The title the ‘International Journal of Market Research’ (IJMR) sounds undeniably impressive. Generally speaking journals are good things, bringing together peer reviewed papers from people pushing the boundaries in a particular field. But I wonder… do astrologers have a Journal of Astrology? Google suggests that they do, sort of – it looks as though it might just be one astrologer selling predictions. There’s a National Journal of Homeopathy – I wonder, to paraphrase Tim Minchin, if they’ve had any papers on how water forgets about the wee and poo it’s had in it and just remembers the traces of medicinally advantageous ingredients? My point is that it’s easy to get a false sense of validity from a name. In Consumer.ology I describe market research as a pseudo-science and, arguably, having an ‘International Journal’ is all part of the industry’s mystique. I must declare a personal interest at this point: recently […]
Dell Finally Convert me to Apple
I honestly believed that I would stick with PC based computing. After twenty years using PCs they’re more familiar than my wife and kids! Despite all the positive things friends have said about Macs, and even though I have owned an iPhone for the last couple of years, there were good reasons not to change. PCs have always worked well for me and, on the occasions when I have used Macs, I’ve always found them uncomfortably unfamiliar. If nothing else, we humans are creatures of habit: it takes quite a shove to push us out of our comfort zone and into unchartered territory. For me and PCs that shove was Dell. I enjoy observing my own consumer decision-making and, although I know that much of the action takes place outside of my conscious awareness, my work on the consumer unconscious mind gives me a dual perspective for my own consumer […]
Bad Market Research: Today I’m Completing a Survey
Every now and then I receive an invitation to complete an on-line survey. They’re normally hopelessly poor tools at understanding real consumer motivations. They interrogate the wrong part of the respondent’s mind (the conscious mind) and unwittingly influence the part they should be targeting (the unconscious mind). So today, I thought that, as I plod through the survey, I would include a running commentary of what’s bad, just in case anyone else is thinking of running an on-line survey any time soon. The First Few Questions A few classification questions to see where I live, when I was born, to check that I watch television (the subject of the research) and to check that I’m not involved in marketing, market research, journalism, advertising, public relations or television: arguably I’m involved in all of these but, just like any other respondent, I’ll be ticking the answers that suit my purpose: “None of these”. Questions […]
Hate-Love Kindle: The Psychology of Easy
I don’t like Kindle (or Apple’s iBooks). I like books. I love books, in fact. The real ones with pages that you hold and read and put on shelves. They’re reassuring, they’re easy to reference and they’re a constant reminder of the wisdom and entertainment that’s within your grasp on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t treat them with any kind of reverence. Recently a fellow author and I swapped books (I gave Cathrine Jansson-Boyd Consumer.ology, she gave me Consumer Psychology). When I warned her that I was a committed book defacer – I will write notes all over a book – she was quick to recommend Post-it notes as an alternative: sorry Cathrine, I’ve written all over your book too (if it’s any consolation, the more I write the better the book). I know that you can make notes on Kindle and iBook books. But it breaks […]
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