This video from Irish economist, broadcaster and author David McWilliams opens with this observation – is it not ridiculous that we should be listening to the economic ‘forecasts’ from those very same experts who, of course, completely failed to forecast the current crisis coming in the first place?

The core issue being neglected by the ‘experts’ that as soon as humans are involved (ie always) then standard economic theory goes out the window, and all kinds of foibles and biases come into play.

McWilliams’ own flavour of behavioural economics influenced analysis is labelled Punk Economics and this clip is part of a series of films under the same banner. All of which are ably illustrated by Mark Flood and can be viewed via their YouTube channel.

David says ‘Economics and economic analysis has become similarly overblown and self-indulgent. Worse still, many (not all) economists have failed to make it simple, easy and comprehensible for the vast majority of people, something economics must be, if it’s to be of any use to us.’

For the benefit of younger readers we were purveyors of 12inch diameter round pieces of plastic on which a groove was etched. When activated these grooves produced music.

If you’ve seen or read High Fidelity then this will give you something of a flavour.

It was a bit of a shambolic operation at the best of times but I only got an actual bollocking once from the owner.

Post-bollocking I never made the same mistake again.

It wasn’t for ordering too much stock of some obscure Italian jazz-house oddity.

It wasn’t for not opening up until mid-day because of some hangover or other.

Nor was it for keeping the best promo’s for myself (I was also a club dj of some repute)…

The only thing I ever got it in the neck for was allowing us to run out of the 12″ plastic bags wuith the shop logo emblazoned on them.

Because one Saturday morning when the cool kids were coming in to snap up the latest imports, white labels and other hard-to-find underground tunes and bootlegs I had to put them in ‘blank’ bags instead.

And as they wandered round town or went to the pub in the afternoon to show their mates what they had procured it was vital to us that they pulled their purchases out of one of our branded bags.

We never advertised, and this was pre-internet days people. We had no website.
Our only drivers of custom were our knowledge, service, our ability to get the shit the kids wanted first and word of mouth.

Social proof, if you prefer.

So when I see an article like this one in Adage – ‘Follow Customers as They Actually Behave‘ – I get interested.

While this is a nice try – and at least a significant improvement on any traditional funnel metaphor – there is one tiny flaw which renders it only half useful.

‘Most customers tell us that when they’re open to discovering new products and services, they rely on mass-reach channels such as TV ads, search engines and word of mouth. When they want to explore products in more detail, they use depth channels like marketers’ websites and retail stores. (They turn to these same channels when completing purchases.) When they want to engage with their favorite brands, they use relationship channels — signing up for email lists or loyalty programs, or liking a brand on Facebook.’

The author illustrates with a neat diagram outlining many customer ‘touchpoints’ categorised as those pertaining to ‘Reach’ ‘Depth’ and ‘Relationship’.

The basic flaw of the theory is simple.

Despite it’s thoroughness the map is still based on the notion of the (singular) ‘consumer’ on an independent journey making independent choices as to when and where to ‘engage’ (sic) with the ‘brand’.

So it’s still marketing as something ‘we’ do TO customers.

But the author said ‘Follow Customers as the Actually Behave’?

The truth is that in just about any given market people who are in any way unsure what the appropriate behavior for the situation is, they will look around at other people for cues.

These cues are in the spaces between the touchpoints on a channel plan. But they are in there none the less.

I’m not trashing the RDaR model, it’s a useful component but not a whole picture by any stretch.

Ignore the spaces in between at your peril.

For the most part our job in the 21st century is not about building the ‘better mousetrap’ and IS much more about helping people (customers) to do stuff to and with each other.

That’s what my plastic bags were for, likewise the first time you noticed white earbuds.
Or even the first time you saw people doing a silly dance like riding a horse…

Here’s a trap that we often find ourselves falling into.

Even when you know this it’s hard to stop yourself repeating it.

Take this example.

Your agency has just produced a new piece of work and it’s worthy of making a noise about.

So the project leader will send a company wide email asking for support via tweets and Facebook status updates from the group to help spread the word.

All good so far, except usually no-one responds and only very few comply with the request.

It’s an example of what is known ‘diffusion of responsibility’ and is closely related to what psychologists call the ‘bystander effect’.

