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: 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 … - 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: Trends, lists & the Namib Desert
Welcome back! Anyone else relate to this? Anyway… An AI experiment from the Bali tourist board Whilst machines like ChatGPT are learning to be human, Ian Leslie argues that the problem is humans are becoming like machines. It’s a marvellous piece, stuffed full of examples. He says: “We should refuse, in whatever game we’re playing, …
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The100: The Best of 2022
Well, well, well, that’s another trip around the sun completed. Which also means our annual Watch Me Think tradition to mark the occasion: The top 10 most clicked articles from The100 this year. Strap in – keep your arms, legs, feet and antlers inside the vehicle, and enjoy the ride. In 10th McDonald’s Famous Orders …
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The100: Critical ignoring, subject lines and supportive penguins
The best of the best Jeremy Bullmore is the mother, father and extended family of all advertising legends. And, luckily for us, he’s released his archive. In amongst the tanzanite is a speech Bullmore gave whilst President of the Market Research Society: Research, of one kind or another, provides the basis for most of the …
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The100: failed social experiments, 2022 trends (obvs) and rubber fig trees
Happy New Year and all that (at what point should we stop saying that?); welcome to another year of poking bears and kicking sandcastles in The100. Are you sitting comfortably? The not-yet-trending report Trend predictions are often as much use as an inflatable dartboard. Yet Pinterest may just be onto something with their Pinterest Predicts …
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The100: Best of 2021
To finish a year that’s gone faster than you can say “8-days-until-christmas”, we’ve gone back into the archives and dusted off the 10 most popular links featured in The100 during 2021. Best enjoyed with a brew, as always. In joint 10th 22 innovations that’ll change the world, the sonic extinguisher being a personal favourite. And while …
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The100: Mind reading, bias firewalls and the Mars Rover
Bias Firewall Martin Agency has published a tremendous tool called The Visibility Brief. The aim of the document is to help us ask better questions, broaden perspectives and do more representative work. It’s advertising focused, but applies itself just as well to research. Also excellent is The Outside Directory, which lists UK creatives from everywhere …
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The100: Awkward silences, trendy falsehoods, & Jurassic cats
The Effect bias I made that name up to describe my predilection for this wonderful clickable diagram of cognitive effects, biases and fallacies. A particular rabbit hole for me was the top right quadrant of too-much-information. Are you average? Apparently the average professional spends 21.5 hrs per week in meetings? Up from 14.2 pre-pandemic. Crikey. …
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“Give me less analysis, make me do more work”
Said no-one. Ever. (To me anyway.) That’s why I don’t believe that clients are suddenly finding themselves with more time, or have a desire to do all of the analysis themselves. I believe they want opinions and recommendations based on high quality, truthful insights from their peers. Yet there is this constant drive towards DIY …
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Empathy? Not feeling it.
Consumer closeness? Not even close. Consumer centricity? More like on the periphery. There is plenty written about these 3 key approaches to market research, but no one has nailed it. No one has got it working in such a way that they are really understanding people; and as a result, no one is really winning …
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The100: Budget insights, shorter briefs and knickerbocker glories
Everything changes? BBH labs have analysed consumer behaviours, beliefs and attitudes to see if ‘change’ is really true. Change is to marketers what lightbulbs are to moths. We fixate upon emerging behaviours, fetishise the latest platforms, and fantasise about ‘new normals’. The world as understood through agency decks is a place of constant upheaval. There …
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The100: Syllogistic reasoning, better briefs and the Burlap King
Machines need paths With apologies to many out there hanging their proverbial hat on AI, we have read an argument that states AI Is No Match for the quirks of Human Intelligence. Insight problems generally cannot be solved by a step-by-step procedure, like an algorithm, or if they can, the process is extremely tedious. I …
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The100: Uncertainty testing, impressing strangers & brown sauce
Nice egg, Mr Fabergé, but… Rory Sutherland (does it again) on how looking at the parts can destroy the value of the whole: While more use of data, quantification and comparison is always good in theory, it is not always good in practice. For one thing, too much data drives people towards analytical thinking — …
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The100: Sonic extinguishers, supply chains and cheese (of course)
Imposter imposters As Tim Minchin said of imposter syndrome: I know we’ve all got it but it’s a bit boring now […] I don’t know if it’s the most interesting way to describe it […] Get over it and stop being a w*%ker […] Because you have plenty of evidence that you are good at …