Gary Direnfeld

What's wrong with getting your special someone cheap chocolate?

The answer in a moment.

It's Valentine's Day, so you might want to get something sweet and romantic for your partner.

Chocolate.

Now, you might be a little embarrassed to buy cheap chocolate.

You're embarrassed about what that means.

There's a sort of strange social math that goes on when the price of what you buy becomes a personality test.

And cheap chocolate can seem to be a character flaw.

You fail the test.

Well, I'm here to discuss just this with CT Suwanda, a marketing researcher at West Virginia University.

I know there's some deep marketing concepts that we're going to get to, like consumption stigma, but let's start here.

If I buy my beloved, her name is Miranda, if I buy her just the cheapest chocolate I could find at the drugstore for Valentine's Day, what would most people think?

What would be the default thought about someone receiving a gift like that?

I need to do better.

All right.

But then on the other hand, like blowing at some of these fancy chocolate boxes can be like 80 bucks, 100 bucks.

The prices can get really wild.

On the other end, what would people think if I just blew all my money on chocolate and got her the fanciest gold leaf truffles, whatever?

What would be the impression there?

If we keep thinking this way, the corporations win.