Anyone who works for a large organisation and who has ever wanted to do something constructive for that organisation, will have experienced the same questions and the same dark forces waiting to challenge their brilliantly conceived scheme: the finance department. Arguably, it’s reasonable enough that a corporation, preoccupied as it is with making, sustaining and growing profit, should have a beady eye on every single cost that is incurred in the course of such pursuits. That this can lead to conflicts and disputes is unquestionable. Frequently the return on investment from activity, particularly marketing activity, is hard to evaluate: it can be tricky to gauge how long a long term brand-building exercise will be making a return and valuing brands themselves is a topic that is hotly debated. Assumptions are made (explicitly or implicitly) and models constructed: although often the casual observer might question the extent to which these are […]
New Office ‘Assistant’
Willow the dog is teaching me a lot about psychology (honestly, we’re a lot more like dogs than we’d ever want to think). But her food could smell better. I’m beginning to understand how those petty ‘office rules’ about eating at your desk come into existence! It’s worth noting, her productivity could be higher.
Why Market Researchers Shouldn’t Read Consumer.ology
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 […]
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