The Buridan's Ass

I am not very sure about the percentage of readers who know about the Buridan’s Ass concept. Let me assume that the ratio of knowing it is 50-50. Now since 50% know about it already, I should not write an article about the Buridan’s Ass and its implications but, 50% are still unaware about what it is and so I should go about writing on it. The question is what should I do?

Well let the Buridan’s Ass explain it for you. The theory satirizes French philosopher Jean Buridan’s philosophy of moral determinism. Though moral determinism is not what we will be talking about here, but rationalism and the market will definitely be an interesting aspect of it.

A Buridan’s Ass is one who is equally hungry and thirsty and has a stack of hay and a pill of water kept on his either sides at equal distances between which he has to choose just one. Now, ideally he should make a choice and move but then what happens in reality is that he gets confused and dies.

Doesn’t appeal to our rational minds, right? Ok! So let us suppose you love “rajma” and “kadhi” equally and you have both of them in front of you. What would you eat; remember that you like both of them equally. You certainly do not make a choice because you cannot decide which one to take.

This was the funnier part of it, now applying it to the market scenario; a Buridan’s Ass is the main reason why companies project their points of difference most in an advertisement and why two exactly similar products do not exist.

We usually talk about the first mover’s advantage, but have we ever thought of the Second Mover’s Honeymoon and most importantly the Third Mover’s disaster! The reason for the disaster is that the consumer is already so confused between the first two options that a similar third fails to catch the eye. To exemplify, Tide was launched primarily as a detergent for white clothes because Surf Excel and Ariel were already reigning in the coloured clothing segments.

To avert the disaster, it is thus advisable not to launch till you have something that is totally a new concept and please, a new concept is not a bigger mobile phone size (till it’s Apple) or rounded edges of the body. This is primarily the reason why it is said that the mobile industry is in for an almost flat growth curve and price wars have started. Xiaomi and Micromax have captured the market solely because they have differentiated on the basis of price, the technology being more or less the same.

The takeaway is, innovation is the essence of survival in the market. If you cannot; the customer will act like the Buridan’s Ass but YOUR product will die.