Analysis of Sheena Iyengar's TED talk on "How to make choosing easier"

1. How
to
make
choosing
easier

2. About the speaker

3. Let us analyse…
The most
important insights
from the talk

4. More choices cause
“OVERLOAD PROBLEM”

5. • With more choices,
people often delay
choosing.
• They are more likely
to be less satisfied
with what they
choose.
• They are more likely
to make worse
choices.

6. Business application :
CUT - Less is more
CONCRETIZE – Make it vivid
CATEGORIZE – More categories,
fewer choices
CONDITION – For complexity

7. Get rid of redundant options.
P&G reduced their choices for Head &
Shoulders to 15 from 26 and witnessed an
increase in sales by 10%.

8. CONCRETIZE
Relate a decision in terms that
mean something.In order to
understand the difference between
choices, people need to understand
the consequences associated with
them. They need to understand that
in a concrete way.

9. CATEGORIZE
Reduce the objects into categories
that mean something to the
chooser.People can handle more
categories than they can handle
choices.400 magazines divided into 20
categories make people believe that
they had a better choosing experience
than when they had 600 magazines
divided into 10 categories.

10. CONDITION
Gradually increase the
complexity. People can
actually process a lot
more information than
they think when the
complexity is increased
gradually.

11. Let us now analyse :
Why and how are
these insights
relevant to a
manager in India?

12. India with a population of
1.3 billion has a plethora of
choices available for all
products for its citizens.
Sheena’s talk about
simplifying the issue can be
applied to our country too.
The managers should try to
cut down on redundant
options, concretize and
categorize products rather
than providing more choices.

14. Recap

15. Disclaimer
This presentation has been
prepared by Ivy Sinha, IEM
Kolkata during a marketing
management internship
under the guidance of
Professor Sameer Mathur,
IIM Lucknow.