Supermarket shopping carts (trolleys) tend to have horizontal handles – would people buy more things if the handles were parallel – like a wheelbarrow? New research from City University of London and the University of Innsbruck suggest that the answer could be ‘yes’. In an experimental study : “supermarket shoppers purchased more products and spent […]
Tag: marketing
Neuromarketing for dogs
Developing successful products aimed at dogs might not always be as straightforward as it may seem : “Because dogs cannot speak, traditional behavioral methods may be inadequate to reveal what dogs like or dislike.” But, according to the website of Dog Star Technologies LLC, newly developed methods involving fMRI scanning (combined with machine-learning algorithms) might […]
Interview with personality-of-rocks Ig Nobel Prize winner Shelagh Ferguson
The 2016 Ig Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to Mark Avis, Sarah Forbes, and Shelagh Ferguson, for assessing the perceived personalities of rocks, from a sales and marketing perspective. They documented their research in the study “The Brand Personality of Rocks: A Critical Evaluation of a Brand Personality Scale,” Mark Avis, Sarah Forbes, and Shelagh […]
Leveraging City Smells (for marketing purposes)
Do you associate the city of Parma (Italy) with scent of violets, or Bufallo (US) with the aroma of Cheerios™, or the city of York (UK) with the smell of horse hair & hoof oil? According to a new paper in the journal marketing theory some people do, and this has helped to inspire marketing […]
Assessing the Perceived Personalities of Rocks
Of these three rocks, which would you say is the most ‘confident’ ? How about the most ‘sincere’ or ‘intelligent’? Just such questions were asked in a recent study by Dr. Mark Avis (Massey University, New Zealand), Dr. Sarah Forbes (University of Birmingham, UK) and Dr. Shelagh Ferguson (University of Otago, New Zealand). Their study […]
The Man Behind the Wealthy Dentist
Jim Du Molin [pictured here] runs a web site called The Wealthy Dentist, and a Wealthy Dentist blog, and also the Wealthy Dentist University. Jim Du Molin is eager to speak to dental groups, for a fee. Among the things he will talk to them about (for a fee) are: How to determine your top high-value new […]
Marketing consultant’s study pleases his horse-promotion client
The German Equestrian Federation [Fédération Equestre Nationale, also known as “FN”], announces that it commissioned a study from a marketing consultant — as to whether horseriding promotes character development (in people). The FN indicates that it is pleased with the results. Here is a rough, machine-produced translation of the announcement: Riding promotes character development FN new trial Warendorf […]
Marketing ploys or just timewasting?
Are new words to describe holidays a clever marketing ploy, or a pointless waste of time? Some examples: • Staycations : Longer holidays • Weighcations : Diet holidays • Gaycations : Gay holidays • Neighcations : Horse-centric holidays Professor Brian Hay, Visiting Professor in the School of Arts, Social Sciences & Management at Queen Margaret […]
Exciting Video: Methodology Options
It’s time for still another visit with Nigel Bradley. This is the most exciting video you will have seen during the minute and two seconds you were watching it. It’s specially made for market researchers. It’s called “Methodology options available to the researcher”. It’s from Oxford University Press. It’s right here: BONUS: All about the star: […]
McGraw & Warren, humor zeroing
Marketing researchers zero in, ever further, on understanding how people react to theoretically humorous stimuli. Investigator Dan Goldstein alerts us to a new study which says: [In one experiment] participants read one of two versions of a scenario adapted from Haidt et al. (1993) as part of an ostensibly unrelated experiment. Participants either read about […]