Richard Shotton
Opinion
12 June 2020
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Research has shown that major life events can have an impact on micro decision making - the kind that affects brands, argues Richard Shotton.
Opinion
18 October 2016
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The trade press overflows with interesting predictions about the future of advertising.
Opinion
03 October 2016
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"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." Or so said the half-crazed philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Brian Wansink took that one step further and conceived a great advertising thought while getting others to go walking.
Opinion
05 September 2016
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Of all the decisions made by the colonial governor in Delhi, offering a bounty for dead cobras was one of the worst.
Opinion
01 August 2016
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Doping casts a shadow over the Olympics. Excitement about record breaking performances will be tempered by doubts about whether they were chemically fuelled. But this uncertainty about who is cheating led Matthew Dunn, a psychologist at the University of Sydney, to create an ingenious experiment.
Opinion
05 July 2016
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After England's early exit from the Euros, patriotic sports fans have turned their attention to Wimbledon. Britain still have strong representation in the form of the Murray brothers. While Andy gets most of the attention, it's actually Jamie who has the higher ranking: currently doubles world number 1. Perhaps part of his strength is due to a natural advantage. He's left-handed.
Opinion
From the wisdom of crowds to the winner's curse, and how Media buyers should zig when the world zags
23 June 2016
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In 1906 Francis Galton, the country's foremost statistician, attended the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition and uncovered an intriguing phenomenon.
Opinion
19 April 2016
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Think of a song. A simple, well known tune. Now tap out the rhythm on your desk and ask a colleague to guess the name. Easy, right?
Opinion
23 March 2016
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Although more than a hundred years ago, the summer of 1914 has many similarities with now. In particular, it was a time of rapid technological change. The wireless telegraph, invented in 1896, had transformed communications - messages that once took days to convey could be transmitted instantaneously.
Opinion
18 February 2016
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In the nineteenth century Charles Darwin was struck by a number of oddities in the natural world that contradicted his theory of evolution. The peacock, for example, with its huge cumbersome tail baffled him to the extent he wrote to Asa Gray on April 3rd 1860:
Opinion
25 January 2016
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WARC and Deloitte Digital recently published six major marketing trends for 2016 . The most interesting is moment marketing: the idea that brands need to identify the moments and contexts where messages resonate best. It’s an important trend as the rise in consumer data and digital targeting means it’s easier than ever to identify and then reach consumers at the ideal moment.
Opinion
17 September 2015
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Advertising has benefited significantly from the application of Daniel Kahneman's research into behavioural economics. However, Kahneman is not the only Nobel Laureate that advertising should look to for inspiration. Konrad Lorenz's work, for which he was awarded the Noble Prize in 1973, deserves more attention than it currently receives as it has direct relevance to marketing.
Opinion
20 August 2015
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One of the longest-standing criticisms of advertising is its unhealthy fascination with youth. The majority of campaigns target the under 55s and a disproportionate number of brands focus on the under 35s.
Opinion
14 August 2015
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McArthur Wheeler’s infamous career as a bank robber was short-lived. He robbed two Pittsburgh banks on single day in 1995 – but didn’t keep the money for long. Rather than using a mask, as tradition dictates, he had the misguided idea of rubbing lemon juice on his face. He mistakenly believed that since it was used in invisible ink it would prevent security cameras from recording him. The police caught Wheeler on the day of the robbery and he was soon sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Opinion
31 July 2015
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The Guardian have just released analysis into the performance of 300 brand campaigns that they have carried. Their conclusion, drawn from surveys amongst their 3,000 strong reader panel, is that making ads contextually relevant significantly boosts effectiveness.
Opinion
Opinion
17 June 2015
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A couple of weeks ago, 40,000 people made the arduous journey to Omaha, Nebraska. They weren't travelling to see an NFL or NBA game but to listen to Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger speak. These two fund managers have become billionaires through understanding human behaviour better than any of their peers. Their speeches are peppered with insights into customer motivation, which makes them not only popular but also of interest to marketers.
Opinion
19 May 2015
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Jay Leno said that "Politics is just show business for ugly people". But perhaps he was drawing a comparison with the wrong form of entertainment. According to our research the parallels between politics and football are far stronger. One of the most striking aspects of football is the loyalty of fans, with life-long allegiances being handed down from one generation to the next. Our research suggests this unswerving dedication is just as prevalent in politics.
Opinion
30 March 2015
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2015 marks the 65th anniversary of George Orwell's death. By the time he died he was living on the remote island of Jura, isolated from a consumerist society that he saw as plagued with problems. For Orwell, advertising was to blame for many of these issues since it inflamed consumer desires for materialistic goods. As he so memorably stated: "Advertising is the rattling of a stick in the swill bucket of society".
Opinion
17 March 2015
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"Nine, that's a magic number" or so De La Soul might have sang if they were marketers rather than a New York hip-hop trio. An increasing body of marketing evidence shows that consumers, rather than being rational decision makers, are prey to a number of biases. One of the most interesting biases revolves around the positive impact of prices ending in nine, known as charm prices. For retailers this should be a reason to be cheerful as it means sales can be encouraged with less need for margin destroying price cuts.
Opinion
10 February 2015
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It's not often that marketers turn to the Bible for brand insight. However, this quote from Matthew reflects an interesting occurrence. When consumers know that a product, or even a behaviour, is popular its appeal tends to increase.
Opinion
21 January 2015
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Much of advertising research is based on listening to what consumers say and then adapting campaigns accordingly. It seems a logical enough approach. However, it's based on the premise that what consumers say and what they do are aligned. Unfortunately there's a growing body of evidence that shows that the two things are often at odds.
Opinion
18 November 2014
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Recent work by psychologists such as Daniel Kahneman has revealed many insights into how our minds work. Kahneman has popularised the idea that rather than being rational calculating machines we respond to the dizzying amount of information around us by relying on a series of mental short-cuts, or in his terms heuristics. Many of these short-cuts are prone to biases.
About Richard Shotton
Richard Shotton is the founder of Astroten, a consultancy that applies behavioural science to marketing. He is the author of The Choice Factory, a best-selling book on how to apply findings from behavioural science to advertising.