More accurately taking pineapple off the pizza.
In our house, ham and pineapple pizza gets the thumbs up – by a dog’s whisker (a survey suggests that we’re with the rest of the UK, with 53% of people saying they are fans). Two of us like it, two of us don’t, and the dog - he’ll eat just about anything he can get his paws on. The dog scales verify this, but that’s a blog for another day.
A pizzeria in Norwich is in the ‘No’ camp. Their recent listing for a Hawaiian pizza on Deliveroo is set at a massive £100 with the tagline ‘Yeah for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you monster!’
As well as a great marketing tactic, it’s also an impressive negotiation move.
Sometimes, in a negotiation, people may demand a lot from you (£50 million for an untried premier league footballer) or tell you to do something you don’t want to do (put pineapple on my pizza, please). This can sometimes create an anchoring effect – where the initial proposal serves as a reference point from which it may become difficult to move away. Although the demand may be unrealistic – it is then difficult and time-consuming to drag the conversation back to a more realistic range of possibilities for the potential deal.
One alternative to a protracted argument is to put a ‘Price on Demand’. The idea is that the more outrageous the demand you receive, the higher the price you put on it (note that this differs from Demand Pricing, which is about adjusting the pricing against the supply/demand volume of a product or service).
This technique is usually deployed as a blocking tactic—unless you feel ostentatious and have £100 to burn on some cubes of tinned pineapple.
The advantages of using a Price on Demand are twofold:
Firstly, when an unreasonable demand is made, the normal reaction is to argue against it. This is time-consuming, and without an alternative - it’s still the only option. There is a danger that, eventually, pressure may build, and in the end, the receiving party may be forced to accept it or a close derivation to it.
Secondly, if we put a price on the demand, it’s proactive, there’s an absence of negativity – no, can’t, won’t, never etc. doesn’t feature. Telling people the terms under which you’ll agree to something means that, in theory, at least, you never have to say ‘no’ again to somebody (if you want to test your ability to do this, try it out on kids).
If the proposing party suggest that the terms are too high, it could be countered that those terms are a mere reflection of what you believe to be an unreasonable demand. There is then an opportunity to seize the initiative and make a new counterproposal which is more realistic for all parties involved.
For me, ‘realistic’ doesn’t include coconut – it should be banned from appearing on anything – it is truly monstrous!
Sam Macbeth, 14th January 2025
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