Matt Ridley is an interesting writer. A popular science/ideas writer he gives you his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. I do admire his willingness to adopt an overarching narrative. To be honest, at times it can seem a bit too much for my tastes. His libertarian-esque views tend to see him damning a…
Use Of Humor In Business
I must confess to being a bit jealous of Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. They get to teach a course on the use of humor in business. It seems like they have a great time doing it. They meet a lot of fun people and do a lot of interesting activities. (As well as doing…
What Are People Like? A Categorization
Before designing any intervention to influence them it is worth asking: What Are People Like? Derek Ireland in The Behaviorally Informed Organization presents what he calls a Boundedly Rational Complex Consumer Continuum, the shorthand being the BRCCC. (I am unsure why he thinks that is a pleasant and memorable acronym. I feel that I may…
Reduce Sludge In Your Organization
In this post, and the next, I will highlight some important ideas from The Behaviourally Informed Organization. (It is Canadian – this is not just me reverting to UK spelling). The first point I want to touch upon are the barriers that hinder people from taking the actions you want them to take. Such barriers…
The Marketing Common Language Dictionary
I don’t retell many biblical stories but the Tower of Babel is a useful one. I admit I am probably not getting it perfect but the general story goes that everyone spoke different languages. It was, therefore, all a bit of a disaster. Think herding cats or clearing people out of a bar at the…
TV Still Matters For Advertising
I am involved with the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB). An aim of this organization is to bring more rigor to marketing measurement. Top members of MASB took a lead in examining the effectiveness and efficiency of TV advertising. Their conclusion, TV still matters. Following Up On Past Research The authors followed up on prior…
Valuing Customers As Investments
I think of Sunil Gupta and Don Lehmann’s 2005 book, Managing Customers As Investments, as the third of the valuing customers books. (After Rust and colleagues Driving Customer Equity and Blattberg and colleagues, Customer Equity). It was written a few years after the others and I think that probably helps it read more cleanly. It…
Education Technology: The Blackboard
It is easy to forget that any new technology has to start somewhere. One of the best things about being an academic is the chance to read somewhat random things. Occasionally they turn out to be useful, mostly they are just interesting. Today I consider an article in the History of Education Quarterly on a…
Understanding Public Opinion: Oldie But Goodie Insights
In this post I look at classic book on understanding public opinion. Edward Bernays’ Crystalling Public Opinion. Some Advice Has Stood The Test Of Time In Helping Understand Public Opinion Firstly, this book clearly has a decent amount of the material that has stood the test of time pretty well. As far as PR precepts…
Marketers Have To Turn Up
Koen Pauwels, a well-known marketing academic at Northeastern University, has a very useful book on working with marketing data. He focuses a lot on marketing dashboards and analyzing data. Rather than attempt to relay all the points, you can read it yourself, I want to focus on a little anecdote about the creation of the…