There’s many reported examples of incidents where individuals who get into some trouble in public places – being mugged is common example – and despite there being large numbers of witnesses who could have made some sort of intervention, no-one does.

This is because two common things happen.

Everyone looks around at everyone else to see what to do, no-one is doing anything so that feels like the norm, so that’s what they do.

Or, everyone assumes that someone else will be calling the police or an ambulance so no-one does anything.

In fact, if one is going to be robbed or have a heart attack in the street, the less people there are around to witness it then the greater the likelihood there is of someone intervening.

So in our pimp-my-agency example the diffusion happens because everyone who receives the mail sees that it is a mass email and therefore assumes that it’s someone else’s responsibility to do something.

There’s no malice involved, no lack of commitment to the team or anything, it just doesn’t feel urgent because it’s something that someone else will do.

But the sender then gets miffed and wonders why no-one in the group wants to participate.

The project leader then pivots and does what she should have done in the first place and then goes round finding individuals in the group who are the most prolific tweeters etc and asks them individually and personally to post something, which they then happily do.

Similarly with email or other direct message marketing, don’t ever be fooled into imagining there’s any personalisation in mass communication where the name and salutation has been interchanged to match the names on a list.

While the tools exist to easily do this with a database of thousands lets not kid ourselves that this equates to personalisation of any sort.

If we really want a response there’s no substitute for – firstly, having permission – and a truly personal message crafted specifically for the person whom we are talking to.

And flipping the diffusion of responsibility effect work in your favour by explaining in the message how many others like them are willing to help/give/buy or otherwise acquiesce to your request.

Works every time, simple in theory, but hard in practice.

The other good news is that once someone has done you a favour, then they like you more and will be more inclined to help again in the future.

Because we almost always like to act in ways that are consistent with what we’ve said and done previously.

I am going to disagree. Vehemently.

Mastery is more than mechanical proficiency, it is more than being able to do the exact right thing at the right time. This “something more” isn’t magic, nor is it the acquisition of soul. It is something else.

I know a lot of really good marketers. I am happy to say I have met and had the pleasure of working with hundreds of them. But I have worked with very few masters of the craft.

So what is the difference? I think there are two main issues at play.

The first is that masters of a craft can completely throw out the rulebook, and actually advance the craft while still making it work. Think of the masters of the past who threw out the rulebook and created whole new chapters: Newton, Branson, Warhol. These people became extremely proficient in their chosen fields, but then felt that the field itself could be made better. They were masters. Simply practicing for 10,000 hours just doesn’t cut it.

Master the field by changing it.

The second issue at play is around deep diving into meaning, into a place that isn’t logical, into a place that becomes both feared and exhilarating. An example that is close to home for me is found in dance.

There are many people that are extremely technical dancers, who learn hundreds of moves, and have clearly put in their 10 000 hours. And then there are people who have also put in their hours, but when you watch them they don’t need to do hundreds of moves. Instead, they dance simply, they choose to do few moves, but there is something about them, something in they way they are intertwined with the music.

They feel it.

Some call it natural rhythm, some call it pizzazz, but what they are doing is relying on their intimate knowledge of the craft to reinterpret and create their own style, their own take. These are the people that leave people in awe, in a wondrous state not of admiration, but appreciation for the form itself.

But few people are prepared to jump off the cliff, to be the odd one out and reinterpret through simplification. A master of their field is prepared to simplify, not complicate, and then to amplify that simplification through intense connection.

10,000 hours alone doesn’t create mastery.

Bravery and context have a massive role to play.

There are people who could practice a million hours but will never be masters. When was the last time you threw out the book in your field, or wrote a new chapter, or simplified what you do to the point where all the world can see your desire, your passion, completely on display with nowhere to hide.

Nothing can be braver, or more masterful.

Laurence Rook, the 13 year old boy from Croydon in South London, said he got the idea after noticing his mother had missed several deliveries by not being in the house.

Laurence licensed his invention off to the tune of circa 250k.

At the time it struck me that the combined innovation departments of BT, Orange, T-mobile, Vodafone and goodness knows who else from the telco sector had failed to notice this simple customer insight/problem, yet a 13 year-old kid, paying attention, had come up with fantastic piece of utility using a sim card and some bits and pieces lying about the house.

