The100: Intuition, choice paralysis and Dolly Parton

Binning the blinkers Trusting your intuition is something we’re often told to do. It’s romantic even. The idea that we can ‘just know’. However, this is ceremoniously debunked by Koen Smets. “The assumption that the things that are either common or unusual to us are common or unusual in general is, well, not that unusual.” …

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The100: Cognitive blind spots, polarisation and styrofoam

Procter’s Gamble I was going to write something about the Gillette campaign. And then I read this. You know when people say they couldn’t have said it better themselves? In this case I genuinely couldn’t, both in the literal sense and the metaphorical. Proper vox, not flops Mark Urban (he of the BBC) wrote an …

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The100: self-reinforcing cultures and goats cheese  chasers

We’re back (panic over). Popping bubbles Years past, we’ve talked quite a bit about empathy and understanding the consumer better. You know: the echo chambers, the disparity between what you think and what others think, on why we understand people not-like-us less and less. There is a classic example that’s in the news now: the In/Out …

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The100: fantasies, fallacies and chocolate hobnobs

“Narcissism described as Strategy” Okay, stand back. This is powerful stuff and not for the faint hearted MRXer. It’s Martin Weigel with his Escape from Fantasy talk – and yes, we’ve now built a shrine for him (hand-hollowed out off the wall using unfurled paper clips)  at Watch Me Think towers. It’s next to Dave Trott’s. …

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The100: rotten brands, effective habits and Fenton (FENTON!)

Just say “no” Gareth Kay writes brilliantly about Brand Rot. A 5 mins read. It’s worth it: “Brands that are free of rot tend to exhibit decisive leadership that protects the code that instructs and inspires everything they do. They simplify the experience to do one thing (or a few) well. They remember the old …

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The100: Swimming cats, scary space and forgetica

Doubt yourself At our October shindig in London – the Power of Finding your Truth in Marketing – Joe from fullfact.org (the UK’s independent fact checking organisation) was a font of useful ideas including: Tips for challenging claims (30”) How our experience can be used against us (11”) To doubt yourself rather than believe in …

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The100: Chaos, data and the sticky stuff of life

The Master at Work For those of you lucky enough to be at our Power of Finding Your Truth in Marketing event the other week, you’ll realise why we started with the mighty Martin Weigel and his case for chaos revisited. It was a worthy winner of post-of-the-month on Only Dead Fish, and when Martin …

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