Choice and the Picky Eater
We’ve recognized for some time the modern propensity to prepare one meal to the child’s liking before later turning attention to the adult’s dinner. And this phenomena is only increasing.
On a recent series of consumer interviews we spoke with one man who claimed his daughter simply refuses to eat more than five or six things—and in some cases will only eat the version that comes in the frozen box.
As you might imagine, it is very difficult to eat outside the household. She will eat Chicken McNuggets from McDonald’s. But in many cases if we are going to a party at someone else’s house, I’ve gotten to the point where I toss one of her frozen meals in our bag.
On another interview, a mother recounted a recent trip to a Mexican restaurant. After refusing to eat a quesadilla—and instantly promised a trip to McDonald’s—the child kept complaining to the waiter, “You don’t understand, I don’t want it.”
We are in the golden age of relativism and acceptance, where people believe it is perfectly reasonable to inform a dinner party host of their food intolerances or, worse yet, plain old preferences.
A recent article in USA Today offers tips to make one’s wedding diabetes-friendly: meet Tabatha Muntzinger who sent out informational packets regarding the food to be served at the reception, a full year before the wedding.
Take that, romance!
Perhaps most surprising in this latest round of interviews, we found more than one family that actually stocks different bottles of water for each member of the household. In one respondent’s words:
My oldest will only drink Dasani, while my daughter can’t stand the stuff. I usually get her Fiji when it’s on sale, otherwise she will settle for Aquafina.
While another family had the same dilemma with regard to juice: “My son refuses to drink orange juice with pulp, while my oldest begs for the high-pulp version.”
. . . . . .
Thinking about the general evolution of self-absorbed, choosy eating, we explored these issues further with a cohort of older boomers, asking them to comment on their experiences as both child and parent. The results were pretty much in line with what we suspected.
When the Boomers’ children were young (the late 1960s thru the 1970s), the children didn’t always get much of a say in food choices. But the parents (Mom) generally tried to prepare and serve things to most of the family’s liking. Generally speaking, their children weren’t forced to eat everything on their plate. But they also weren’t usually allowed to later fix a meal to their liking. It was okay if they didn’t like broccoli, but it wasn’t okay to go cook a frozen pizza afterward.
But when the Boomers were young, they shared similar experiences with one major difference. They had little to no voice in food preparations, were usually required to eat everything on their plate, and if they held firm and pushed this boundary too far, they were whacked in the head.
. . . . . .
Reflecting on the nature of our increasing “choosiness,” one wonders how related these behaviors are to the extreme proliferation of distinctions in both everyday life, as well as every product category imaginable. Something as basic as salt has now become as differentiated as wine, wherein many have the ability to choose the particular sea from which their salt is harvested.
And in addition to having 24-hour access to every cut of meat desired, we can now choose our chicken’s lifestyle and our cow’s diet.
The surging trend in heirloom fruits and vegetables now allows us the possibility to choose from dozens of varietals in every category. We may not be interested in such choices. We may not all have access to such choices. Yet such possibilities still exist.
Factor in successful cases in cross-breeding such as the Pluot (“a complex cross hybrid of plum and apricot”) and we quickly realize the range of such possibilities is indeed infinite.
So it seems evident that as we think about these parallel developments, we find something approximating an interdependent relationship. As the complexity of choice skyrockets, our preferences become much stronger and more forcefully expressed.
A child who demands her water be from a specific spring in France can only do so in a world that has reimagined this most basic of commodities into a multi-billion dollar industry. What many in the world are lucky to have, causes others frustration and irritation when the wrong version is thrust upon them.
As the number of product choices we face begins a rapid ascent towards infinity, our choices become increasingly removed from the influence of the home, the family and the ritual that is daily life.
For quite some time we have been adamant in our belief that one of the biggest sources of brand loyalty for America’s most iconic CPG brands has been the fact that “the young adult’s family used the brand while he/she was growing up.” In this way it was something of a habituated preference. It’s not so much that these young adults feel a powerful, emotional connection to Tide, Windex or Gatorade. They simply grew up using the brands mom or dad chose for them. These were simply brands whose choice was based out of habit.
And in a world where kids have much more say in such matters, and expect infinite choice. Well...the writing, as they say, is on the wall.
To be certain, we’re not suggesting a bleak future or some sort of doomsday scenario. But what we would suggest is that forward-leaning brand managers begin to think about how to adapt to a future in which the young adult’s habituated preferences cannot be assumed as a convenient pathway toward brand loyalty.
The child that is already calling his own water will face a future in which he can choose his cow’s lifestyle and partake of dozens of new melons being created every year. And if the current trend is any exception, there will be no practical limit of beverage options. The simple fact that Mom used to buy Coke will count for increasingly little to this cohort.
Takeaway
With the proliferation of choice, consumers will become increasingly brand averse and resistant to conventional forms of marketing. Consequently, conventional marketing and product development, as we know them, must transform—perhaps quite radically—to prove effective in the years to come. As cultural influences lead consumers more and more to customize their lifestyles on their own terms, brands must learn to empower consumers who are making decisions for the unique taste preferences for their family members.
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As consultants, marketers and analysts in the US, the idea of choice is implicit in nearly everything we do. Join us as we explore choice, its relevance to consumer culture and its role in marketing and shopper insights.
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