James Forr

A recent article in The Atlantic describes the emotional connections that people have with their sports teams. A study suggests that “highly identified” fans form social connections through their fandom,…

From the website Business Insider comes a short article entitled “16 Brands That Have Fanatical Cult Followings.”  Some are ones you might expect, like Zappos and Harley-Davidson.  Then there are…

The Wall Street Journal details the rising proportion of China’s population that now qualifies as middle class, which typically means that they spend between $10-$100 per day on consumer goods.…

Harvard Magazine discusses a new course that asks students to “define new dimensions of the library experience.” Libraries in the US are really struggling.  Public libraries are enduring dramatic funding…

This is an older (December 2010) article from Harvard Business Review that I re-discovered this weekend.  The article is entitled, “Why You Aren’t Buying Venezuelan Chocolate.” It addresses ways that…

Check out  this blog entry about Dan Ariely’s new book entitled, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty:  How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves. Ariely discusses the mostly unconscious factors…

A while back, Jerry Olson spotted this Wall Street Journal column about trust.  The writer discusses different professions, and his level of trust in each. It is sort of a…

  A new piece of scientific research (summarized here) discusses the power of storytelling, and how frames can trump facts. Why do men want routine prostate cancer screenings (and why…

What is the value of a Facebook “like” for a brand? Does it actually translate into buying behavior? In this article, courtesy of Olson Zaltman's Joe Plummer, the author argues…

We recognize that many, many people are disturbed by America’s gun culture. But still…Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun by Paul Barrett contains some instructive lessons in marketing. Ironically, “America’s…

Jerry Olson sends along an article from Forbes about various forms of intelligence and their influence on our actions and behavior. There are marketing-related applications to these insights, of course. …

Here is a cute, little blog entry about “How Angry Birds Made Me a Better Manager.”  The point is that using a metaphor can open up new ways of thinking…