Ready or not, here I come

Here is a Harvard Business Review Q&A with Zoe Lu from the University of Wisconsin about a study that suggests that people feel more negatively toward people, images, or sounds if those stimuli are approaching them.

Even if it is someone we love…the research suggests that our unconscious blink reaction makes us feel a bit fretful for a moment if that person is walking toward us.

People also feel this way about events. The nearer an event gets on our calendar – even one that seemingly is a welcome event – the more we dwell on the possible negative aspects of that event.

This obviously has implications for marketers who are creating visuals for use in advertising. It also has implications for understanding how people think – we once did a study that indicated that people who said “I am coming up on retirement” were more likely to feel positively about that retirement (and were likely to have saved more money for retirement) than people who said “Retirement is coming up on me.”

I can't breathe

A timely column from pollster John Zogby on Ferguson, Eric Garner, and the limits of “Big Data” in helping make sense of an emotional response.

The exclusivity tax

Marketplace reports on the escalating prices of high-end consumer goods – specifically, handbags. The cost of a classic Chanel handbag was under $1,000 in the mid-1980s. If you adjust that for inflation, the cost should be around $2,000 today. However, a comparable bag in 2014 runs in excess of $4,000.

Analysts call it an exclusivity tax. Not only do I want this bag – but I also really don’t want you to have it.

The “exclusivity” mindset reaches down even into how the bags are displayed in stores. At Chanel’s Madison Avenue boutique, the bags are on pedestals, like works of art. As NYU professor Thomas Serdari says, it is intimidating. But it is meant to be.

Remembering and forgetting

Good column in the New York Times by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (authors of The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us) about the malleability of memory.

Even memories that we are absolutely convinced are true (like so-called flashbulb memories) can be highly inaccurate. Regardless of how intelligent or accomplished we are, a memory is like clay. Each time it is recalled, we tend to distort it just slightly. After a while, that memory can bear little resemblance to reality.

The authors focus on implications for the criminal justice system and for journalism…but what about for market research?

Clients often want to know retroactively a consumer’s thought process when they made a certain decision or they want to know about past experiences with a given product or service. How can we address these issues knowing that any recollections we hear maybe only vaguely accurate – and perhaps wildly inaccurate?

Dispatches from Panem

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” was released last week. The critics’ reaction has been lukewarm and, as a result, the box office performance has been somewhat disappointing (although it still had the best debut weekend of any movie this year.)

The marketing, however, has been awesome.

The campaign includes a Panem “government website” and virtual posters that celebrate the heroes of each district.

On YouTube, there is a pirate transmission from District 13 and “District Voices,” profiles of each district produced by the government “television network.” The first viral video in the campaign, a message from the dastardly President Snow, posted this summer, got more than a million hits on YouTube in its first week, and is now over 12 million.

This is already being held up as a “best-in-class” example of a great digital marketing campaign.

"Magic" and racism

Here are details of a study – which includes implicit association testing as a component – which suggest that white Americans unconsciously perceive blacks to be “superhuman.”

Whites are relatively quick to associate blacks with words like ghost, paranormal, and spirit. They are also more likely to think (unconsciously) that blacks have superhuman abilities and a higher tolerance for pain than whites.

The author of the news story linked above argues that this runs contrary to what comes to mind when we think of racism. However, these findings are logical when placed in historical context. In less enlightened times, whites spoke freely about fears of slave violence and described black men, in particular, as having mystical and uncontrollable sexual powers. In more modern times, black success in many high-profile sports might feed into this – how often do we watch football or basketball and hear an announcer describe a black athlete as a “freak of nature” or something along those lines?

The people at Mother Jones put an Obama spin on this, and speculate this might have something to do with how Americans perceived him back in 2008.

The full study is here, if you are interested in purchasing a copy.

Cabs in the news

We all spend time in them.  Some of us spend more time in them than we would like. Taxi cabs.

