What we can learn from priests in a hurry Richard Shotton has delivered many a wise word over the past couple of weeks. First, he was in the hot seat on the Uncensored CMO podcast and made a particularly good point around how removing even the tiniest bit of friction can have outsized effects on …

Averagers Assemble Alex Murrell’s piece on the age of average is spot on. Since when did everything start looking the same? However depressing that is, it does present a huge opportunity to stand out: “when every category abides by the same conventions, when every industry has converged on its own singular style, bold brands and …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

Strap in – keep your arms, legs, feet and antlers inside the vehicle, and enjoy the ride. In 10th McDonald’s Famous Orders campaign made for an interesting case study. One of the Famous Order meals broke the McDonald’s supply chain due to the demand it created.  In 9th He was always going to make the …

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 …

Horses run the world Ever wondered why the distance between US train rails is 4 feet, 8.5 inches?  In short – because that’s how they were built in England, because that was the width of tramways, because that was the width of wagons, because that was the width of Roman roads, because that was the …