Information overload may be making some Americans sick

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 15, 1997 | by Jennifer Harper

"You have to figure out if you're a fruit person or a flower person," says one cheerful saleswoman, who adds that many stores keep a dish of fresh coffee beans handy for customers to sniff after they become confused by the melange of clover, mango, mint and vanilla. "The coffee," she explained, "clears their head."

Hope springs eternal among manufacturers, says Robert McGrath, a marketing researcher in Ithaca, N.Y, "and Americans, they love the new; they love novelty." The word new, he points out, is often left on a package for up to two years to increase its cachet. In Europe, by way of comparison, new can grace a label for only six months.

But Americans also get nostalgic, says McGrath. "They associate a certain time in their life with a specific brand name. That's why we see all these commemorative or anniversary packages on the shelves -- it taps into some subtle emotions and loyalties."

Manufacturers, in their zeal to provide new choices, must be careful not to compromise old favorites, as Coca-Cola discovered when the company introduced the ill-fated New Coke. People develop relationships with products, focus groups have discovered. "My mother used Tide, and when I got married, it didn't occur to me to use anything but Tide," noted one woman during a focus group organized earlier this year by Langer Associates, a trend consulting firm.

Other "staples" just keep burgeoning, however. JellyBelly jelly beans, which got a boost from Ronald Reagan's jelly-bean love, now come in 40 flavors, including hot pepper and buttered popcorn. The typical electronics store offers about 100 varieties of telephones, while most coffee specialty shops feature 50 flavors, including banana, coconut and butter rum.

Though 80 to 94 percent of new products fail, says McGrath, some goodies are so beloved in America that they are making triumphant returns. Sea 'N' Ski, a 1950s-era tanning favorite, is about to reappear in the marketplace, as is Pop Rocks candy, which had an urban legend attached to it on the order of exploding stomachs.

"This is pure Americana, pure Yankee ingenuity at work here, and it has evolved to a kind of fever pitch in the last 10 years," says Gaskey. "You don't see this excess overseas. And I believe we've just about reached our limits. Consumers find it annoying to sort through the possibilities."