与同样强烈的归属渴求之间，我们很难做出抉择。我们很多人玩品牌的小游戏，就是在用品牌来宣称我们的个人品位。但自相矛盾的是，这样做也表明了，我们属于其他同样使用这些品牌的人所组成的团体。定制产品在这两方面都失败了：它所传达的有关你的信息，就和一罐家里自制的果酱，或是祖母为你织的一件毛衣所传达的信息一样多。
试想你同一个朋友分享一种软饮料。“呸！”他叫道，嘴里的饮料喷了一桌子。“这到底是什么玩意儿？这也叫可乐？”“哦，其实这是我自己定制的，”你回答，“这是把普通可乐与健怡可乐等量混合在一起。”朋友大吃一惊，向门口退去。从此他就不是你的朋友了。
现在试想与一个朋友分享另一种软饮料。“呸！”他叫道，嘴里的饮料喷了一桌子。“这到底是什么玩意儿？这也叫可乐？”“你没听说过吗？”你回答，“这是可口可乐公司新出品的中等卡路里可乐，C2。一半卡路里，完全好滋味。”“哇！”朋友一边大叫，一边伸手去拿一瓶水。“真酷！”
