A Better Course

Katy tagged me as a thinking blogger - thanks Katy! - and immediately after this I realised it’s quite hard to come up with a list of five.
Participation rules:
1. If you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find [...]

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Is the Tipping Point Toast? — Duncan Watts — Trendsetting
“A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There’s no _there_ there.”
(tags: fastcompany article marketing tippingpoint duncanwatts research culture network)

Slashdot Founder Questions Crowds Wisdom - Bits - Technology - [...]

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Pownce Errors : iain tait | crackunit.com
if you’ve got a web business these days you need to have a great error page. I bet most brand consultancies haven’t cottoned on to this yet. Next time I see a branding presentation I’m going to raise it.
(tags: iaintait branding online crackunit pownce funny)

Internet ‘96
Few websites from these [...]

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Some fascinating research from MIT Sloan today; Understanding productivity in the Information Age. The project consisted of analysing data from emails on a single company’s network:
As part of a study of an executive recruiting firm conducted over a five-year period, the researchers were able to analyze ten months of the firm’s e-mail traffic. While the [...]

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There’s been a lot written and said recently about brand engagement - essentially, the idea that if someone uses something related to your brand, they will be more likely to trust (and by extension buy) your product further down the line. Even more problematically, this has frequently been with reference to brand’s Facebook applications. I’ve [...]

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What You Really Want to Buy | Business Week
Researchers predict that neuromarketing will produce plenty of hype in the coming year or two. Unlike information culled from traditional focus groups, the signals issuing from the brain can point to what the subjects are really thinking and feeling.
(tags: neuromarketing businessweek research)

Is It a Recession? Marketers Seem [...]

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Matterbox is one of the more fun marketing ideas I’ve seen recently:
Matter is a collection of a dozen or so enticing or intriguing physical things, each one from a different company, occasionally delivered to your house in a distinctive box on a Saturday morning.
I was going to describe it as one of the better ideas, [...]

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adaptive path » blog » Andrew Crow » Bring Bad Design to Justice…maybe
“I’m not saying aesthetics aren’t important. I’m saying that the attitude exhibited by this set of stickers is indicative of a mindless condescension that has lead to the marginalization of the practice of visual design.”
(tags: design adaptivepath andrewcrow community)

I Believe in Advertising | [...]

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adliterate: Boring people know the most interesting things
What clients really want is an effect – a real sense that the marketing activity they undertake is selling goods and services. Not shifting a few here and there but manifestly affecting the momentum of their business.
(tags: adliterate research marketing advertising online statistics)

Hershey product looks like drug - [...]

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Streaming Ads Driving Users Away From Content - New York Times
Younger viewers: more tolerant, less recall: If you are going to aim a streaming ad at someone, viewers 18-24 are somewhat more tolerant of the practice. 57.6 percent will watch an an online video ad and not become too annoyed to finish viewing.
(tags: nytimes advertising [...]

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