The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

just for the record rob, creatives find anything from a planner fucking hysterical.

Jim Davidson offers a lot of insights Mr Dodds … but more about the people who mention him than the things he personally says.

🙂

And dear Andy, your comment might have more impact if you didn’t represent a discipline that regards Crayola crayons as its tool of the trade.

🙂

0.0028 seconds.

why can’t I comment anymore? You blocking me?

Ah! Dodds!

Kane has clearly studied Lee Evans… but for the better.

how did you know that russell kane is going to my next husband?! swoon…

interestingly, this is the second blog post i’ve read relating comedians to advertising in as many days. (the junior boys and girls intereview wil anderson over at lifeatthebottom.com)

and, i have to say, the idea of working with those funny fuckers to gain insight into people is brilliant. and, having said that, i’m rather pleased that the primary way the rest of society get insight into others is by actually seeing comedians and not relying on advertising’s rehash of their observations.

So true! Comedians are great for observations on life…personally I love Omid Djalili and Lee Evans, hilarious but so true! I did a similar blog post a while ago….ok maybe not similar but atleast comedian related!

Hi Simon, nice to have you make your debut 🙂

I agree with you – and if it came across that I was saying comedians are the only people who have an ability to recognise social/individual habits, then I didn’t explain myself properly.

There are lots of people out there who have an ability to ‘read’ the habits and actions [and reasons for that] of society … hell, I’d like to think I am one of them as well … however what I find with comedians is that not only do they sometimes find a way to express an insight in a fresh-yet-relevant way, they often pick up on other elements that you may have missed simply because your area of focus has been in another area.

I’m a big believer in exploring breadth and depth so whilst I happily suggest involving a different element into the discovery phase of planning, I certainly am not suggesting the true experts are left out in the cold – even though I will also say, I am often left dismayed at the standard of information and insight the specialists sometimes come back with – especially ‘3 day’ ethnographers, who make giant calls despite having spent an incredibly small amount of time with a ‘normal’ person and even then, probably are being exposed to a variation of how that person normally lives because the presence of a stranger will have an impact on their behaviour.

Of course the good ethnographers take this into account, but I’ve recently read quite a few alarming reports that single handidly failed to make mention of this in their report even though the examples they highlighted to demonstrate a specific point almost screamed “NOT REAL BEHAVIOUR” from the report.

Anyway I digress – and if you’ve read this rubbish for a while, you’ll know I am a big fan of research, but still regard it as a guide for advancement rather than a blueprint … something certain people think is a slur on their reputation even though the World is littered with examples of business failure from organisations who researched every little thing.

Right I’m off but thank you very much for the comment and I hope you come back again soon – even without any profanity, ha!

So it took 2 comments before you started swearing … if only I had that level of influence on my clients, ha.

I’m a big fan of Grant – not just because he is smart and intelligent – but he acknowledges where research has flaws.

Like your Tesco’s example, there are loads of stories of corporate stupidity executed off the back of ‘insightful research’. You think the Tesco’s example is bad, you should see how much Aldi Supermarkets lost in China when they failed to realise the reason they don’t have many ‘stack-em-high-sell-em-low food places is because the houses are so bloody small you can’t keep much food in storage.

Best bit is that in terms of store visits, Aldi commanded amazing numbers – however people were coming just to look around [like it was a theme park or museum] not to actually spend any money there, ha!

And just recently I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with an Australian ethnographer who lived in LA doing research on beer drinking in 2nd tier Chinese cities and you should of heard the crap he ‘discovered’.

I was so appalled at what he was going to recommend that I wrote to the client and said if they were to action his recommendations we would resign the account because they are fundamentally flawed and would only result in the lost of huge amounts of cash. Of course they need to take some responsibility for hiring this fool in the first place – but the standard of ethnographers in my experience is not nearly as high as the industry would imagine.

That is why my attitude is to use multiple methodologies to both identify broader issues and cross reference identified insights. Some clients complain it costs them more, but in the big scheme of things – when they’re not having to relaunch their brand every 12 months because of the last fuck-up they spent millions on – it proves to be more cost efficient, acknowledging there is natural evolution in the attitudes and behaviour of culture so you’ll never be able to say you have found the definitive answer to all their prayers.

Anyway I won’t go on – you can see my love and hate of research if you click on this old post I wrote – and thanks again for coming mate.

http://tinyurl.com/6ryv9z