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, …

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 …

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 …

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. …