Another one that the telco’s have missed cropped up on FIR: the Hobson and Holtz Report podcast that I listened to this morning in the car.

This was the first time I’d heard of Connectify, a software based router for Windows computer that shares wi-fi connections your other devices.

One of the principal benefits for the business, or otherwise, traveller being that in many hotels the wi-fi access is limited to one device at a time – Connectify solves that conundrum.

Again, one has to wonder why this had to be invented by a small start-up (the software’s development was funded via crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, by the way)
when there was a simple customer insight to be leveraged and yet none of the telco’s saw the opportunity.

I’m reminded of this simple maxim that Seth Godin is often quoted on, in regard to where businesses should look for innovation opportunities and to temper the impulses that lead them to be hellbent on acquisition of new customers.

‘Don’t just look to finding customers for your products, find products for your customers.’

‘Systems are inherently brittle and retain authority only as long as we treat them as having authority’, according to Beaudrillard.

As humans, of course, we have this inherent authority bias, never more apparent than in the famous Stanford Prison experiment that we rediscovered recently.

The experiment was conducted at Stanford University from August 14 to August 20 of 1971 by a team of researchers led by professor Philip Zimbardo to examine the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard, with pretty startling results.

While likening the advertising establishment to the situation Zimbardo was attempting to evoke is probably a bit harsh,  the system justification we persistently hear describes how multi-channel advertising campaigns are nearly twice as effective as their traditional counterparts.

However this is often framed as TV plus multi-channel is more effective than TV alone.

Hurrah, say the digital community, recognition for the ghetto.

But, digerati, this framing is simply reinforcing the myth of  system authority.

How about saying multi-channel campaigns are more effective if the include TV in the mix?

Simply flipping (reframing) the question completely changes the context.

Beaudrillard also says ’There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a woman standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.’

While the world of advertising is somewhat more polite, here is an old adage ‘no-one ever got fired for buying a billboard in Times Square’, similarly no-one ever got fired for buying a 30 second spot in the Super Bowl (or Grand Final).

That’s not to say these tactics don’t have effect, they clearly do, but what else is required? And what system or authority bias is it that is continually getting in the way of experimenting with other approaches?

Or is it simply fear?

But as Beaudrillard tells us, once you lose the fear of systems, or conventions, the status quo, they lose the hold they have over you.

At Sputnik Planning Labs we love our cognitive biases; and a particular favourite is the one sometimes called ‘the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon’ or more commonly the ‘frequency illusion’.

This particular foible being the illusion in which a word, name, phrase or other thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly appears ‘everywhere’ with ridiculous frequency.

So, if you’ve never heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, never fear, you’ll absolutely be hearing about it again soon.

In this case it’s the phrase ‘world class’, and the context principally Australian advertising.

This or that campaign or spot is ‘world class’. This CD/Planner/other is ‘world class‘, this or that agency are ‘world-class’.

To boot, I was chatting with an acquaintance who is a very senior Professor in Melbourne the other week who informed me that this ‘rating’ is similarly applied to the scoring of academic papers in his University.

A top mark qualifies a study as ‘world class’.

World class then, being clearly up a notch from simply Australian class.

Herein lies the problem.

It’s a classic example of another of our favourite cognitive traps coming in to play; the worse-than-average effect in which people will routinely seriously underestimate their own ability to do stuff in comparison to their perceived ability of others.

When does one ever hear of ‘world class’ work coming from London or New York for example?

Hardly ever.

Because agencies these markets don’t feel the need to benchmark* themselves against any other territory.

(*In fact ‘benchmarking’ itself is another hideous trap, but we’ll cover that one another time.)

The work is what it is.

It’s either great or not great.

C’mon Australia. It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.

Larry David would have been a classic, for instance.

‘Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man – there’s your diamond in the rough.’

Also

‘If you tell the truth about how you’re feeling, it becomes funny.’

Insight, is the comedy writers stock in trade.

In fact a cheat I often use when looking for nuggets around any given topic is to search for jokes about it.

We’re working with a not-for-profit organisation concerned with men’s mental health issues, so of course I went straight to Woody Allen to see what I could find.

‘More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.’

