Rory Sutherland with a truth bomb:
People don’t necessarily know what they want.
Economists certainly don’t know what’s good for people.
Marker research isn’t a reliable way to discover unmet or untapped needs. Because the unmet needs are often unthought and therefore unspoken.
Looking at people’s past behavior is naturally constraining because it only shows what people do under situation and choice frame X. Not what they might do under choice architecture Y.
All 3 of the means we use to predict the future in terms of human behavior are deeply incomplete and therefore what we need to do is hypothesize more and experiment more.
The customer is always right. They just don’t necessarily know what the question is.
Test & improve.
We’re about a week out from a potential TikTok ban taking effect in the US and it seems like there’s still a lot of fuzziness about how that actually gets implemented.
App stores will have to remove it.
But will ISPs have to block it?
Does the company turn off the computers and lock the doors?
NBC News—part of the network that was home to late night hosts from Johnny Carson to David Letterman—have a story on how podcasts are becoming the new talk show.
YouTube, which has become a leading destination for podcast consumers in recent years, said that viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts per month on their TVs in 2024.
Why do podcasts work so well?
They’re free from the restraints of the linear commercial break and TV Guide schedule. And digital platforms allow for community.
“What video podcasts give you is a comment section, and you can plant a flag for a community there in a way that’s sort of disappeared from TV,”
Amazon’s retail business is basically just an R&D lab for the company’s real business: being a platform company for others to build on.
Amazon’s new Retail Ad Service is making retail media networks available to everyone. The service lets retailers use Amazon’s powerful advertising technology to sell ads on their websites.
via MarTech
Unpacked an order with multiple items and noticed each one had been checked off by hand on the packing list.
Not as impactful as the handwritten note from an artisan or small business…
But still a small touch that adds a dash of human connection to an otherwise faceless transaction.
I think both brands and work relationships—with employers, coworkers, peers, clients, customers, etc—move through three phases:
- Prove you’re competent
- Prove you’re reliable
- Prove you’re human
(They don’t always progress in that order.)
No. 3 is the one most often missed. And the most valuable one.
The markets are betting on inflation not just being so 2024.
the US government’s monthly auction of 10-year notes on Tuesday...landed the highest yield for newly auctioned securities since 2007.
The overall yield on the US 10-Year Treasury Bond also touched its highest intraday point, 4.699%, since last spring. That’s thanks to an extended selloff emboldened by new economic data suggesting more interest rate cuts are less likely in the short term thanks to economic growth coupled with more stubborn inflation.
Yields on the 10-year note have been rising since December as markets have bet that President-elect Donald Trump’s economic plans, like tariffs, and all-around animal spirits could push up inflation and the deficit, further reducing the probability of rate cuts.
Wouldn’t be surprised by a purchasing bump in the near term to stock up before the expected tariff impact makes things more expensive.
This is a good reminder from this year’s Seth Godin daily calendar, curated and illustrated by Debbie Millman.
It is easy to get caught up in our own tastes and aesthetics when making marketing decisions.
But they’re a distraction.
The tastes and preferences that matter are those of the customer.
You can obsess about your customers or you can obsess about your competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.
from Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly 📚
I’d argue obsessing about customers takes care of the competition.
Everything is customer service.