I’ve just read a piece in the New York Times framed around the premise that the Individual has prevailed over the Corporation when it comes to office dress code. While this may seem mundane and common knowledge, I think it’s an interesting marker of where we are on the journey of individualizing our world. The […]
Humans are people just like you and me. They’re complicated, multi-faceted and full of contradictions. They have a life. They don’t always analyze all their options when they buy things and they don’t care about stuff you may think they should care about.“Consumer” is an outdated concept. It’s too simplistic. It refers to those who […]
If they a made a movie about your consumer, what role would your brand play? Hero? Trusted sidekick? Mentor? Villain? Would your brand even have a speaking part? Or would it be an extra? You know, “Man in crowd #3 played by your brand”. We all have life stories that we create and tell ourselves […]
Doesn’t it seem the way we marketers talk to consumers in focus groups can sometimes feel unreal? We do all the asking; they do all the answering. We presume the category is something that matters to them. We act like they’re the experts. We call them “respondents” as if they’re answering robots. You can probably […]
Sure, sure. I know Freud is dead. American psychoanalysis had its 100th birthday last year and Sigmund Freud died back in 1938. The trend in contemporary psychology has been away from anything that has its roots in psychoanalysis. Hardly anyone mentions anymore the three classic parts of the mind posited by Freud: Id, Ego, and […]
Jim Chastain Exploring the “Unfinished” You Our digital world is a place where we present ourselves the way others want to see us, but there is also another side to us that doesn’t get presented. This is a place marketers will want to spend more time exploring because it’s where we work on who we […]
To be human is to be multifaceted. It is to be social, a politician, religious, an atheist, a producer, a creator, a citizen, and a consumer.To be human is a condition and not a state.For centuries, we humans have been studied in all our many facets. Various sciences have been deeply devoted to understanding humans in […]
If you’ve ever been in the back room observing consumer research focus group discussions or individual interviews you’re familiar with the scene: laptops open, everyone typing or writing. And we won’t even mention the email they’re replying to and conversations they’re having. Are they paying attention to what’s going on out there? Maybe. But even […]
What is a Brand? It’s not that pyramid, circle or tower chart that has all the boxes filled in. No, it’s not a marketing document. The brand is what customers think it is. Yep, perception is reality. Don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly a good idea to know what you want the brand to be. […]
Not all products connect with people as brands. They don’t stand for anything. That is, they don’t provide any cues to the buyer about who they are. Yes, we humans relate to human characteristics even in brands.The first step to making a product a brand is to examine each of your competitors in terms of […]
