Mind Over Money

Of course, a lot can be learned from watching videos. I just can't justify showing an hour long video in class. Luckily, we don't have class on Tuesday so that you can attend the "Roadmaps to Careers in Marketing" event. So to make up for the tragic loss of knowledge, you can tune into a great piece on behavioral economics that aired on NOVA a couple of years ago.

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA.

Same story, different year...

As I said at the beginning of the semester, every year we see at least one article that will talk about too much choice and how companies are pairing their product lines to increase profits... We saw it in the Girl Scout Cookies, and now from today's WSJ it's here in the toothpaste aisle.

I think this article brings up some interesting questions. Some of the ones that come to my mind are:
Why do companies have to learn this lesson year after year? Or is there really something more complex going on here? Are companies seeing advantages by launching all these new products and line extensions? Are the different benefits these products offer wanted by smaller and smaller segements; is this a case of hyper-segmentation? Or in the consumers' mind are they just meaningless distinctions and not true differentiators?

What's the Skinny on Skinny Pepsi?

 Diet Pepsi Debuts its Sleek, New Look at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

"Diet Pepsi has a long history of celebrating women through iconic fashion imagery seen in our infamous and historical campaigns, and we're proud to continue that tradition as an official sponsor of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today's most stylish looks, and we're excited to throw its coming-out party during the biggest celebration of innovative design in the world."  - Jill Beraud, Chief Marketing Officer, PepsiCo

This packaging seems to make complete sense from a Customer Insights standpoint. The tall, thin package mimics the suggested product benefit. We should non-consciously transfer the perceptual lightness of the package shape to the can's contents. The colors are light, the typeface is light; I mean, even the 0 in the zero calories looks thin!

But then I started reading that some things in their advertising campaigns may be too thin...

At what point are people/critics/groups reading too much into an advertisement?

Metrics for Measuring C(K)lout

This WSJ article will make a lot of sense when you start reading Cognitive Surplus. We talk a lot about how social media now changes corporate/brand information from being unidirectional to multidirectional. And while we can be aware of the importance of social media in establishing "buzz", it's full value will be realized when we can both measure the buzz and its sources. A company named Klout is working on a metric for identifying an quantifying individual sources of online buzz on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. If you can identify the most connected nodes, you can try to have them spread the messages you want...

Of course, just being the most connected, doesn't always mean that you are the most influential; influence is a combination of reach and persuasiveness. The persuasiveness of these sources isn't being measured yet!

Did you see the Gorilla? Good news for Slackers and ADHD sufferers!

Every time we talk about whether or not you saw/missed the gorilla, there are questions regarding if one state is more desirable than the other. If I missed the gorilla, does it mean that I have laser-like focus to my attention and can therefore concentrate better and avoid distractions? If I saw the gorilla, does it mean that I have more discerning visual skills and am more attuned to my surroundings? Daniel Simons, the creator of this research, says that we can't really draw any trait distinctions from this one context, and that individual's ability to selectively focus their attention will vary from context to context. It's kind of a cop out.

However, there has been some interesting research recently regarding ADHD, an individual's inability to focus and what that might mean for creativity. Jonah Lehrer reports in the WSJ about some research which ties this lack of focus to increased creativity as it allows individuals to bring in ideas from unrelated and disparate sources; it appears that for some tasks, focused attention may not always a good thing!

Some Brave and Adventurous Students

A group of students decided to take the taste test challenge to the next logical level - and the results weren't good for premium vodkas. Our discerning tasters couldn't distinguish between Grey Goose and Smirnoff (and if anyone is interested, I can post a link to a great podcast about olive oil quality - which probably wouldn't be as fun to taste test!)