The100: The great brand soup, false consensus effect and anchovies

It’s a trap!

Welcome to the preaching to the converted section. Richard Shotton discusses the false consensus effect - tending to assume others are more like us than they actually are - and why this might occur.

It seems that everyone knows it, but there’s a reluctance somewhere in the chain to do much about it.?

“We like to feel part of a group and are thus inclined to create scenarios in which we belong. It’s also a boon to our egos if external views agree with our own [...] And within the context of social media, we are increasingly supplied with information that supports our beliefs — further bolstering a sense that everyone agrees with us. But it can lead to faulty decision making. If we as marketers are inclined to think consumers share the same preferences and perspectives as we do, we’ll end up making choices only for people like us.”

There’s that bubble again

The 2024 WARC strategy report shows that ad-land strategists are encountering similar issues to many industries. If I may quote: ‘critical thinking is becoming subordinate to data’. Sound familiar?

One of the ways they said you can rekindle strategy is:

“Burst the ‘strategy bubble’. Marketers can operate in a ‘bubble’ far removed from the reality of customers’ lives. Strategists must retain the link to ‘real life’, and can do so by using a variety of research tools, including in-person research.”

Too much A, not enough I

Can we trust AI in qualitative research? Emmet O’Briain identifies 4 issues. And it is the 2nd that I want to draw your particular attention to: AI is not neutral.

“AI tools are drawing from the massive medley of perspectives across the internet around any given topic. If we can agree that articulating positionality [how the researcher connects to the research] is key to supporting the trustworthiness of qualitative research, then we should take a serious pause before adopting AI for wholesale analysis in interpretive studies. Experts admit that we don’t know how AI makes the decisions it does.”

If you’re nodding in agreement, I run a session called Why ‘Why’ Will Never Die, Even in the Face of AI . It makes for a good lunch and learn. Just shout if interested.

The Great Brand Soup

The danger of a brand jumping on new trends and constantly pursuing momentary relevance is that it leaves little time for consistency.

However, dcdx says that brands should instead seek to be ‘magentic’, which requires both popularity (attention) and consistency (regular attention). Where does your brand fall on their matrix?

“When brands try and stay “relevant”, using in-the-moment trends, language, and moments to appear culturally in tune and perhaps even “go viral”, they join the Great Brand Soup; the indistinguishable blending of brands all playing off of the same trends, language and cultural moments.”

Before Halloween even?!

Much like seeing the Christmas foods in the supermarkets earlier and earlier, it won’t be long before we start seeing trend reports appear in the Summer. Here are a couple for you.?

• Some Dentsu predictions which will help you ‘drive impact in the algorithmic era ’. They wrote that, not me.
• Or Spotify, who have released their Gen Z ‘culture next’ report . Blendships anyone? No, me neither.

And finally…

Friday competition - which came first . The hours will just fly by. And for you Brits out there, guess the geography .?

If you like Nina Simone , have a read of this. Fantastically written and incredibly interesting (h/t Helen Lewis)

And who doesn’t want to know about the history of the anchovy .?

Lastly, I’m going to leave you with the quote of the month from Tom Goodwin, who said recently:?

‘I hope at some point people realize that if you're going to spend $30 billion chasing a dream, you should probably buy 10 even vaguely normal people a beer, and ask them what they think.’

Yeah, about that…

Until next time,

Alistair