The100: Cognitive blind spots, polarisation and styrofoam

Procter’s Gamble I was going to write something about the Gillette campaign. And then I read this. You know when people say they couldn’t have said it better themselves? In this case I genuinely couldn’t, both in the literal sense and the metaphorical. Proper vox, not flops Mark Urban (he of the BBC) wrote an …

Continue reading

The100: self-reinforcing cultures and goats cheese  chasers

We’re back (panic over). Popping bubbles Years past, we’ve talked quite a bit about empathy and understanding the consumer better. You know: the echo chambers, the disparity between what you think and what others think, on why we understand people not-like-us less and less. There is a classic example that’s in the news now: the In/Out …

Continue reading

The100: Best of 2018

Pensive chin stroking. Light chuckling. Exasperated eye rolling. We’ve hopefully had you doing all of the above whilst reading The100 this year. To wrap things up for 2018, here are the 5 most popular articles from our twice-monthly round up of all that’s made us stop and think, or laugh in the world of Market Research during 2018. …

Continue reading

Artificially Inflated Future?

Every time I hear someone use the term “AI” I usually cringe. You say tomaytoes, I say tomahtoes. They say Potaytoes, I say a pair of King Edwards to that. AI is NOT all the same thing. Many people use the term to cover wildly different things – from Siris to C3POs to HAL9000s – …

Continue reading

The100: fantasies, fallacies and chocolate hobnobs

“Narcissism described as Strategy” Okay, stand back. This is powerful stuff and not for the faint hearted MRXer. It’s Martin Weigel with his Escape from Fantasy talk – and yes, we’ve now built a shrine for him (hand-hollowed out off the wall using unfurled paper clips)  at Watch Me Think towers. It’s next to Dave Trott’s. …

Continue reading

Platform 9¾

Many people know us for our video qual projects that bring sledgehammer realisations to the bored and the boardroom. Others for our observation methodologies that ice bucket the presumptions. And some for our ability bring the numbers to life and make the proof, well, foolproof. But Platforms? Don’t you find them on train stations? While …

Continue reading

The100: rotten brands, effective habits and Fenton (FENTON!)

Just say “no” Gareth Kay writes brilliantly about Brand Rot. A 5 mins read. It’s worth it: “Brands that are free of rot tend to exhibit decisive leadership that protects the code that instructs and inspires everything they do. They simplify the experience to do one thing (or a few) well. They remember the old …

Continue reading

Three Themes from IIeX Behavior

Members of our Chicago team spent two days at IIeX Behavior, an industry conference for researchers and marketers alike. The conference sets out to help attendees better understand, measure, and predict consumer behavior through behavioral science techniques and technologies. It wasn’t all green smoothies, virtual reality and semiotics – so what were three big themes …

Continue reading

The100: Swimming cats, scary space and forgetica

Doubt yourself At our October shindig in London – the Power of Finding your Truth in Marketing – Joe from fullfact.org (the UK’s independent fact checking organisation) was a font of useful ideas including: Tips for challenging claims (30”) How our experience can be used against us (11”) To doubt yourself rather than believe in …

Continue reading