Here’s a simple exercise. Go to the mall. Pick up a box of Pringle’s potato chips for me, will ya? But when you get back to your home, you find something strange. The pack doesn’t say Pringle’s. It says Jingles. And someone has misspelled the word ‘chips’ and spelt it as ‘chops’. So instead of […]
Six Degrees of Customer Separation
Consider yourself for a moment. The first time you saw either of our sites at 5000bc or Psychotactics, did you buy anything? Yeah, sure, so you signed up for a free newsletter. But did you buy? You couldn’t or wouldn’t because of the six degrees In all our testing, all our measurements and weird tracking, […]
How To Fix the experience—then the “fish”
Imagine you went out to dinner. And the wine was just superb; the bread roll with the exact crunch molecules and texture; and the service so impeccable and knowledgeable that you can’t remember when you had service so good. Oh and yeah, the fish you ordered for the main was a bit too salty. What […]
The Fundamental Flaw in Creating Your Uniqueness (USP)
Say cheese,” says the person behind the camera. And you say cheese. Your facial muscles are frozen. You have a dumb, goofy look. And under your breath you’re muttering, “C’mon Take the picture, take the picture, c’monnnn!” Click! You blink. The picture’s been taken. And then the photographer runs across to you, all excited to […]
Can Harley Davidson’s Secret Weapon Revitalise Your Marketing?
Imagine yourself in a helicopter over Milwaukee, USA, on the shiny morning of June 13, 1998. You look down casually on the criscrossing tangle of roads on Interstate 94, and then do a doubletake. You can’t believe your eyes. It seems like there are hundreds of moving objects on the highway below. Maybe even thousands. […]
How To Create The Accidental Evangelist
Phil doesn’t really care about American Express. Why should he care? I mean it’s just a credit card after all. Sure it’s got a few benefits and features and stuff that other credit cards don’t have, but that’s not enough to make Phil yodel about American Express. Yet recently, Phil’s been yodelling Suddenly, Phil’s become […]
How To Duplicate Ebay’s Stickiness Factor In Your Small Business
It must have been 6:58 pm on Thursday, June 10, 1999. Without warning, Ebay’s site went down. But no one at Ebay broke into a sweat. Back in 1999, Ebay had been down on May 5 (for five hours), on May 20 (for seven hours). And on June 9, after Ebay’s site redesign, the server […]
An Exercise in Branding: Santa’s Website
Been to Santa’s website recently? Before you decide to go clickety, click — Santa doesn’t have a website. You knew that didn’t you? But what if Santa came to you and said, “Hey, I’d like to create a website. Can you help me? So let’s go about creating a brand for ol’ chubster You’d have […]
What Kids in Third Grade Know Instinctively
Expertise is a matter of perspective. It cannot be based in years. It cannot be based on experience. It can only be based on perception. To the second grader at school, the third grader is an expert Simply because the kid in the third grade knows more stuff than the second grade kid knows. Having […]
How Personalisation Creates Instant Attraction
Imagine a 200-pound man, with an overgrown moustache turning up for a speaking engagement in a pink suit, pink shirt, pink tie, pink socks, pink shoes. And holding up a pink coloured folder for good measure. Do you think this guy stood out or fit in? When this ‘pink man’ stood in front of the […]
