NEED insight

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

As of this week, I’ve been writing this blog for 10 years. I’ve taken it in many different directions. Looked at brands inside-out and outside-in, downside-up and upside-down. But it’s all been about one thing, a single point made in 233 ways. Deeper needs. That’s because I believe that’s where brands live, in the implicit world. Of course, they spend their time in the explicit one. Grabbing people’s attention, getting considered, being bought and then experienced.