'Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost?

I intended for this post to be a contemplation of the line, "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all," and whether that statement holds true outside of human relationships. Specifically, I planned to question the veracity of that statement when it comes to the discontinuation of a favorite consumer item. As consumers, do we feel thankful to have enjoyed a product in the past, although we cannot buy it now? Or would it have been better never to have experienced that product, and so to be ignorant of what we now miss?

But, alas, poor scholar of English literature that I am, I had forgotten who penned that famous line. And so, of course, as a conscientious blogger, I did a Google search to discover to which poet I should attribute the quote.

The answer? Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

The line comes from Canto XXVI of Tennyson's poem, "In Memoriam A.H.H.," which Tennyson wrote as an expression of his grieving process after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. (God bless Wikipedia.) The full stanza reads:

"I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

The "loved and lost," then, refers to building a friendship, and then losing the friend to death; it does not refer to the dissolution of a romantic relationship, as per the frequent misapplication of the line.

A few stanzas prior (in Canto XXIV), Tennyson shares some other reflections which caught my attention. Canto XXIV reads:

"And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of Day
Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.

If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise
It never look’d to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.

And is it that the haze of grief
Makes former gladness loom so great?
The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?

Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?"

That third stanza - "And is it that the haze of grief/Makes former gladness loom so great?/The lowness of the present state,/That sets the past in this relief?" - wonderfully captures the phenomenon of nostalgia, I think. Nostalgia comes to me, personally, when I think of Christmastime. I have these beautiful impressions of my childhood Christmases being so full of love and warmth and laughter and family and joy and all being right with the world. I love Christmas. And yet, at each annual family Christmas gathering, I never quite experience the same feelings that I hold in my memory. I can never make the real life Christmas celebration seem quite as magical as the ones I remember.

I do not believe that Christmas has changed so very much. I do not believe the love of my family has changed (although new family members have been added, and others passed on); I do not believe that my grandma's cooking has changed (in fact, I know it has not); I do not believe that Christmas in my family is anything less than it ever was. I think it is that nostalgia: that "the lowness of the present state...sets the past in this relief" - even if lowness the present is not really so very low.

Perhaps this nostalgia is the cause of consumers' deep aversion to losing something they once had. (I wrote about this in my blog post of 19 July 2009, "Responding to Loss Aversion.") When a product is available, consumers may enjoy it, but they may not always love it. Take the product away, though - as when Coca-Cola replaced the classic Coke formula with New Coke - and there is a public outcry. Granted, Coke is an American favorite; but perhaps the public appreciated Coke even more when it was gone than they did when they freely enjoyed it.

And hence the popularity of vintage clothing, and television reruns, and antique toys. But these items now never seem as grand as we remembered them to be. The memory of them seems brighter than the real thing. And when a company remakes an old favorite movie, or television show, or toy, the remake is almost always a disappointment to those who experienced the original.

I suppose, then, that my question for marketers ought not to be, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" but rather, "Is it better to bring back the thing loved, or to let it remain eternally unmarred in memory?"

Responding to Loss Aversion

One interesting chapter in Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin (no, not that one), and Robert Cialdini, talks about the law of loss aversion. That is, that human beings are more sensitive to potential losses than to potential gains.

In other words, people are more motivated to avoid losing what they have than they are to try gaining something more.

An example used by Cialdini, et. al. is that of New Coke. In the 1980's, Coca-Cola discovered that people liked the sweeter taste of Pepsi than they did the taste of Coke. So Coca-Cola developed a new formula - New Coke - and, like good marketers, ran taste tests. Folks liked the taste of New Coke better than the taste of the Old Coke (and when they were told which was which, an extra 6 percent of testers liked the New Coke better than when they tested blind).

So Coca-Cola yanked the old Coke from the shelves, and released New Coke.

The result? Disaster. Angry consumers. Public outcry. (Even more so than when Facebook updates its look periodically.) Coca-Cola soon got rid of the New Coke and returned the original formula to the stores.

Why did this happen? Because although people may have liked the New Coke, they would not take it at the expense of the Old Coke they knew and loved.

Has this happened to you as a consumer? You discover a favorite breakfast cereal, or ice cream shop, or hair care product, and the manufacturer discontinues it? Oh, the hurt and agony!

Why are humans wired this way? Is it a generally positive desire for life? - we don't want anything to "die" or be suddenly and permanently no longer accessible to us? Or is it a foolish and selfish impulse? Or is it neutral?

And how should marketers respond to this? They seem to already make use of this principle when they announce specials like, "Limited Time Only!" or "Don't Miss This Opportunity!" Those announcements seem like a reasonable thing to do. Warn your customers if something is about to become scarce or unavailable, so that they can get it while they can.

(But don't be manipulative with it. I remember some distinct instances of price-gouging on things like gasoline and plywood during hurricane season in Florida. It's not cool. Don't be a jerk. Customers don't like it.)

Are there other proper responses to the law of aversion? Like reserving one last batch of your discontinued product, and selling it to discount stores where your most fanatically loss-averse customers can still find it for a little while? Or offering the last batch only to your most loyal - and loss-averse - fans (you know - the ones you're supposed to be building relationships with through your social media platforms)?

How can your company respond to the law of loss aversion in a way that benefits both yourself and your customers?