The Lewis Model - Cultural Differences Simplified

I came across this while working on a global project. I'm sure anyone who's traveled outside the U.S. or spent time with people from outside the country will notice that there are distinct differences in how people behave. Do they tend to seem warmer? More emotional? Rational? Impulsive? Or respectful and hold tradition over everything else.

Can Psychology Help Us Understand Our Changing Relationships with Brands?

I always find it fascinating and exciting that the craft of planning requires so many different levels and ways of thinking. One must approach a brief from a psychological, creative and business perspective, to name a few. But one thing that remains constant is the focus on relationships; between the client and agency, planners and creatives, and most importantly between consumers and the brand. Max Spiegelberg points out how as advertisers, we should think about the relationship between our brand and the consumer in the same way we'd look at interpersonal relationships and note the implications.This article is re-blogged from Popsop Brand Magazine Online written by Max Spiegelberg.

You are welcome to share your thoughts on this article written by Max Spiegelberg, Brand Director at Bloom The saturation of markets, congestion of media and maturity of consumer understanding of brands has steered marketing practice in recent years beyond ‘image branding’ towards ‘relationship branding’. Loyalty is no longer simply won through passive respect. Consumers demand more.

The brand’s role today has evolved from being an object of desire to being a champion of its own philosophy. This is no easy feat for marketers. It takes time, confidence, continuity and a lot of money.

So it’s important to get it right from the start. It’s important to understand how we as consumers relate to brands and why we enjoy the relationships we have with them.

In 1997 Jennifer Aaker published the paper ‘Dimensions of Brand Personality’ in the Journal of Marketing Research. At the root of this paper, Aaker outlines a brand personality scale, mapping out 5 dimensions, or human characteristics that could be associated with brands. These are Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. This scale is often used to determine the current perceptions of a brand and to describe the desired future status of it.

This is all well and good but how do these traits strengthen a brand’s relationship with its audience? Should we profile consumer personality traits and map these against brand traits? Which characteristics are right for the brand?

These questions have led some academic marketers back to the Psychology text books to try to understand the affinity we as humans develop in our own relationships and whether this thinking can be applied to the consumer-brand relationship.

Social Psychology, put simply, is the study of how we perceive ourselves and how we interact with each other. Potentially there are some rich pickings amongst the research and models that this discipline has created.

As an example let’s look at a study of the development of interpersonal relationships. One of the most influential models in this field is proposed by psychologist, George Levinger (1983). According to his ABCDE model, the natural development of a relationship follows five stages:

1. Acquaintance: Becoming acquainted depends on a number of factors including, proximity, first impressions, attractiveness, similarities in personality, attitude, and interests and association to positive situations. Acquaintance may lead to the next stage or can continue indefinitely.

2. Build up: Beginning to trust and care about each other. Here there is a need for compatibility and filtering agents such as common background, cultural background and related interests. Compatibility will influence whether or not interaction continues.

3. Continuation: Following a mutual commitment to long-term relationships this is generally a long and relatively stable period. Continued growth and development will occur during this time.

4. Deterioration: Relationships deteriorate as a result of boredom, resentment and dissatisfaction. Individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure. Loss and betrayals may take place continuing the downward spiral.

5. Ending: This marks the end of the relationship by complete termination or separation. There are some obvious parallels here with our own developing relationships with brands. Jooyoung et al (2008) point out that true brand loyalty is derived from brand credibility, attitude, strength and brand commitment, which form the basis of Levinger’s first three stages here.

There are plenty of other studies that could be investigated. For the purpose of this article I have explored one model as an example but it serves to demonstrate the potential of Social Psychology to generate interesting parallels and further develop brand models.

All of this is predicated on the assumption that brands carry human traits and that consumers interact with brands in the same way that we interact with each other. Could it be that our richer understanding of brands and more complex relationships with them justifies a closer look at the field of Social Psychology?

Tyranny of the Alphabet: A new study explores how your last name influences how fast you buy stuff.

As someone who's last name starts with Aa, I'm strongly aware as to how last names influence ones perspective and behavior. Being at the beginning of the alphabet, I do not hold extreme will power and the ability to bounce off any attempts at advertising persuasion, but I am also not a shopaholic. Where do you stand? Click on the link for the complete article.

via the Slate

By Timothy NoahPosted Friday, Jan. 28, 2011, at 6:16 PM ET

My surname falls almost precisely in the middle of the alphabet, N being the 14^th of 26 letters. That may explain my previous indifference to the societal implications of alphabetization. Or perhaps I should say alphabetism, defined as discrimination against people whose last names fall near the end of the alphabet. We're talking about you, David Vitter, Reese Witherspoon, Carl Yastrzemski, and Fareed Zakaria (though it doesn't seem to have held any of them back). According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research (registration required) by Kurt A. Carlson, assistant professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, and Jacqueline M. Conard, assistant professor at Belmont University's Massey Graduate School of Business, the farther back in the alphabet the first letter of your surname falls, the quicker you're likely to chase some enticing new consumer offer. This response is rooted in childhood trauma.

To the extent I ever thought about this issue at all, I was inclined to believe that having your name at the end of the alphabet set you apart from the common herd in a good way. My Slate colleague and friend of 30 years, Emily Yoffe, has always been among the easiest people to find in what was, at various stages of my life, my address book, my Rolodex, my Palm Pilot, my PDA, and my bouquet of Apple devices (iTouch, iPhone, iPad). No matter what the platform, the way to find Emily was always the same: Go right to the end! Family members, by comparison, could be found only by stumbling around the middle, tempting me more than once not to send them Christmas cards. But Emily set me straight, confiding, for instance, that applause at her nephew Zachary Yoffe's graduation from the Naval Academy "was considerably less than for the kid whose last name was Anderson." She directed me to this survey in the Telegraph of London, in which readers with surnames at the start of the alphabet rated themselves more successful than readers with surnames at the end. Even in my address-book competition, Emily's advantage from being at the end is bested by that of my friend of 35 years, David Atkins, who resides at the beginning....

