by david allan van nostrand | Oct 12, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence, Fads, Marketing
In a shell game, three walnut shells are moved about swiftly and onlookers bet on which one the pea is under when they come to rest. It’s not actually a game at all – it’s a swindle con artists control through sleight of hand and illusion to fleece the mark (the...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 4, 2019 | Marketing
We have to make an effort to get the full picture, especially when marketers don’t want us to have it. Most of us have seen the NordicTrack ads on TV where Jane lost 20 pounds and we can, too. Few of us have read the fine print in the footnotes. The information there...
by david allan van nostrand | Sep 17, 2018 | Gatekeepers, Marketing, Research
Those who provide the money for research want to hear good news, so it is not surprising that many researchers are willing to see they get it. How? One way is by interpreting findings in a positive light. We see this in particular when the goal of a study is...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 22, 2018 | Human Behavior, Marketing, Research, Statistics
Newspapers provide their advertisers with lots of reader data. My first apprentice-level research job out of grad school was with a Scripps-Howard newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee. One of my assignments was to seek correlations without regard to causality. The goal of...
by david allan van nostrand | Nov 6, 2017 | Fads, Marketing, Status
In 1926, the Book-of-the-Month Club started with only a few thousand subscribers. By 1951, it had sold 100 million books. The business model worked then, and it works now. Clothing retailers have wholeheartedly embraced the subscription model, and why not? It allows...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 2, 2017 | Human Behavior, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Voodoo Statistics
What makes ads work is the power of repetition – ads work because they pound names and ideas into our heads over and over again. How else do you explain 21 straight years of Mr Whipple being embarrassed when caught squeezing the Charmin? Some ads work better...
