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Here’s your latest kicked sandcastles:
- The100: Marketing bubbles, Bud Light and Cockney accents
The reaction to the reaction that created more reaction It wouldn’t be an issue of The100 without Ritson’s recent ruminations (apologies for the excessive alliteration). He’s written about the US backlash to a Bud Light ad and how it shows the complexity of mass marketing: “Watching the full interview with Heinerscheid [VP, Bud Light] is … - The100: Jobs to be done, efficiency reloaded & the Lucas/Spielberg bromance
The real event in London last week Last week we were lucky enough to welcome 200 of you lovely readers to our event in London on liars and lying. There were no crowns, 12th century spoons or grim reapers (ummm, what was that please?), but we did have 11 brilliant speakers and a few scoops …
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The100: The disruption myth, strategic ideas and airport views
“Computers and society are out on a 1st date” There’s a metric tonne of gold dust in The Steve Jobs Archive. It’s stacked with memos, emails and interviews. Including this, from circa 1976 – 85: “Apple’s strategy is really simple. What we want to do is put an incredibly great computer in a book that you carry …
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The100: Removing friction, fundamental attribution errors and sea urchin hats
What we can learn from priests in a hurry Richard Shotton has delivered many a wise word over the past couple of weeks. First, he was in the hot seat on the Uncensored CMO podcast and made a particularly good point around how removing even the tiniest bit of friction can have outsized effects on …
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The100: The age of average, Brandolini’s Law and Ameriga
Averagers Assemble Alex Murrell’s piece on the age of average is spot on. Since when did everything start looking the same? However depressing that is, it does present a huge opportunity to stand out: “when every category abides by the same conventions, when every industry has converged on its own singular style, bold brands and …
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The100: Attention debunked, L-cuts and dancing goats
State of the (research) nation Rhea Fox, Paperchase’s chief digital officer, spoke a metric tonne of sense at the Festival of Marketing earlier this month. Rhea discussed the state of market research and how the speed at which insight is now expected is a real challenge: There has been a proliferation of different methodologies, which …
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The100: Customer perspective, the Peter Principle & impatient optimism
Colin Firth has an effect on me too, Mark In his latest serving of sense, Mark Ritson has written how the response by brands to the Queen Elizabeth’s death shows how out of touch they are. Ritson suggests: Escape the befuddled, indoctrinated world of dumb marketers who think the market thinks like them. Think instead …
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The100: Rediscovering strategy, Tony’s Chocolonely & the exocentric verb-noun compound agent noun
Strategy? Discuss. For us insight folk, the route to the mahogany table is via research that is strategic and explains how we’ll make change as a result of the study. But what the heck actually is strategy? Martin Weigel has sieved through the alphabet soup and built upon the Gray (2018) division of strategy into …
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The100: IKEA effects, the voice of reason and pozzy-wallahs
Marriages taken in part-exchange The IKEA Effect is an interesting bias whereby we value things that require more effort because we’ve committed something of ourselves to them. In a 2 minute video at the bottom of that same page, Rory Sutherland explains how it can also destigmatize low prices: It’s rather like if you have …
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The100: Disruption nonsense, better briefing and the history of avocados
Be brief, be better A study last year by BetterBriefs caused a core reactor meltdown after finding 80% of marketers consider themselves good at writing ad agency briefs, while just 10% of those agencies agreed. They also found that a third of marketing budgets could be wasted because of bad briefs. Most interesting for me …
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The100: Nicey-nicey ads, real strategy, and nessecarily [sic]
No such thing as ‘strategic planning’ Roger Martin, Professor Emeritus at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, shares more valuable ideas on strategy & planning in a 10 minute video than I thought possible, including: A strategy is an integrative set of choices that positions you on a playing field of your choice in …
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The100: The psychology of habit, positive pitching and my spirit animal
“They don’t say what they think” For those of you that missed Nudgestock, it’s worth catching up on Paolo Mercado’s 10m talk about why marketers should be relying less on survey questions and much more on observation to discover hidden growth opportunities. We of course like Paolo 😉 Paolo talks about Nestea which was losing …
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The100: Local lenses, forms of stupidity & Americanization
The 70s are for the newly 70’d When it comes to people, and our assumptions surrounding them, this caught me off-guard a little: If you work with people who are now 70, they were 18 in 1970 not 1940. They listened to The Beatles, The Jackson 5 & Diana Ross. They wore flares and bright …
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The100: Cognitive empathy, broken Nudge theory and Lisbon’s toilets
Nudge, nudge, hoodwink Tim Harford wrote an excellent piece in the FT called ‘What nudge theory got wrong…’. A collective intake of breath from the behavioural scientists out there: If your problem is basically that fallible individuals are making bad choices, behavioural science is an excellent solution. If, however, the real problem is not individual …
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The100: Generational generalisations, poisonous creativity & Haribo grapes
Told you it was dynamite I had the pleasure of chatting with Tom Goodwin for an hour earlier this week. It was for a podcast we’re releasing soon. There’s some dynamite quotes, not least this, on data: I think what happened when we became immersed into a world where there was lots more technology and …