NEED insight

Mental availability is a simple enough concept. It’s the chance of a brand coming to mind in a particular buying situation. No one would argue that increasing that probability could be bad. But what actually is it? Mind if I peer into your mind? The leading argument around is that it’s the outcome of a ‘cued retrieval link’. There’s a link in your brain between two things, ‘nodes’. One is that situation you’re in. Where you are, when it is, who you’re with, what

This is when it can happen in marketing. When you’re dazzled by new data but don’t do due diligence. When you reduce Kahneman’s book to ‘most things we buy on auto-pilot’. When you discover the born-again zeal of the newly-enlightened. When you prioritise what can be measured over what matters. When you want to stand apart from other people when what you need is to fit in with them. I could go further. When you understand brands are about memory but base everyth

These days, everyone’s quick to argue the answer is always both. Maybe it is for long vs. short, qual vs. quant, distinctive vs. different. But do brands live in the company or the consumer? Is marketing an art or a science? Are you more Kotler or Sharp? I often think neither is closer to the truth. Maybe that’s why the debates never end. We’re surrounded by false dichotomies, but that doesn’t mean you should add two views together and divide them by two. If you

There’s the Mary in Frank Jackson’s thought experiment. She’s the one who’s been locked in a black and white room her entire life. So she’s never seen a colour. And yet she’s read everything there is to read about colour, the physics, biology and neuroscience of it. She’s the world’s expert on the subject. Then one day Mary escapes and actually sees colour for the first time, a red rose. The question is: does Mary learn anything new in experiencing that colour? I do