PSFK Salon: Future of Real Time

Last Friday I essentially had my mind blown away from 9am to 9pm. In the morning I attended the PSFK Salon: Future of Real Time, afternoon took a Rorschach test for my friend's psychology class, and evening attended a screening of The Last Lions. Post on my evening to come but first I'll address the salon at the Soho House. To simplify, the salon discussed what the implications are of data created in real time; i.e. through mobile applications, GPS, status updates, instant photographs and video. Like a Twitter feed in 2011, there was a lot of information to take in within the one hour presentation. Their presentation is available online and breaks the topics down more thoroughly but here's what I took away:Implications of real time data for psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists and planners who study human behavior:

Sites like OkCupid collect data on dating preferences, behavior, dynamics between men and women etc. leading to a data-driven, better understanding of what influences our dating choices - among other insights.

Facebook, Twitter and a new British site, Mappiness, collect data on people's general state of being, monitoring social sentiment. Wouldn't it be nice to discover how a population feels at any given point in time and what influences these feelings without having to do a labor intensive survey? And there's Voyurl, which allows you to view the actual behavior of people on the web, understanding what websites interest them. Users can discover the most popular sites and content they never thought to look for without user generated, deliberate recommendations.

Implications of real time data for marketers and advertisers:

Marketers and advertisers can take all the above data and use it to better market their products. Fast Society creates a temporary network allowing groups to communicate via text, voice and share their location. Marketers can take advantage of Fast Society, connecting their product to an event or location. Twitcritic is a service that monitors the online buzz of movies. The service has a track record of predicting box office success. Essentially, the "like" or positive sentiments has become a new form of currency, creating a stronger connection between the consumer and brand. Before social media, all an advertiser had to do was sell a product. With the advent of the Like button, spread of information and consumer advocates, it is absolutely essential that a product stay true to their message and maintain the trust of their consumer. That sounds like progress to me!

The implications for real time data in the physical world:

Services like Harassmap allow users to anonymously report physical locations of where they were harassed in the world. Instant Mapping is a local tool that allows users to create a shared, visual experience of their environment. Viz Center creates a shared visual experience for disaster response teams, allowing for more efficiency in disaster response. SF Park is a sensor installed into San Francisco parking spaces and an iPhone app that reveals when spaces are empty, enabling users to find parking more efficiently and prevent traffic as long as their not too absorbed looking at the app while driving.

Finally, during the question and answer section, a passionate debate ensued about the implications of all this real time data being public. Andrew Hoppin, the former CIO of the New York Senate advocated making most of the government data public in the hopes that it will facilitate a conversation that will improve our society as a whole or give businesses the information to better serve their community. Services like New York's 311, is a step in the right direction, collecting data from their call center and sharing it with the public on open311.org. But governments need to be more transparent and make data easy to digest. While there is an obvious push from consumers for marketers to be transparent, governments are not held to the same standards. It seems we hold more power as consumers than as citizens but hopefully that will change with more government transparency. Adam Leibsohn from voyURL touched on the practice of corporations using our data for their gain, saying it was okay they did this, as long as they were transparent. I strongly agree with his statement. I value honesty, transparency and an attempt at understanding as a means to solve most problems and think that if a marketer wants to use my information to sell me a product that I want, then the more power to them, especially if they are improving my life.

(Polymaps: site that allows you to overlay data onto different maps)

So what did I learn from all this? In 2006, Time marked "You" as the person of the year, implying a shift that the individual and collective have control, a shift from corporations and the government. Taking this idea further - I believe our collective data will be the driving force behind government changes, cultural shifts and marketing in the years to come. Because Information is beautiful.

Why Men Fight: A Look Into a Silicon Valley Fight Club

I recently saw The Fighter with my friend and was left wondering why the hell men fought. I mean.. seriously.. Why would you want to voluntarily get into a ring knowing that you were about to get the crap beaten out of you or be responsible for beating the crap out of someone else? I can imagine it's part of our animal nature to want to fight and I'm sure we can look into the animal kingdom to see them fighting for dominance regardless of whether or not their ability to secure food or procreate is involved. But as a woman, my nature tends to air on the side of motherly and protector. So when I came across a video on Gizmodo via The Next Wave about men in Silicon Valley creating a fight club, I was intrigued.The fighters talked about how the men bonded with each other by hitting each other. It was a way to test each other, build courage and a remedy for sitting at their desks all day. According to one of the participants, Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of aggressive people in the United States. So let's get back to nature for a minute here. For the better part of human existence, aggression was a key component to securing ones food or protecting ones family. Men in Silicon Valley no longer have to use physical force and strength to provide for their family. Instead, they use intelligence, strategic thinking, and endure countless hours behind the a computer - quite possibly for all the same reasons - that they want to provide for themselves and their family. So coming full circle, competitive or violent video games, sports, and... fight clubs are all most likely fueled by that residual aggression. Nike picked up on this insight years ago coming up with the strategy line, "Sport is war without the killing" which resulted in the line "Just Do It." And not to be outdone, Silicon Valley has taken that idea one step further with their very own fight club.

Click on the link to watch the video.

Uppercut from California is a place. on Vimeo.