Never get out of the boat: herd

Showing posts with label herd. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

i'll have what she's having

For those of us in the advertising business the prevailing convention is to think about about human behaviour in terms of the individual.

And the objective of advertising being to try and change that individuals behaviour.

So with that in mind this week's recommended reading is 'I'll Have What She's Having' by Mark Earls, Alex Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien.

'I'll Have..' sets out to counter that convention by demonstrating that 'consumer' behaviour is far more social; ergo influence is social (ie peer influence etc).

The book's title is a reference to the famous scene in When Harry Met Sally.

Meg Ryan triumphantly bursts Billy Crystal's bubble - he thinks he can tell real from fake, you know the bit in the restaurant - then a startled woman at another table say's to the waiter the immortal line.
'I'll have what she's having'.

So, in summary, 'I'll have..' would argue that to improve effectiveness of marketing - which is essentially now the spreading of ideas - to focus on trying to influence the behaviour of individuals is ultimately going to be much less rewarding than looking beyond that - to our inherent social nature - and how behaviour is learned by watching, and copying, each other.

And a pretty compelling argument it is too - though not necessarily a popular idea in adland ;) - obviously if you have followed the thread from 'Herd' and 'Welcome to the Creative Age', this is essentially part 3 of the trilogy.

The behavioural science version of Bowie's Berlin trilogy of Low, Heroes and Lodger, if you like.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

making a movement

Richard Dawkins first coined the word "meme" in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. 'Meme' describes an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.

Most proto-memes go nowhere and are quickly forgotten, or not noticed at all. However, some memes find a tipping point of sorts - and spread - increasing in momentum as they go.

These ideas are often described as the ones that 'go critical'.

Some memes needs to mutate to persevere, others can propagate by 'hitch-hiking' on the back of other ideas.

Pondering this I recall a story from Bernie Rhodes.

Around the same time that Dawkins was finalising 'The Selfish Gene', Rhodes was managing The Clash and meme-building in cahoots with Malcolm Mclaren (Sex Pistols) and Jake Riviera (the unsung 3rd man of the original UK punk scene, and manager of The Damned).

Between the three of them they realised that to create a movement - the 'meme' of punk rock - initial 'social proof' needed to be visible.

One band could not do it on their own, but 3 bands could hitch-hike with each other...

Do the arithmetic.

3 bands (Pistols, Clash, Damned) each with four members.
Say each band member has five 'friends', thats 60 people minimum.

So a triple header gig in a small strip joint in Soho has an instant crowd of 60 or so like-minded bods, so to any waif or stray that has wandered in off the street it immediately looks like 'something' is happening.

As more people decide to join in it's not a risk, if they 'get it' no reason not to join in now, and the codes, language, style is all there for them. And punk 'goes critical'.

As Pete Townsend noted (he was one such bystander who witnessed the early punk gigs, as a regular after-hours drinker in Soho's less salubrious spots).

'This is actually happening'.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

herd

Mark Earls should just show this video as his next presentation and be done with it.

People like do do what other people are doing. And if it's enjoyable (and authentic - thanks Giles) in some way - and the behaviour is easy to copy - even better.

HT to @sorl for the tweet.

UPDATE: Benjamin Ellis has a more in depth analysis on this over at redcatco blog.
'the very thing that causes the majority to join, will cause the innovators to leave and go to dance with someone else'