The paper below introduces mind genomics and cognitive economics, and explains the methodology. The subject of the paper is “artisanal bread,” but the mechanics for every study are exactly the same.
Month: October 2015
Millennials, Mindsets & Money
Millennials, Mindsets & Money is an initiative led by me and Howard Moskowitz using mind genomics science and cognitive economics (see Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk for background),
We aim to help brands improve their understanding of Millennials while providing actionable guidance that will help their marketers answer the question: “How do we market our product, service or experience to Millennials?” – and grow our business today, sustainably, and profitably over time.
Our goal is to create a science of Millennials through which we understand the mindsets, preferences, and economic trade-offs Millennials make daily about products, services or experiences. Each “chapter” of the initiative will focus on a single product category. To date we completed two studies on beer, one on macro, the other on craft, and have one on wine in the field. We will rollout to financial services, food, travel, entertainment, transportation, and more.
We plan to make top-line findings available through this blog, and we plan to publish a series of ebooks, one for each studied category. We expect to publish 3-4 per year.
Sponsors underwrite the cost of the research. They gain a thought leadership platform for their marketing, and they have access to the full data set for slice-and-dice analysis for themselves or to advise key business partners.
Interested in sponsoring a study in your category?
Contact Stephen Rappaport who will provide you with all the details, benefits, costs, and timeline.
Influence without Influentials: Seinfeld Shows Us
My good friend Mark Earls is coming into town in November for the IIeX forums. You may know his books “Herd” and “I’ll Have What She’s Having.” They make the point that observing what other people do influences us. It doesn’t mean we will always copy what they do, but what we notice gives us something to think about doing and, if we do it, the idea spreads. With enough spread, mass behavior, such as product adoption, may take place. Mark’s books offer a range of examples. This grassroots approach contrasts with the top-down Influential-Follower model that rules much of today’s influencer marketing programs.
I’m always looking for illustrations of how observational influence works because, living in our interconnected interpersonal world, it’s vital that marketers understand how ideas spread by people and through people, not merely to people. As with so many things, “Seinfeld” nailed it perfectly. Watch.
The knife and fork Snickers eating technique spread when people saw it, copied it, and added momentum by riffing on it – cookies, Almond Joys, donuts, even eating M&Ms with a spoon on the street. People bring ideas they come across into their lives for their own reasons, in ways meaningful to them, and will keep them for however long they want – they aren’t told by an Influential Person what to think, feel, or do. Elaine’s exasperation with watching people eating handheld snacks with cutlery shows that adoption is not automatic: resistance to new ideas exists, and this resistance impacts where, how fast, and how far an idea may spread. (The notion that social networks govern the spread of ideas is closely related to Microsoft researcher Duncan Watts).
Social networks like Amazon and Facebook get and leverage the power of observational influence. Amazon product pages give visitors the ability to see what others are doing, buying, or thinking about for just about any item. Facebook’s News Feed improvements get better at presenting the items that any user is probably most interested in seeing and connecting with because they draw upon the social graph, the network of people a user is part of. Facebook figures out what each of their users notices and gives them more of it, until Facebook recognizes a shift in interest and then re-jiggers their news feeds.
Observational influence is subtle and indirect, yet our habit of mind is to default to the Influential-Follower model. Mark Earls says that influence occurs when “normal people see and copy (or not copy) what other normal people are doing.” Duncan Watts makes that point, as do Facebook and Amazon who use it to their advantage. For most of us marketers, the obvious question is: How can we?