Sex Bland (Also) Sells ...
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
... and Other Free Market Discoveries
At Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok brings up a great feature of free markets:
Competition is a discovery procedure.He brings this up in answer to naysayers who doubt that anyone wants, for example, "to pay thousands to save a few hours" on a supersonic flight. Tabarrok's reply of bottled water illustrates something else that might have seemed too expensive to be a market success, and then adds another:
Fred Smith's FedEx plan got a "C" in the classroom, but the market graded the experiment and returned an A in equity.The letter grade brought to my mind another example, Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers:
Founders Todd Graves and Craig Silvey were studying at different universities when they wrote a plan for a chicken-finger restaurant which Silvey submitted in a business plan-writing course, receiving a C-minus grade. At the time, Graves worked at Guthrie's Chicken Fingers.This chain, despite the low grade and a lack of investor interest, now brings in $1.5 billion in revenue a year.
The business plan was rejected numerous times by potential investors, so Graves and Silvey earned the needed money working various manual labor jobs. They obtained an SBA loan, which they used to open their first restaurant... [links and notes omitted]
As a Popeye's fan who is completely flabbergasted by how a chain that sells food I can barely taste does this, I must concur with Tabarrok: [J]ust as in science, there is no substitute for running the experiment.
-- CAV
4 comments:
The way I think of things like bland food is Venn diagrams. If you want to reach as many people as possible you want to position yourself in the area where the maximum number of groups overlap. This means that, if you want to reach the maximum audience, you need to not alienate people--which means being bland. Any bold flavors, statements, or ideas will put off some people, moving you out of that overlap.
This is why houses are all beige these days--it's not attractive, it merely fails to put off potential buyers. This is also why pop music is so formulaic--it's not good, it merely doesn't offend anyone. This is why bland food will sell--it's not good, but it's not offensive to anyone.
Those of us familiar with philosophy recognize this formulation: value as a negation of negatives. It's a good example of how philosophy drives culture. You can literally watch the process via interior design.
Good point. It has occurred to me that Cane's is the Budweiser of chicken.
I was a teetotaler until a trip to Europe showed me what real beer was like and I mostly avoided music when all I knew was American Top 40 and such. I refuse to believe that this is normal, and am happy to be an oddball in a culture where boredom is so readily accepted.
One day in the distant future, when more people think for themselves and want things more intensely, perhaps such a strategy will alienate most customers.
Hey Gus:
I am truly baffled by Raising Cane's myself. I'm an avid viewer of Shark Tank; that's when I first heard about the restaurant when the founder was visiting as a guest Shark. I finally visited the place in my neck of the woods, and thought it definitely lacked seasoning. And the Texas Toast was way too salty. I just didn't think it was all that great. Oh well!!
Bookish Babe
BB,
My son saw an ad for it and wanted to try it, so we did. Even the dipping sauce lacks flavor! My wife and kids love it, but at least it's close enough to Popeye's that I can swing by there first for myself when they want that stuff.
I polled my Mom and brothers. They like it, but at least have the good sense to prefer Popeye's or KFC.
Weird!
Gus
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