If you’re always thinking about your audience and how they’re going to feel when they experience the thing that you’re making, then it becomes a bit more achievable.

James Acaster’s answer when asked if making something that’s both hugely accessible and innovative at the same time is something that can be designed for.

When talking about the song Hey Ya, naturally.

If you’re someone…who’s like “this has to be true to me and what I want to do” but also it can’t just be just for me and nobody else. I think if those are your priorities, then you can kind of accidentally on purpose do that more often than not.

Audience obsession is rarely the wrong choice. (Unless you lose yourself on the way.)


Shane Parrish shares the root of good marketing and brand building (though I think he was just talking about behavior change)

If you want to understand someone, figure out the narrative they tell themselves about themself.

If you want to change your behavior, change your narrative. If you want to change someone else’s behavior, offer them a more compelling narrative they can tell themselves.

Brands are narratives

Where the Venn diagram overlaps is where the magic happens.


An HBR article shares the findings of an ecommerce pricing study undertaken using A/B testing.

One finding:

Among the 54% price tests with a non-control winner, we found that 59% of winning price points were lower than the control price. This means that e-commerce retailers commonly overprice their products and, thus, leave some profitable demand uncaptured.

To which shoppers responded


Sunday Paper: Is It Better To Have Many Short Impressions, Or A Few Long Ones – What Science Says About Advertising Length And Frequency

The optimal length for typical video ads is around 10 seconds, while atypical ads may require 20 to 70 seconds for better recognition and engagement.


Availability trumps loyalty.

From David Gottlieb on the Behind the Numbers podcast:

In our specific primary research, we find that 40% of shoppers will brand switch when they can’t find the item they’re looking for.

But if you’re buying a consumer good like a soup or a mac and cheese or a home cleaning product, people are brand loyal to a point, but if they need something for a recipe or to complete their shopping mission, they’re probably not going to go home empty-handed.

That’s a real challenge for brands because brand loyalty is built slowly over time and it can erode very quickly if somebody is forced to try a competitive product, you’re giving them an opportunity that you don’t want them to have essentially as a loyal brand shopper.