“Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.” – W.H. Auden
In Mastermind, Maria Konnikova uses the stories of Sherlock Holmes to lay out best practices for deduction, observation, memory and imagination for anyone who wants to be a consulting detective (including market researchers). Some of the key lessons are worth repeating and a good addition to a previous article on Sherlock Holmes, summarised as:
- Know yourself
- Observe carefully
- Imagine
- Deduce
- Learn Read more »
I’ve been intrigued reading about the J.C. Penney debacle. While I think there is a lesson to be learnt about the communication of promotions, I don’t believe the lesson is that simplicity does not work. In fact, J.C. Penney’s strategy of simplifying shopper decision making failed in two fundamental ways. Firstly, the communication of the new strategy was ineffective, making the store proposition more complicated rather than less. Secondly, in many other ways, J.C. Penney made shoppers’ lives more complicated by losing the focus of their brand identity and sending mixed messages to customers about what they stand for. Read more »
Reading Research Live’s interview with Steve Phillips (see here) prompted me to think again about the future of market research, and more specifically about customised quantitative research which is the backbone of the majority of global research agencies. Along with two other website’s Zappistore might hold the key to part of the future of market research. Read more »
With a growth in importance of Asian markets, the trend watchers have been setting up in Asia, and it’s good to see a greater emphasis on innovation in this part of the world. Trendwatching.com’s recent report on the trend for ‘Localizasian’ is one example of this (they now have an office in Singapore). Read more »
We know what the big global agencies think about themselves (read here), but what about the smaller global and regional agencies in Asia? Do they have a different perspective on what they can do for their customers? In the previous article I took a look at the websites of the big four market research agencies, and now it’s the turn of the next tier of players (strictly in alphabetical order). Read more »
“Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.” - Charles Dickens
“People think that everyone wears black in France; in fact they all wear grey.” – Jean Paul Gaultier
“I am black or white, I’ll never be grey in my life.” - Diego Maradona
Read more »
“And she was fair as is the rose in May.” - Geoffrey Chaucer
“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” - Audrey Hepburn
“Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.” - Mark Overby Read more »
April Love by Arthur Hughes
“There is no evil that does not promise inducements. Avarice promises money; luxury, a varied assortment of pleasures; ambition, a purple robe and applause. Vices tempt you by the rewards they offer.” - Seneca
“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.” - Rudyard Kipling
“If Bacchus ever had a color he could claim for his own, it should surely be the shade of tannin on drunken lips, of John Keat’s ‘purple-stained mouth’, or perhaps even of Homer’s dangerously wine-dark sea.” - Victoria Finlay Read more »
The old cemetery tower in Nuenen by Vincent van Gogh
Willow trees at sunset by Vincent van Gogh
Barn on a rainy day by Vincent van Gogh
“He hangs in shades the orange bright,like golden lamps in a green night” - Andrew Marvell
“The majority (of painters), because they aren’t colourists, do not see yellow, orange or sulphur in the South (of France) and they call a painter mad if he sees with eyes other than theirs.” - Vincent van Gogh
“Orange is the happiest colour” - Frank Sinatra Read more »
“I’m pretty, but I’m not beautiful. I sin, but I’m not the devil. I’m good, but I’m not an angel.” - Marilyn Monroe
“It is not enough to conquer. One must also know how to seduce.” - Voltaire
“Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.” - Paulo Coelho Read more »
