All posts by Philip Graves

Everything’s relative. Except for truth, apparently. Philosophers point out that if you say “everything is relative” you’re making an absolute statement, rather than a relative one, and you’ve just defeated your own point. Philosophers are like that. One thing that is relative is what consumers think about the products they encounter. Which is a little odd, because we all like to believe that we know what we think; if we’re not sure of that everything feels a little precarious. However, this is just one of those conscious delusions we use to feel good about ourselves. This is all well and good when you’re simply telling yourself that you’re a great person who’s fabulous at everything, but less helpful when you want to understand consumer behaviour and exert maximum influence with your marketing. A recent study has uncovered a surprising dimension to the way in which consumers are influenced by what […]

Picture the scene, the Rolling Stones have left the stage, having got plenty of satisfaction from the reaction of the crowd and dripping with sweat, they’re ready for a refreshing beer (or six) and something to eat. “Let’s have pizza.” Mick says, spotting a pizza menu pinned to the dressing room wall. As usual he’s keen to establish himself as the leader of the group, but forgets the fact that he was once punched by Charlie Watts for asking, “Where’s my drummer?” “Yeah man, I need to eat now, man.” Keith surprisingly agrees without a fight and now no one will rock the boat by suggesting anything else. The tour manager finds his phone and gets ready to dial, before realising that this ramshackle bunch of multi-millionaires almost certainly won’t settle for any old pizza, they’ll have a favourite. So which brand of pizza will our musicians choose? Probably the […]

Getting something free is great. You can save yourself no end of money on market research by simply assuming that customers would like your product, provided it doesn’t cost them anything and they don’t have to give up anything else to get it. Honestly, you’ll shift thousands of whatever it is. But, of course, you won’t make any money. And that’s not ideal. One ingenious way around this problem is to give away something for free at the same time that a customer is buying something else. That way you get to send out all those irresistible messages that there’s something free to be had, whilst making the money you need from the revenue on other product. By virtue of a cunning piece of mental accounting you can split the profit across both products and, providing you haven’t ignored the cost of the two, still make a profit. Unfortunately, recent […]

It’s all a matter of consumer need. If you can understand the consumer need your product satisfies then you can tell prospective customers about it and they will buy it. And the great news is that you find out what consumers’ needs are in relation to any product or service by asking them. So, if you aren’t currently succeeding you have a simple route to turn things around. Find out what the consumers needs are by asking them. Tell them your product meets them. What could be easier? Well, the great news is that I can save you the trouble of step one. Because I’ve done the research already and I can tell you the answers. Consumers don’t really need anything. Ok, the basics, food, water, heat, shelter. But unfortunately (or not depending on how you look at it) someone has beaten us to all these markets. And the only people […]