One of the most popular ideas in the behavioural sciences at the moment is “nudging”. This is applying a light touch to encourage people towards certain actions. People often are a little unclear on what a nudge is. As such it is helpful to have a taxonomy of nudging. What Is A Nudge? What Then…
Marketing And The Republican Autopsy
The Republican’s recently issued an interesting competitive analysis of how the party’s marketing operations stack up. [Published in 2013]. The Growth and Opportunity Project has been dubbed the “Republican Autopsy”. This basically accepted that the 2012 national elections were a disaster for the party. So what can we learn from marketing and the Republican autopsy? Criticism…
Customers As Liabilities
In marketing we often talk about customers being assets. The relationship a business holds with its customers is a key source of profits. As such it was a deliberately provocative move when the editor of Marketing Science described some loyalty schemes — including the classic stamp based programs — as seeing customers as liabilities. Why…
CLV And Limited Capacity
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a great thing to calculate. It encourages marketers to take the numbers seriously. It helps finance people see the numerical basis of marketing. Calculating CLV encourages you to treat customers well; they are valuable and you have the numbers to prove it. Finally marketing’s influence probably increases when people think…
Defaults Matter
There is a wonderful 2003 Science article about how people react to default choices. The conclusion? Defaults matter. Why Does This Matter? The article impresses for a number of reasons including: Saving lives matters. While it is not a theory paper the theoretical implications are substantial. What are people’s preferences — what they say or…
The Politician’s Fallacy
Yes Minister, a British TV show, explained a logical mistake called The Politician’s Fallacy. The politician sees a problem and feels that “Something must be done”, They find an approach and say “This is something”, Then they make a logical leap, “this must be done”. Measuring National Culture Numerical analysis of culture in business reminds…
Ron Paul’s Marketing Lesson
Politics can teach us a lot about marketing. Ron Paul’s story teaches us more than most. I’m not a Ron Paul follower but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from what he has done well and his problems. What is Ron Paul’s marketing lesson? The Marketing Concept When we teach marketing we suggest trying to…
Laziness Is A Sustainable Resource
People can be lazy. We often don’t find out all information relevant to the decision we are making. It is hard work to find information. Our decisions based upon limited information can lead to personally or environmentally destructive outcomes. People wouldn’t make these decisions if they thought a little harder. This is a problem. What…
Being One-Dimensional
In a positioning map there aren’t many absolute requirements. A requirement that really must be kept however is that each axis represents a single dimension. This is the importance of being one-dimensional. Multiple Terms On One Axis Creates A Mess If you try to have more than one dimension on each axis it isn’t so much…
Beating Rivals Should Not Be Your Goal
Is the goal of business to do the best you can or to beat others? A surprising number of people seem to think business is about beating others. The technical term is competitor orientation — when your ultimate objective is to beat your competitors. The point is that pretty much whatever your view of business,…