Butthurt white guys, an Asian virgin and an angry lesbian walk into a bar...

Barraco Bisi_sl said:

RealClearMarkets --><title>For Catering to Girl Consumers, Lego Angers Feminists | RealClearMarkets

Can't win
Don't try

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Producers Don't Dictate to Consumers

Now, the source of the misunderstanding here is apparent. The activists think that Lego is responsible for deciding what girls should want because - like many people who don't understand how markets work - they think that producers dictate to consumers what to buy.
The idea at work here is that girls will buy and like whatever it is that Lego Corp. wants to market to them. Thus, by extension, it is Lego's job to fight culture wars and tell girls what the "correct" play experience is.

But it doesn't work that way. Companies make money by selling what people want. At the same time, companies that make products few people like will ultimately fail, no matter how many commercials they put on the television.

Consumers Decide What Is Produced

After all, if people will buy whatever they're told to buy, then why not just spend nearly 100 percent of the toy company's budget on marketing and advertising? The rest can go to making a low-quality product. If it breaks easily or turns out to be no fun, then that's all the better because then they'll just buy another one because an ad told them to.

If a slick ad campaign is all that is necessary to make someone like a product, just make a slick ad showing the sub-par product in a good light. People will just keep on buying it because the advertisements say so.

Everyone instinctively knows this is not true, though. McDonald's can run TV commercials all day long, but that, apparently, isn't enough to keep people buying Mickey D's food at the price the company prefers. Subway can repeat the "eat fresh" mantra, but that won't keep sales from slipping, as they have been doing for several years.

And if we'll buy whatever toy makers tell us to buy, why aren't children playing with the same toys they were playing with thirty years ago? It costs money to develop new toy lines and design new sets. Why go through the trouble of creating new toys, when it's possible to make customers like your products by just running ads for existing ones?

The reason for this, as Murray Rothbard observed long ago, is that every consumer has the ability to simply refuse to purchase what she's asked to buy for whatever reason or whim she deems important. Ludwig von Mises called this "consumer sovereignty."

Even more frustrating to producers is the fact that consumer preferences change constantly due to a variety of - often inscrutable - factors far beyond the control of marketers and producers. Producers thus have a choice: adapt to changing customer preferences, or die.

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Barraco Bisi_sl said:

I don't think Tanoomba understands any conversation anyone is having

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Tanoomba_sl said:

Sorry, JEEZ. I thought you were making a point instead of just being a hand-wringing busybody. Carry on.

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