The100: Drano, Tony Soprano and the Temple of Trott

The truth, at a stretch

On dating sites, it’s proven that men claim to be taller than they actually are. Richard Shotton,  friend of Watch Me Think and speaker at our event on Fake Views (October 11th in London), cites such examples to illustrate why listening to consumer claims can be misleading. He also uses a classic quote from Sir David Ogilvy:

The trouble with market research is that people don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say.

Everybody lies. I will say no more.

Oh go on then…

From Fake Views to Fake News

The New Yorker recently pulled out some articles from its archives. From The Fake News Fallacy to The Things People Say to Lessons from Europe’s fight against disinformation.

It’s becoming a big thing for me: how this wrinkly, grey, organic mass between our ears is a finely tuned machine. Yet, like an unloved plughole, it often gets filled and then blocked with detritus (work safe word) that shouldn’t really be put in there.

A plunger for the grey sponge

May I suggest printing this quote from Evan Williams and sticking it on the wall?

“The information we consume matters just as much as the food we put in our body.

It affects our thinking, our behavior, how we understand our place in the world.

And how we understand others.”

(h/t Farnham Street Blog).

School of hard knocks knocked? But who is really there?

The big debate in the UK’s Marketing Week recently was whether FMCG/CPG is still the best learning ground for marketers.

Loads of great quotes from Britvic, P&G, KFC et al. Plus one I’d like to highlight from Christoph Weber at Mars:

FMCG is “second to none”, as it trains marketers to have the consumer at the heart  of everything they do. [It teaches marketers to] really understand the consumer and their needs, and turn that into a business opportunity for the long-term success of a business. That rigour of [turning] strategy into action and delivery is fantastic.

…and yet 8 out of 10 new product launches fail? There seems to be a disconnect between the truth in what people do, what they say and what we understand?

While in the corner of our office, fresh pencils are laid at the Temple of Trott

Because he’s at it again. This time on the the McNamara fallacy and marketers’ belief in numbers.

…it’s worth remembering what Einstein said: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

But numbers are still loved

And Google have smashed it out of the park with their interactive music timeline.

Just keep on clicking (they can’t drag me away). In terms of data visualisation, it’s up there.

Tony Soprano, grannies and maps (of course)

Like TV? Then you can thank me later for these 100 Best TV episodes of the century. You can watch each clip as you’re reading – best enjoyed on mobile TBH.

Or how about Pasta Grannies? Seriously. What’s not to like? It’s grannies making pasta. Boom.

And finally, you may have noticed that we like to include the occasional map in this Newsletter? Perhaps it’s to do with our fascination for trying to make sense of the world around us. Well, today, I bring you the old and new: first some vintage maps from NatGeo that could be classed as art in themselves (did I tell you we like maps?). Then these: The World’s Newest, Most Gloriously Designed Maps.