Thinkin’ about…
A cheat-sheet way to stay on top of the world of market research.
✋ Warning: The100 newsletter is not for those of a fixed opinion. Or ostriches.
Here’s your latest kicked sandcastles:
- The100: Personas, Netflix thumbnails and Kuchisabishii
Can you handle the truth? At our event in May on avoiding lies in Market Research, I’ll be talking about how to get closer to the truth. As a little amuse-bouche: There’s been a lot of conversation about survey design, with one polster using the word ‘illegal’ when asking voters about immigration. Most people support … - The100: Strategic BOGOFs, predictive optimisation and Angostura Bitters
An event on Pork Pies? Got your ticket for our event on May 4th yet? We’ve got some superb speakers lined up, from Behavioural Scientists, to Strategists to House of Common(ists). Want to come, but can’t get the budget? Email me. Here’s Mark Earls doing his thing at our last event, 2020: “The ultimate strategic …
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The100: Group cohesion scores, gatekeepers and MM/DD/YY formats
Fancy a day of truth hacking? I’m running an in-person event in London on May the 4th (yes, may the force be with you too). It’s all about liars, lying and uncovering truths. Some may even posit that that’s quite important in our line of work 🙂 Plus it’s incredibly good value, working out at …
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The100: Presentation structure, innovation constraints and arm swinging
Recidivism in a Recession As the whiff of recession continues to float through economies, Mark Ritson’s 9 steps marketers should take to avoid the dark times ahead are, in modern parlance, pretty flipping useful. “The companies that maintained ad spend, or even increased it, during a recession saw little advantage during the hard months of …
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The100: Cynicism, Value and Häagen-Daz
Tips from Uncle Les This 30 min talk from Les Binet about how to tweak your marketing plans in these uncertain times is a must watch. Not only does it provide a magnificent summary of where we find ourselves today, it also examines multiple factors that everyone should be aware of: The stoical cynic Martin …
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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 …
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The100: Algospeak, logo debranding and polite elephants
Context is everything Adam Ferrier writes about why creativity always loses the battle against indifferent consumers. If you (or your company) pre-test creative work you need to read this. In fact, you need to read it anyway, especially if you use focus groups. While we’re strong advocates of research and the commissioning of qualitative and …
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The100: Clients vs agencies, reality checks, and pillow fights
Ask-a-Researcher Is there a better combination than when something is both useful and fun? Didn’t think so. That’s why we asked a few of our researchers (who have walked the hallways of Cadbury, Kraft, Mondelez, Fonterra, PepsiCo, Unilever and Alberto Culver) to discuss some topical research related questions. Kind of like an advice column for …
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Insight Led Consumer Closeness Programmes
(It’s about winning, not the taking part) *(47 year old man makes meme – my apologies) Consumer closeness projects aren’t just about watching or speaking to people on video. There, I said it. You may be surprised to hear that from me, as a founder of a video based market research company, but after running …
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The100: Data visualisation, designed systems, and marble runs
Ear candy The Right Honourable Lord of Marketing, Russell Davies, was interviewed as part of Google’s excellent Firestarters series. On data, he said (45:00): “The data gold rush era is declining. We’ve never had more data about our customers and we understand them less and less […] People with intuition and empathy will get disproportionate …
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The100: Storyhunting, the future of work & research bashing
De/Im-parting wisdom Tom Callard (soon to leave advertising agency BBH) wrote about the 50 things he’s learned in ad agencies. The whole list is great, but my highlights are: Trust your gut, but also try to prove it wrong. Hunt for revelations, not ‘insights’ (thanks Richard Huntington). The consumer might not give you the answer, …