Is Pantone’s choice of Emerald (Pantone reference 17-5641) an inspired read of cultural shifts and green shoots of recovery or a slightly naive hope for the coming year? [Read about the different meanings of green here.] Read more »

The brain science of marketing

In his recent book Brainfluence, Roger Dooley shares 100 tricks for persuading and convincing consumers based on a wide range of evidence from neuromarketing and many other fields such as psychology and behavioural economics. The examples are well documented and overall this is a much more practical, structured and sound guide to brain science of marketing than many other books (including notably Buyology which is less structured and poorly documented). Read more »

The circle of life

All products progress through a sequence of four stages of life, from introduction (birth) through to growth, maturity and finally decline and death. Firstly the product is envisioned and developed; after launching (if lucky) popularity will grow, although ultimately sales will plateau and finally decline.  Each stage has specific implications and priorities for designers and marketers, as the demands will evolve and change over time. The classic work on product diffusion models is Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers, which follows on from and builds on the original Bass model of product diffusion which continues to be the basis of most new product forecasting. Read more »