James Forr

James just finished Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  If you’re unfamiliar with Kahneman, he is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and he helped revolutionize our…

With the proliferation of social media and online purchasing, we may start hearing of more research that falls into the category of “Big Data.” This is the analysis of consumer…

A recent Advertising Age article describes the United States’ new effort to attract international travelers. The new website highlights popular American tourist cities.  The content looks fairly primitive at this…

Elizabeth just finished the book Millennial Momentum by Winograd and Hais.  Millennials, of course, are a hot topic in marketing, and although this book is much more geared toward politics…

We highly recommend House as a Mirror of Self by Clare Cooper Marcus.  She uses deep, probing  interviews to understand what people’s homes mean to them. Archetypes play a prominent…

A break from the intellectual material today.  Here is a market research spoof from Saturday Night Live, featuring the world’s most annoying focus group member. Perhaps this is why we…

Here is an article by Jonah Lehrer in Wired about the psychology of spending.   In short, people spend more when they are relaxed. There are some obvious implications here for…

This is an excellent new book that Jerry Olson has recommended  – The Optimism Bias by Tali Sharot.  Among the ideas discussed: The Introspection Illusion – a sense that we…

Here is an article from the New York Times about paint consultants who make a very good living helping people sort through the myriad paint options on the market. Paint,…

This is a post about creativity and hope. Mike Byrne, the creative director of Anomaly, discusses how brands can win the hearts and minds of consumers by talking to them…

We recently discovered this article about the art of consumer courtship -- creative ways in which companies can use social media to show consumers that they care and understand them.…

P&G is in the process of making over Ivory Soap. The product remains the same – still “99 44/100th % pure," presumably – but the packaging is different and the…