The New York Times has a couple of interesting taxi-related stories this week. The first one is a look at the notoriously difficult London taxi-driver test, regarded in some circles as the most difficult exam of any kind in the world. The article includes some brain science – it discusses how London taxi drivers have a larger-than-normal posterior hippocampus (and other research not mentioned here suggests that part of the brain dwindles to a more normal size after a taxi driver retires).

The other article is more marketing-focused: it is a profile of SheRides, a taxi service aimed at women. A good example of finding an underserved niche (women who don’t want to ride in gross NYC taxis with creepy dudes behind the wheel) and meeting their emotional needs.

Me, me, me!

Maybe the key to thinking creatively is to ruminate about how wonderful you are.

New research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests a correlation between the need to be unique and higher levels of creativity.

Interestingly, the effect was only seen when people were prompted to think of themselves as entitled. People who always think of themselves as special and unique are not more or less creative than average. (They’re just insufferable asses.)

When Big Data is too big

It is election day across the United States.

In each election cycle political strategists rely more and more on “big data” to target voters. But as this article describes, big data has gotten too big for many campaigns.

So although big data makes it possible to create customized messaging for African American women in Zip Code 15222 who read Guns & Ammo and shop at Nordstrom…do you really want to do that? Can you really do it effectively? One strategist says, “Our ability to target has far outstripped our ability to create.”

What is the role of deep dive qualitative research in helping clients (not necessarily in politics, but in also consumer marketing) make sense of all this data?

The Most Interesting Man in 3-D

The Most Interesting Man in the World is now the most interesting man in your headset.

Dos Equis is sending Oculus Rift 3-D headsets to bars in key US markets, enabling consumers to have a virtual reality experience with the bearded, cosmopolitan pitchman.

If you aren’t familiar with Oculus Rift, read up. Virtual reality headsets have been somewhat of a holy grail in the tech community. Oculus Rift, though still imperfect, appears to be the closest anyone has come to creating an ideal virtual experience.

This is the first I have heard of any brand using Oculus Rift in its marketing mix – although I am sure there have been others.

Can you imagine some ways in which organizations could use this technology to create meaningful consumer experiences?

Vroom, vroom?

That sound you hear coming from your car’s engine? It might not be real.

As heard on NPR’s “Marketplace,” car makers have been working for years to minimize engine noise. But in some ways they have succeeded all too well. Now many of them are digitally enhancing the sound of their engines (especially on sports cars).

For example, BMW’s new hybrid sports car doesn’t naturally have the engine rumble that so enhances the driver experience. So when you start it up, the car will play some engine rumble sounds through your speakers.

Although we want fuel efficient cars, many of us apparently want to feel like we’re driving an old gas hog from the ‘60s or ‘70s.

Rejected, Shackled, and Alone

How do minority consumers feel in the financial services marketplace?  "Rejected, Shackled, and Alone."

That is the title of a recent paper published by the Journal of Consumer Research. The authors used multiple methods, including ZMET, to understand how minorities feel when trying to obtain business loans. Moreover, when minority entrepreneurs are rejected, they take a harder emotional hit.

The full JCR article is available for download here.

ISIS and metaphor

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a knack for using metaphor to simplify (or, some might argue, over-simplify) complex global issues.

On Sunday, he used the metaphor of an INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES to explain how ISIS has spread and gained momentum over the past year or so.

We know that metaphors unconsciously impact people’s thoughts and behavior. (For example, even innocuous-sounding metaphors like “fighting cancer” can affect how patients approach their treatment and how they view themselves – perhaps a less belligerent term would be more constructive).

What do you think of this metaphor of ISIS as a noxious plant? Is it accurate? If policy-makers conceptualize ISIS as a noxious plant, how might that affect our response to the ISIS threat?

The tangled webs we weave

Jennifer Barba from our ZMET Global Partner Frame Consulting in Mexico City passed this along some weeks ago but it remains relevant.

We often hear “insights” about human thought in everyday discussions and even in popular culture. These insights can be eye-opening and sexy – but sometimes they are not entirely true.

This New York Times article highlights three “facts” about the human mind that people tend to oversimplify.

