“Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.” - David Hume
“The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.” - Stephen Jay Gould Read more »
“Who are you going to believe: me or your own eyes?” - Groucho Marx
In About Face, Dan Hill makes a clear and compelling argument for the use of emotion in advertising and it’s power to drive changes in behaviour. The book is full of useful examples and anecdotes and some statistics too. In one study by Omnicom, emotional engagement with customers resulted in 20% higher return on investment than mere awareness in advertising. In another review by Pringle and Field (based on 880 case studies from the UK’s Institute of Practitioners Advertising Effectiveness Awards), ‘soft sell’ ads that inspire strong emotional responses in their audience make more money (almost twice as much as ‘hard sell’ ads with more fact-based and rational arguments). And more emotional ads also reduced price sensitivity, created greater differentiation and were more important in more mature markets. Read more »
The evolution of emotions
Although some key emotions can be clearly seen on our faces (read more here), our emotional lives are complex and intricately bound into the behavioural strategies we have evolved over thousands (perhaps millions) of years to improve our chances of survival and success. Each emotion tells a story about our immediate goals, our perception of the context we find ourselves in, and our interpretation of the events in our lives. Read more »
I have just watched Short Cuts again, one of my favourite films directed by the great Robert Altman (The Player, M.A.S.H., etc). The movie is based on a series of nine short stories by Raymond Carver (plus a poem) with a total of 22 characters taking part in the the scenes. While Carver’s original stories are all independent, Altman magically creates a movie which feels whole and complete, with many great performances (who can’t fail to love a movie with Lyle Lovett and Tom Waits in the cast as well as a long list of Hollywood ‘A’ list stars). Above all he achieves the unity by subtly forging a series of links between the different stories and scenes. The different scenes provide a vivid representation of the randomness and chance of life and also of the sometimes surprising connections that exist between different people. Read more »
“It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available.” - Thomas Mann
“Always within an arm’s reach of desire.” - Robert Woodruff (former chairman of Coca-Cola)
Getting connected
In the final chapter of How Brands Grow, Byron Sharp focuses on the key to great marketing: making your brand easy to buy. There are two aspects to making brands available which are covered extensively throughout the book: mental availability (something discussed at length in this blog previously) and physical availability. He argues (based on empirical evidence) that product innovation only works when a brand is salient and well distributed, through distinctive and clear branding and breadth and depth of distribution. Read more »
The transformation of market research
Last week I spent a great two days taking part in the MRSS Asia Research Conference (declaration: I had also been involved in it’s organisation). On the first day, more than twenty young (and occasionally old) researchers took part in two stimulating workshops exploring research in the facebook age, and the busy executive’s guide to social media. On the second day of the conference, 10 world class speakers spoke on a range of topics connected to the future of research in Asia.
My key take aways fall into four areas: the importance of emotions, the power of measuring real behaviours, the value of contextualising survey questions and the reality of Asia’s ageing population (surprisingly I’ve come back to affect, behaviour and context again!). Read more »
Learning the research alphabet
There are clear lessons for market research (and marketing which I will explore in separate posts) from the importance of affect, behaviour and context in understanding ourselves and our customers. I am writing this listening to Bill Evans and Tony Bennett, so it seems appropriate to argue that research needs to become more VOCAL. Read more »
Over the past two weeks we have learnt 12 key insights into what makes us who we are, based on the latest understanding from neuroscience, behavioural economics, psychology, biology and the social sciences. They can be summarised in three (or perhaps four) key themes, but first let’s review the 12 lessons of human behaviour. Read more »
Context in mind
We have already talked about social bias, and the human tendency to follow the herd as one of the mental shortcuts we all use to guide our decisions more quickly and efficiently. We have also seen how context is a critical trigger of memory, and how different contexts can lead to very different behaviours even when our basic needs or goals are the same.
Pulling the trigger
Have you ever had the experience that something was on the ‘tip of your tongue’ but you couldn’t quite remember? That’s likely because you know the information exists, but you can’t quite find the right connection to trigger its recall. That’s why such memories sometimes come back later when triggered by a more relevant (but often random) stimulus. Read more »
