Noise over Peace, Family over Yours Truly

When Alphy and the kids left for Bangkok on a holiday, I looked to the peace and quiet at home as a welcome break. Turned out things didn't exactly go the way I expected.

A day into the break and things went from calm to eerily quiet. By the second day I wanted them back so things could go back to noisy. Come to think of it, there were two things I was missing. The noise and the warmth. The 'noise' was something I was habituated to. The warmth is something I look forward to.

Consumers who buy the same brand out of habit do so based either on inertia or loyalty. Inertia is similar to the 'noise story'. Consumers don't want to take the time out to sift through different brands on offer and so settle for the one they are habituated to. But when consumers buy out of loyalty, its similar to the warmth I look forward to. Consumers are buying the same brand over and over because they've connected to it at a psychological level. Their continued patronage is based on an experience they want repeated.

On my part in the future, I'll be smarter than to ask for peace and quiet. Noise and everything that comes along is will do just fine.