The idea that we use only 10 percent of our brain…the distinction between left- and right-brain thinking…and the magic of mirror neurons. While there is truth in all of these concepts, popular culture tends to take that truth and stretch it beyond recognition. Beware.

Lessons from the Ice Bucket Challenge

I initially saw this article about the Ice Bucket Challenge on the blog of Olson Zaltman's global partner, TMRC in China.

The campaign has been incredibly successful and has raised more than $100 million for ALS. But knowing what will make something go viral like this is far from an exact science and viral campaigns are notoriously difficult to replicate.

Nonetheless, the linked article offers some hypotheses for why the Challenge was such a hit and what lessons other organizations might learn from it.

Alas...

Here is a lesson in corporate strategy from Radio Shack. As the article mentions, this should be a Harvard Business School case -- how a once dominant firm missed some opportunities that, in retrospect, are obvious.

(I’ll miss them if they die. When I was a kid, our home was filled with radios, cassette recorders, calculators, and police scanners all from Radio Shack. And they are still a go-to place for any kind of obscure electronic gear).

The article contends that Radio Shack could have been Best Buy, Amazon, or Dell. Theoretically, yes. But those were also new firms when the home computing revolution took hold. Radio Shack had been around forever; for an established firm to have the flexibility and foresight to become “the next Amazon” is easier said than done.

This blog entry provides even more historical perspective.

But now what? If you were CEO for a day, what strategy would you employ to turn this company around?

Gamify your workout

I have become mildly obsessed with the concept of gamification. Here’s a great example from a start-up called Peloton.

Exercising at home is dreadfully boring. People start out with good intentions but frequently don’t follow through because workouts can be so mind-numbing.

Peloton sells a stationary bike with an internet connection that links you to a virtual gym. You have an instructor, virtual classmates with whom you compete, real-time feedback, leaderboards, a sense of community, and the power to easily share your performance on social media – many of the elements that make for a great game.

They are targeting standard stationary bikes…but also secondarily boutique gyms, that often charge exorbitant rates. This is experience seems to be a better value (in the long run), more convenient, and more engaging than either of those experiences.

Here is a review of the Peloton experience.

Subjective senses

Even the most seemingly tangible things are subjective. This article describes how sensory perception is different based on language and culture.

For example, English speakers tend to have a very difficult time describing smells. However, other cultures tend to be much better and naming and categorizing smells.

Some communities use different metaphors to describe pitch than we do when speaking English. In those communities, sounds were thick or thin, rather than high or low. And studies show this isn’t just a way of speaking – these metaphors pervade how different cultures think about the nature of sound.

Name that tune

When I was in grad school one of my older classmates made a condescending, elitist remark about not knowing who Jay-Z was. This was when Jay-Z was fairly fresh on the scene but still…EVERYONE knew who Jay-Z was.

I remember saying to myself, I am never going to be one of these self-righteous old jagweeds who says all pop music sounds the same and who is completely out of touch with modern music.

Alas, some years later, I have become that jagweed. I am musically clueless. I know who Katy Perry is but probably wouldn’t know one of her songs if I heard it. I am not proud of this. It is pitiful.

But here is an article that makes me feel slightly better about it all. Neuroscientists now have evidence suggesting that the songs we knew as teenagers implant themselves in our brains more firmly than those we hear as we age. Our brains are growing when we are in our teens and early 20s and the songs we hear (like a lot of the things that happen to us during this time) become imbued with emotions.

And then there is this: “According to the reminiscence bump theory, we all have a culturally conditioned ‘life script’ that serves, in our memory, as the narrative of our lives. When we look back on our pasts, the memories that dominate this narrative have two things in common: They’re happy, and they cluster around our teens and early 20s.”

This broader insight about memory obviously has some interesting implications for marketing and how brands can capitalize on nostalgia.

Meanwhile, has anyone seen my 2 Live Crew cassette?

Language and human nature

Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker gives an RSA talk on what our everyday language reveals about us and our relationships.