‘Most of the time I don’t have much fun. The rest of the time I don’t have any fun at all.’

and

‘My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.’

Unfortunately the reverse is not true. I’ve not met that many planners who were great comedians.

Not intentionally anyway.

This is called having insight.

It doesn’t have to be an earth shattering revaluation, just ‘apprehending the true nature of things’.

Our thanks then go to our Tahlia, in the Sputnik Insight and Planning Lab, who noticed this yesterday and pointed the rest of us to it.

An excellent short sequence of heavily loaded tweets – posted below – from the Obama 2012 campaign that clearly demonstrates that – despite Cass R. Sunstein’s recent departure from the Obama camp – applied behavioural economics are still very much part of the Obama strategy.

A quick note that this post is merely an observation on a piece of the Obama communications strategy, I’m not close enough to the policies debate or other political issues in the US to be voicing any informed opinion.

(My own representativeness heuristic does, however, lead me towards feeling that Baz is the the choice most capable for the next term, so there you go.)

A quick look at a couple of the key tweets.

’317,954 who gave were giving for the first time’

In psychology this is called the Bandwagon effect or Herding – this influences our tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same.

Also known as social proof.

This is all about momentum-as-strategy.

Despite Obama being the current Prez and therefore extremely popular with a section of the electorate there are still more (a lot more) NEW people joining the cause.

This acts as a sort-of counter availability heuristic to the neck-and-neck nature of the race as described by the opinion polls (always the scourge of momentum and often the hardest battle).

If I’m unsure about which side to back then this statement is indicating clearly that there’s a groundswell for Baz’s camp, something is going on.

‘$5 or $10 helped, most donations were under $250 but the average was $58′

This is a clever tweet that combines a framing effect plus anchoring and a bit of herding.

Once the anchor is set, there is a bias toward adjusting or interpreting other information to reflect the “anchored” information.

This tweet anchors us on the high figure of 250 (probably too much to contemplate as a donation) however $58 seems reasonable

And that’s the average i.e. That’s what most people are giving. Those who gave $5-$10 are thanked but clearly are being encouraged to rethink their donation based on the social norm – $58.

The final tweet of the sequence – endings are very important in the efficacy of communications of course – adds the sense of urgency with a clear direct instruction to act. ‘RT this link, right now”.

The link goes to the donation page, and, wahey!, the page title is ‘Build the Momentum: Donate today’.

In his paper ‘Understanding how behaviour shapes strategy’ Mark Earls concluded with the following paragraph, one which I seem to have commited to memory and find myself oft to recount when talking with clients about strategy.

‘…wouldn’t it be useful to think about strategy in terms of momentum?

Strategy as being primarily how to create a sense of momentum in our favour?

And if this is right, shouldn’t we start to judge all strategy by the sense that it is creating or sustaining momentum?’

Anyway, let’s notice how the rest of the campaign unfolds.

It appears that Microsoft are sticking to Plan A and shipping ‘Do-Not-Track’ as the default option in Internet Explorer 10.

Do Not Track is a web privacy scheme that tells online advertisers to NOT collect or use data specific to a user’s web activity.

Advertisers can still show ads, obviously, but they would not be allowed to record that a user browsed certain car websites, for example, and then proceed show car ads where ever they go.

While these advertisers were reported to be willing to put up with ‘Do-Not-Track’, they were only accepting the basis that it was certain to be something that users had to actually enable and activate for themselves.

Thus users default bias would kick in and most would leave the box unchecked, and it would be happy days for the cookie brigade.

The default however is on the other foot as Microsoft further enhances it’s nice-ness and new-cool credentials by leaving DNT as the default, a little nudge-eyness towards making the web a bit less creepy for there users.

But…

Of course the small problem faced by DNT is that it’s pretty much trust based and not enforcable.

Advertisers need to look for the DNT signal sent and decide to honor it.

Now if you are the kind of advertiser who thinks it’s acceptable to creep around after individuals, record their movements and then try and intercept and ‘target’ them at every corner with ‘relevant’ ads, and then what’s the likelyhood they will honor a DNT request.

After all skullduggery and coercion takes less effort than making products, services and advertising that are so great that people choose to look at them and do stuff with them of their own free will.