Vitamin, Painkiller, or Candy?

Product people often ask if a product is a “vitamin” or a “painkiller” - that is, if the product solves a problem that customers should do something about (vitamin) versus an urgent, intense problem that customers are eager to fix immediately (painkiller). However, this categorization leaves out categories of products like games and entertainment; a better question would be: vitamin, painkiller, or candy?

A great example of “candy” products are video games: the desire to play video games comes from the surge of dopamine they provide, just like candy. One could try to force video games into the painkiller/vitamin dichotomy by arguing that video games are a “painkiller” for boredom, but this misconstrues the mechanic: just as people are drawn to eat candy even when they’re not hungry, people are drawn to play video games even when they’re not bored. In “candy” products like video games the reward is pleasure, in contrast to “painkiller” products where the reward is the cessation of something negative.

Referring to these products as candy also raises important conversations about responsible design and consumption. Pleasure is good and “candy” products are a huge market: the video game industry is estimated to be roughly the size as the entire SaaS market; Netflix has a market cap of almost double that of Pfizer. But just as we warn children about the adverse health impacts of eating lots of candy, it’s not healthy to binge on video games, television, or social media either.

The vitamin/painkiller analogy is a useful tool for discussing the importance and urgency of a customer’s particular problem, but by expanding the analogy to encompass candy we can better understand products and the role they play in a customer’s life.

Special thanks to Frankie Warren for help developing the idea and reviewing this post.