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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

“When in doubt, read Bullmore.” Tom Darlington starts us off this week with a must read for anyone in Marketing on the brilliance of (Jeremy) Bullmore.  Not only has he covered every topic, but he has done so with clarity, brevity and fertility – qualities often lacking from modern discourse on the subject of brands, …

I’m back. You didn’t notice. That’s ok 🙂 Neither did anyone at Watch Me Think towers (which I take as a compliment). On a side note, if you need any tips on hiking in the UK, pub lunches, theatre, museums and cinema, then I’m all topped up on that 😉 What is insight? Thanks to …

Have the last laugh The use of humour in advertising has nosedived over the last 15 years. As of 2020 just 34% of adverts were funny or lighthearted, down from 53% in 2004. And the bottom line isn’t laughing either. Recent studies have shown humorous adverts tend to be more effective, and have a significant, …