The central tenet of this book is a challenge to the assumption that the individual is the starting point for understanding human behaviour. By focusing on group behaviour, or the herd’, Mark Earls purports that we will have the key to a better understanding of human behaviour and better business and social policy initiatives to change it. The book provides suggestions on how to harnesses this new knowledge in marketing, through example and anecdote. Along the way, he shows why the rush to 1-2-1 communications and the obsession with individual opinions (and changing people’s minds) are all nonsense. One of the core arguments to come out of Marks research is that the most important metric for any business becomes the degree to which its customers influence each other positively. This idea has massive repercussions for the marketing manager in terms of thinking about their marketing strategy, and Mark provides the tools and metric for applying his thinking in a practical way. The premise of the argument for this book is that in the traditional marketing model we worry about opinions and feelings that individuals have; we segment and sort individuals into groups like this in order to develop marketing policies to impact on them. This takes a long time and lots of money and the agency world has grown to be dependent on this. We then start worrying about what to say to “persuade” the individual customers what to do. Instead of worrying about what individuals think, Mark Earls suggests we should look at how an individual is influenced by others (often unknowingly) and identifies how best to steer that influence towards the behavioural change the company needs. This changes the focus and use of traditional tools like market research and shapes a different kind of strategy. It also leads to recognising that the most powerful influence on an individual’s behaviour is other people (not marketing). So marketing communications’ role changes also – from Business-to -consumer Persuader to facilitator of consumer-to-consumer influence.
Book Details:
- Author: Mark Earls
- ISBN: 9780470060360
- Year Published: 2007
- Pages: 368
- BISAC: BUS058000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Sales & Selling / General
About the Book and Topic:
The central tenet of this book is a challenge to the assumption that the individual is the starting point for understanding human behaviour. By focusing on group behaviour, or the herd’, Mark Earls purports that we will have the key to a better understanding of human behaviour and better business and social policy initiatives to change it. The book provides suggestions on how to harnesses this new knowledge in marketing, through example and anecdote. Along the way, he shows why the rush to 1-2-1 communications and the obsession with individual opinions (and changing people’s minds) are all nonsense. One of the core arguments to come out of Marks research is that the most important metric for any business becomes the degree to which its customers influence each other positively. This idea has massive repercussions for the marketing manager in terms of thinking about their marketing strategy, and Mark provides the tools and metric for applying his thinking in a practical way. The premise of the argument for this book is that in the traditional marketing model we worry about opinions and feelings that individuals have; we segment and sort individuals into groups like this in order to develop marketing policies to impact on them. This takes a long time and lots of money and the agency world has grown to be dependent on this. We then start worrying about what to say to “persuade” the individual customers what to do. Instead of worrying about what individuals think, Mark Earls suggests we should look at how an individual is influenced by others (often unknowingly) and identifies how best to steer that influence towards the behavioural change the company needs. This changes the focus and use of traditional tools like market research and shapes a different kind of strategy. It also leads to recognising that the most powerful influence on an individual’s behaviour is other people (not marketing). So marketing communications’ role changes also – from Business-to -consumer Persuader to facilitator of consumer-to-consumer influence.
Since the Enlightenment there as been a simple but widely held assumption in the West that we are a species of thinking individuals and thus, human behaviour is best understood by examining the psychology and brain activity of individuals. It appears, however, that this insight is wrong. The evidence from a number of leading behavioural and neuroscientists suggests that our species is designed as a herd or group animal. Mark Earls applies the philosophy that people are designed to act as a herd to the traditional mechanisms of marketing and consumer behaviour, with a result that necessitates a complete rethink of these disciplines.
Presents radical new thinking that could turn marketing on its head. Traditionally, consumers have been considered as individuals, Mark Earls now applies the philosophy of considering them in terms of groups. Leading thinking with practical examples that offers change to current strategic marketing. Promises is a profound insight into human nature that explains mass behaviour much better than our current models AND examples and tools to bring about change in mass behaviour Provides a host of unusual examples and anecdotes to open the mind of the business reader,from Peter Kay to Desmond Tutu, Apple to UK Sexual Health programmes, George Bush to Castle Lager, from autism to depression to the real explanation for the placebo effect in pharmaceutical testing. Examples from around the world, including Africa and India. Provides practical demonstrations of the insights provided in the book so that the reader can put the concept into practice.
About the Author
Mark Earls is the author of : Welcome to the Creative Age Bananas, Business and the Death of Marketing. Since 2001 he has been Executive Planning Director at Ogilvy Europe, prior to which he was Planning Director at St Lukes Communications and Head of Planning at Bates. Mark is a frequent public speaker, has presented papers on his field of expertise around the world and has judged a number of awards competitions. He edited the 1999 APG Creative Planning Awards case studies. He has been vice chair of the UK Account Planning Group and sat on the DTI Foresight Panel for Information, Technology and Communication. Andrew Jaffe, chair of the US Clio Awards, has described Mark as “one of the London Advertising scenes foremost contrarians.”