The100: Brand purpose, prediction addiction and back in the USSR

The benefits of foresight? Do predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies? Does this make predictions dangerous? Should we stop making predictions? Will I ever stop asking so many questions? (I hope not.) Stuart Ritchie has been unpacking Margaret Heffernan’s book on our addiction to prediction. Our fervent desire to know and chart the future – and our …

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The100: Behavioural economics, aspiration windows and The Codfather

The aspiration gap Yup. They’ve done it again. Reach Solutions, whose previous white papers Gut Instinct and The Empathy Delusion made many a marketeer mop their brow, are back making us feel uncomfortable with The Aspiration Window:  Given what we now know about the analytical thinking styles of people working in advertising and marketing and our empathy …

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The100: Cathedrals, scarcity heuristics and sucking sounds

When you’re last, make it a race to come first Mr D Trott esq has a knack for finding anecdotes around people solving problems in unusual ways. Here’s his tale of a wine merchant using the scarcity heuristic to invent a tradition now culturally ingrained. As a columnist from The New York Times put it: As …

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The100: Pneuma, unknown unknowns and batty geniuses

Advertise or not to advertise There’s much debate about whether budgets should be cut. Do we market (research) our way out of this crisis or is everyone right to stop? Mark Ritson argues that the best marketers will be upping, not cutting, their budgets. Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to …

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The100: Search listening, strategy and Le Whopper

This is not a debate Marco Del Valle spent 30 days interviewing some of the best debaters to see how we could improve strategy. Many debaters use the HEEL structure for their arguments, which can also be applied to our own industry: Handle – Your idea in brief Explanation – The insights that support it Examples …

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The100: Creativity laws, strategy and marmots

Firstly, before we get started, a short notice: if you work with independent qual researchers then please read this – we know things aren’t easy at present, so we’re trying to help where we can. On a personal note, I hope you and your families are staying well. We drink tea and carry on. In bricks …

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The100: Powerful videos, the trio of doom, and hypnagogic jerks

Knights of conference-style seating For millions of years, humans or even higher primates have sat around in circles to discuss things. There’s a reason we call them the knights of the round table, not the knights of conference-style seating. In this interview, Rory Sutherland addresses the behavioural science behind video conferencing and remote work. Personally, …

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