When I specialised in marketing for the business part of my economics degree, I came across a puzzling group of people: consumers. Ask them about their product choices and they will tell you what they care about, how diligently they compare different items and how much weight they put on quality.

Yet analyse what they actually do and a different picture emerges. They infer quality from brand names they have never heard of. They do the same from packaging. They will prefer one of two identical products because one of them somehow feels more premium.

Consumers are strange. So why should they be any different as voters?

To read the article on The Australian website, click here.