The future is usually hazy for me. I wasn’t impressed when first introduced to the Macintosh II in 1988, figuring the computer would take its place beside the waxer as a pasteup tool. I didn’t predict my wife would be upset when I forgot her birthday. But it was clear to me that neuromarketing would be big.
Why we’re all buying—and selling—cool
I have a horrid confession: I wore Daisy Dukes in middle school. It didn’t have to do with the TV show or Catherine Bach…honest. Rather, it represented rural New Hampshire social capital of the day: the more ragged the cutoffs, the better.
Most of us like to think we left peer pressure behind when we left middle school (or graduated from high school). But when it comes to benefits, in the marketing sense, there’s one that always comes out on top: enhanced social standing. In fact, as far as the brain is concerned, it can be as good or better than cash.
Facebook’s Big Brother issue
Professor George Milne of the University of Massachusetts studies online privacy and why some businesses—like Facebook—are starting to give us the creeps.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been clear that he believes we should all be open with our personal information. He put that belief into action by setting Facebook privacy defaults that were … well, less than private. (Zuckerberg obviously read Nudge, which notes that even when given choices, most of us never bother tinkering with defaults.)
Baby schema Doesn’t Like Sharing the Stage
As you may have noticed, we’re awash in cuteness these days. The latest dose comes in the form of a full-length documentary film, Babies, released Mother’s Day weekend. Advertising Age reports that marketers were all over it. Vanity Fair examined the trend at length last year, noting among other things the scads of Internet sites devoted to baby animals, the enduring success of Hello Kitty, the evolution of the Geico gecko from slithery to big-eyed, the fact that even Darth Vader is now available as an adorably stumpy stuffed toy …
What’s going on?
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Your brand’s best friend might be an enemy
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