Strategy

Paint Me a Picture

Over the last few years, an illuminating series of studies about false beliefs and misperceptions about the state of the world has been underway. In the first of these studies (known as “The Gapminder Misconception Study”) published back in 2017, the researchers discovered that misperceptions among the general population appear to be the norm rather than the exception, especially among citizens of wealthier nations.

The Danger of Boredom

What do you think would happen if you spent 6-15 minutes in a room with nothing to interact with but your own thoughts? If this idea gives you an uneasy pause, you are not alone.

Balancing Profit and Customer Love

Although an essential component to the overall success of market economies, profit-seeking is often viewed negatively within many social circles. In fact, for-profit businesses struggle to achieve even a small measure of the goodwill automatically garnered by their non-profit counterparts.

Hold the Fone: Consumers Care About Proper Spelling

Consumers have always had a complex relationship with brand names, and rightly so, as those names play a crucial role in the all-important first impressions of a product or service.

Artificial Intelligence: Balancing New Technology with Human Empathy

Towards the end of the 18th century, an ideological movement took root in the western hemisphere. Romanticism, as it came to be known, firmly associated itself with the emotional, irrational, and the imaginative parts of the human condition.

Soda Wars: Revenge of the Diet Beverages

Not so long ago (the early 1990s) and not so far away (well, here on planet earth), an epic battle filled with intrigue, sabotage, and sacrifice took place. Although it was “fought” in plain sight, few understood that the conflict was designed to ensure that both sides would lose in the end.

Letting the Heart Decide

It is no secret that emotional intuition plays a pivotal role in human behavior. As Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has explained in his work, the concept of “the emotional dog and its rational tail” provides a firm foundation for understanding why humans make the choices that they do.

Can Too Much “Science” be Bad for Your Brand?

The weight of scientific authority has long been a persuasive tool in marketing strategies. As an extremely social species, humans care a great deal about categorical authority, and in the modern world there are few more revered sources of authority than those affiliated with the theoretical concept of science.

The Power of Listening

We all have our preferred way of gathering information from the world. Some of us read, many of us watch television or interact with social media, and some of us even prefer to take in our information via the structure of online or in-person meetings (remember those?).

Windows to the Soul?

A recent study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has uncovered a surprising result of what happens when attention is directed towards another person’s eyes.