Artificial Intelligence: Balancing New Technology with Human Empathy

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist …One impulse from a vernal wood  May teach you more of man,  Of moral evil and of good,  Than all the sages can.  Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;  Our meddling intellect  Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things… -Excerpt from “Tables Turned” (William Wordsworth, 1798) Towards the end … Continued Read more →

CMO Minute: Avoiding the Uncanny Valley

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist When it comes to “humanness,” it turns out there is a fine line between appealing and appalling. Although rather than a line, research suggests the border separating the two feelings may be more of a valley. Typically, assigning human characteristics (e.g., body structure, expressions, emotions) to animals or non-living … Continued Read more →

CMO Minute: The Power of Listening

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist 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?). In all … Continued Read more →

Out of Sight, Never in Mind

In the late 1950s, subliminal messaging became a mainstream sensation practically overnight when Vance Packard claimed that imperceptibly flashing the words “eat popcorn” or “drink Coca-Cola” across movie theater screens resulted in an 18-50% sales increase of those items. Read more →

Why Shared Experiences Matter

There’s been much debate about the merits of reaching a large amount of people through mass marketing or reaching a specific segment of the population with targeted ads. Read more →

Why Advertising Rarely Goes Wrong

Marketers are often very conscious of the ways that their advertisements can backfire or “go wrong” in the eyes of their audiences. They often worry about insulting someone or someone taking their messaging the wrong way. Read more →

How to Change Beliefs

Recently, Amplified Intelligence did a study that looked at active attention for people consuming video based on platform. The research revealed that Instagram was the platform where people paid the most active attention, while people watching linear TV paid the least amount of active attention to the content. Read more →

The Pitfalls of Easy Data in Marketing

From performance marketing to attribution modeling, we’ve seen a rise in available data from marketing over the past several years which have shifted our focus to more lower-funnel activities. Read more →

How to Break Through the Attention Barrier

A recent study from the Advertising Research Foundation shows that attention matters. In fact, the more attention to or involvement with the content, platform, device or media brand, the more likely an ad will be effective. Read more →