The100: The future of Insights, divine discontent & retro TV

See you in Chicago?

Roll up, roll up! Tickets for our in person event Humans & AI: How do we understand people better? are now liveeeee.

We have 5 superb speakers plus a client panel lined up, including regular cast member of The100, Tom Goodwin (somebody pinch me). It’s in Chicago on March 6th. Best of all, it’s in person and tickets are completely free.

After running these kinds of events in London for the last 6 years, it’d be lovely to see and meet Stateside readers of The100 there.

The future of insights

This latest report is a good’n. Lots of juicy quotes and calls to action to get your teeth into, including:

Oksana Sobel (Clorox): “The role of insight specialists is shifting from gatekeepers of consumer truth to enablers who bring capabilities empowering their business partners to obtain consumer input as directly as possible.”

Karen Kraft (Johnsonville): “It’s going to come down to AI and humans working together, but it is still going to take the human touch. Otherwise we’re going to lose out, especially in consumer packaged goods. These are products people need. It’s about making people happy and driving joy.”

Making the brand consumer centric again

Some classic Lord Ritson writing this week on Starbucks and their ‘mission’. I particularly enjoyed this:

“There is an abject lack of customers in the work that went into the Starbucks mission. […] In my experience, when you ask employees, on company time, to sit around mood boards and express how they feel about their brand, problems always ensue. You get loads of insights. And superb engagement with employees who are delighted to be involved. It’s just that the output itself is almost complete b*lls. Overstated, exaggerated b*lls. And it misses the central insight of any brand strategy work: that even the most regular Starbucks customer does not really give a sh*t about Starbucks.”

Making marketing right again

You can get this article in a 7 day no questions asked way, and I’d recommend you do so. It’s about how marketing won’t save you, but your consumers will. Some absolute gems in here, but the bit I like the most is how negative sentiment is a brand’s biggest opportunity.

“Consumer feedback is a signal of investment. Criticism is a form of constructive optimism. And feedback is a manifestation of caring.”

Speaking of feedback, it’s one of the pillars in AURA’s Working Well Together charter, something we’re huge fans of here at Watch Me Think. The principles apply to anyone who has a client /agency relationship. It’s good practice from both sides, and these days is respected even more when it happens. 

Pre- and Post-election commentary

Firstly Lilah Raptopoulos and Simon Schama talking about making truth cool again.

And then J. Walker Smith talking about brands post election, and what it tells us about the electorate and consumers. 

Both good. 

Divine discontent 

Celine Nguyen writes about remaining curious and dissatisfied with your work (*updates LI profile*):

“To me, divine discontent is about cheerfully seeking out dissatisfaction. It’s choosing to ask, What could be better? What can I improve? […] There’s a difference, of course, between caring deeply about quality and being excessively critical! But this instinct to critique my own work, to understand what fell short and fix it—that’s the divine discontent.”

And finally

Massive h/t to Rob Campbell for this one… I love this so much.

Matt Locke (of Storythings) wrote this on private train cars, and for strange people like me, it’s very interesting. 

My Retro TVs is wonderful. Choose a genre, choose an era and press play. There’s something strangely comforting about the sounds from the 50s.