Making meaning
We are a peculiar species. For example, many of us continue to risk our long term survival for the pleasure of puffing on a stick of nicotine, while others make it very difficult to walk by wearing uncomfortable high heel footwear. Read more »
“The point of a story can penetrate far deeper than the point of any bullet.” - Laurence Nault
Getting to the point
There are seven basic plots in storytelling as we have seen over the last few weeks. These plots form the backbone of myths, fairy tales, novels and movies, and also of advertising, brand stories and how we can all communicate in business, including market researchers telling the story of their data. Here are seven reasons why stories will help you communicate ideas more effectively, helping you to build your story and helping your audience to remember the point of it all. Read more »
The quest for the original plot
Writers such as Joseph Campbell and Robert McKee have identified the Quest (or variants of it) as the single original plot. The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey (and the Aeneid) all follow the outline of the Quest plot and are two of the oldest and greatest stories we know. Although only one of the seven plots outlined by Christopher Booker, it is an important one which appears frequently, sometimes combined with other plot structures, and often as a framing device for multiple individual stories which follow other structures. Read more »
“Culture is the collective programming of the mind.” - Geert Hofstede
A world of symbols
What makes us all so interesting to researchers and marketers is our enquiring mind, and nothing shows this more vividly than the web of beliefs and ideas that we have created to make meaning from the complexity of the world around us. A very important part of this framework is the vocabulary of signs and symbols that help remind us of our link to the world and each other. Read more »
In the last post, we saw that humans are susceptible to social bias (or herd mentality). Our mind does not work by itself alone, but through interactions with other minds in the immediate environment or more remotely through culture and shared values. Much of what we do is under the influence of others, often without realising, with important implications for marketing and research. Read more »
In A History of the World in 100 Objects, Neil McGregor offers a fascinating and inspiring sense of the progress of man and the sweep of history told through the individual stories of 100 objects from the British Museum (I saw many of the individual exhibits myself in two visits to the UK last year). Although the scope of the series was vast, starting with a stone chopping tool from the Rift Valley in Tanzania, dated at around 2 million years old and finishing with a credit card and solar powered lamp and charger from today, it’s power lies in the unfolding of the individual stories of each object, placing them in their appropriate context and vividly capturing a moment in time. I would strongly recommend anyone to listen to the podcasts which are still available at the BBC website (link in the first line) or to read the book. Read more »
“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” - David Hume
I will let you into a secret. A lot of current thinking in brand and communications research is misplaced. Most marketers and market researchers fail to take account of recent advances in psychology. This presents a great opportunity for many companies to get ahead of the competition.
Many people today still believe in ghosts. Some people also believe that the mind, and even a soul, exists separately from the brain. The ‘social sciences’ and humanities often still hold that people are born as ‘blank slates’ ready to be molded by society. They cling to romantic notions of the “noble savage”, primitive hunter gatherer societies unfettered by violence or sexism. The truth is that science has over the last ten to twenty years shown much of this to be “poppycock” (senseless nonsense).
(Please note, this article contains plot spoilers!)
Inception is based on the notion of “exploring the idea of people sharing a dream space — entering a dream space and sharing a dream. That gives you the ability to access somebody’s unconscious mind. What would that be used and abused for?”
