El poder persuasivo de los costos de oportunidad

|Harvard Business Review |Harvard Business Review |
|The Magazine HBR (January-February 2011) |La Revista HBR (Enero-Febrero 2011) |
|The Persuasive Power of Opportunity Costs |El Poder Persuasivo de los Costos de Oportunidad ||by Shane Frederick |De Shane Frederick |
|While shopping for my first stereo, I spent an hour debating |Cuando compré mi primer estéreo, me demoré una hora |
|between a $1,000 Pioneer and a $700 Sony. Perhaps fearing that |discerniendo entre un Pioneer de $1,000 y un Sony de $700. |
|my indecisionwould cost him a sale, the salesman intervened |Probablemente preocupado de que mi indecisión le cueste una |
|with the comment “Well, think of it this way ─would you rather |venta, el vendedor intervino con el comentario “Bueno, piénselo|
|have the Pioneer, or the Sony and $300 worth of CDs?” |de esta manera – en vez del Pioneer, compraría el Sony y $300 |
|Wow. The Sony ─andby a large margin. Twenty new CDs were too |en CDs?” |
|great a sacrifice for the slightly more attractive Pioneer. |Guau. El Sony –y de lejos. Veinte nuevos CD no eran un |
|Although I could subtract $700 from $1,000 and was capable ─in |sacrificio grande por el ligeramente más atractivo Pioneer. A |
|principle─ of recognizingthat $300 could be used to buy $300 |pesar de que podía restar $700 de $1000 y que era capaz – en |
|worth of CDs, I hadn’t considered that until the salesman |principio – que esos $300 los podía usar en comprar $300 en |
|pointed it out. |CDs, no lo había considerado hasta que el vendedor lo mencionó.|
|If one assumes, as an economicstextbook might, that consumers | |
|routinely calculate opportunity costs, this anecdote should be |Si uno asume, como lo haría un texto de economía, que los |
|revealing. All decisions involve opportunity costs, but the way|consumidores rutinariamente calculan sus costos de oportunidad,|
|consumers reckon them has received littleattention from |esta anécdota les será reveladora. Todas las decisiones |
|decision theorists and even less from marketers. Promotional |involucran costos de oportunidad, pero la forma en la que los |
|messages often highlight the advantages of one product over |consumidores reconocen siempre ha recibido escasa atención de |
|another (A is 50% faster than B; X is $300cheaper than Y), but|los estudiosos en decisiones y mucho menos la ha recibido de |
|spelling out the implications of those differences may be more |los marqueteros. Mensajes promocionales muchas veces resaltan |
|persuasive: Price differences can look large or small, |las ventajas de un producto sobre el otro (A es 50% más rápido |
|depending on what else one imagines purchasing withthat money.|que B; X es $300 más barato que Y), pero la forma de expresar |
|Though opportunity costs seem underused as a rhetorical tool of|lo que significan esas diferencias podría ser más persuasivo: |
|marketers, they were famously invoked by Eisenhower in his 1953|Las diferencias de precio pueden ser amplias o pequeñas, |
|“Chance for Peace” speech: “The cost of one modern heavybomber|dependiendo de lo que uno imagina comprando con ese dinero |
|is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities . . .We |extra. |
|pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. |A pesar de que los costos de oportunidad parecen desfasados |
|We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have...