Articles
Rules eat culture for breakfast
In 1823, William Webb Ellis of the Rugby School picked up a round soccer ball and ran with it. This (probable urban legend) has persisted as the origin of rugby. Okay, so here we go - we now have the basics of rugby happening that has culminated in such feats as Japan...
Embodied cognition and why you should bungee jump on your first date.
Why is an ad showing a piece of cake more engaging when the fork is placed to the right of the cake? Enter the field of “embodied cognition” – the idea that without our conscious awareness, our bodily sensations help determine the decisions we make. For example,...
Six traps that will lose you market share
In physics, the Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it can just change from one form to another. However we are not constrained by this law in commerce when it comes to demand – new demand can be created. With...
Five beliefs about strategy execution that are just plain wrong.
At the conclusion of strategy sessions we identify objectives and allocate responsibilities with timelines. It’s all very clear. But why then has it been found that strategy execution is the number one challenge facing global CEO’s – even more important than...
How do you know your strategy is any good?
The 1958 French film Les Almants (The Lovers) was about a woman involved in adultery. Directed by Louis Malle, the film was a hit in France, but when it crossed the Atlantic to the US it was met with horror by the authorities who felt the material was obscene. The...
Satisfied customers don’t mean repeat business
We ask customers how satisfied they are, because we think that satisfaction means profitability and growth. That’s not necessarily true. Also, those lengthy feedback forms may give us lots of data, but do very little when it comes to telling us about future patronage....
Brand loyalty – a thing of the past for technology brands?
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show will feature everything from biometric socks and other ‘wearables’ to 3D printers, drones, robotics, virtual reality and TV’s where the clarity is best described as ‘breath-taking’. However, in the recent Brandwatch...
How social proof affects our behaviour
Mrs Keech (a pseudonym) was gifted with automatic writing. Basically she got messages from The Guardians of outer space, and would share the information with a small group who also believed the messages to be real. It became a serious matter when one day The Guardians...
There’s money in them thar ubiquitous connectivity.
Certain instances aside, such as when you’re driving with your spouse, it’s nice to know how you’re performing. The ubiquity of digital media has provided us with a treasure chest of data allowing us to ‘see’ what’s happening when we’re nowhere near what’s happening....
The 10 reasons why strategy implementation fails.
When it comes to strategic planning, the humourist Sam Levenson makes a keen observation: “Some people are so good at learning the tricks of the trade, that they never get to learn the trade.” The result is that we have a document that is so generic – full of...
The digital meme generation
The term ‘meme’ was popularised by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. The reason that our genes are selfish essentially boils down to survival of the fittest - your genes are selfish, because they want to replicate themselves. That’s why ‘a chip off the old...
The world’s funniest joke – its implications for brands.
The "world's funniest joke" was exhaustively researched by Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire. The reason for the research was to discover the joke that had the widest appeal amongst different cultures, demographics and countries. The project...