How do you take two completely (perceivably) irrelevant things and say they are linked? Well Dan Cobley (from Google) does exactly that.
Physics and Marketing are related… As ridiculous as it sounds, it is kinda true. Watch his TED talk for his side of it.
Come to think of it… Sir Isaac Newton (yes… the physicist) has contributed to marketing literature too! let me elaborate-
Reilly’s Law of Retail Gravitation- William J. Reilly, in the 1920s, proposed a formula to calculate the propensity with which a customer would choose one retailer over another if we know the size of the stores and the distance that separated them. In comes the formula,
Painfully tedious as it looks, the foundation of this formula was ,
Looks familiar? Seen that formula sometime in highschool, while cramming for exams?? Yes. It is derived from Newton’s Law of Gravitation. Ta daa!
Guess physicists would make great marketers! What say?
Decided I’ll get a little serious with this one. Sorry.
I just watched The Root of all Evil, a really nice documentary by Richard Dawkins who is a self declared atheist. The movie (about 45 min long) goes all around the world (mostly america and the middle east) analyzing the pitfalls and social abnormalities of religion. Though some of the arguments that Dawkins presents (in his previous books and interviews ) are very intriguing and almost convincing, I found this documentary rather adversarial than educative. Dawkin’s tirade on the non-existence of GOD is based on bloodshed and hatred caused by religion, an argument which, I think, is not completely correct. He cites the blood spilled in the Crusades, WWII, and today’s version of religious extremism as modalities to prove his point, that atheism is the way to go. First off, that sounds a lot like every other religious promulgation I’ve ever heard. But that apart, he is absolutely misplaced in claiming that religious faith is what fosters all this. While on the topic of bloodshed and genocide, he chooses only to focus on the blood that has been (or is being) shed in the name of religion, while conveniently ignoring tyrants such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and the monsters who massacred thousands (800,000 actually) in Rwanda. These were not religiously driven atrocities, they were ideological.. be it tribe, caste, ideology or even economic. So making a generalization about religion without statistical proof of it is simply SCIENTIFICALLY FLAWED. This actually brings us to the root of all evil. There is one common thing between all the above mentioned traits (religion, ideology, caste, etc)—belief. I feel that its only the extreme belief that causes all what Dawkins claims. It could be anything.. I could be very passionate about blueberry muffins for all you know. and be ready to kill someone over a bloody muffin (i really do love blueberry muffins, so ….) . The spark to all this comes when one feels insecure about a belief. The insecurity could be of any kind, economic insecurity, caste based, or any belief for that matter. To make generalizations based on a relatively small sample of extreme religious believers, the way Dawkins does, is plain stupidity. Preaching about atheism the way Dawkins is doing, simply makes him yet another preacher, only not a preacher of religion, thats all! Having said all this, I do agree with him on many accounts. For example the stubbornness of religion toward scientific evidence is more dunce-like and fuels the same insecurity that I spoke about earlier. Blind acceptance of Superstition, the denial of evolution are only some examples.
I think humans (and most animals for that matter) are socially competitive species. The clause being that Humans especially would go to any extent to ‘win’. You put three people in a room for a day, they will surely find ways to differentiate themselves.. be it religion, caste, creed, race or even science!They WILL FIND A WAY TO DISAGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER. Humans dont need religion alone to differentiate themselves! Any belief extreme enough is enough to break society. So, Dawkins, you too are causing rifts within society (by preaching atheism).. just like the imams and the popes whom you blame.
I jus stumbled upon this truly moving, passionate appeal to human kind about bed bugs and their habits. The author is a Professor of Entemology at Univ of Illinois, Urbana. Go read it… its pretty revealing.
Select Quotes:
And they’re (the bed bugs) remarkably adept at circumventing our defenses: They not only attack while we sleep, but they also inject anesthetics, so as not to awaken us, and anticoagulants, so that in every 10-minute feeding they can suck in two to three times their weight in clot-free blood.
Bedbugs win neither praise for their sophisticated technique, nor very much respect for the fact that they don’t carry diseases, as most bloodsucking human ectoparasites do.
And the more bizarre of them all.
Because the female bedbug has no genital opening, the male inseminates her by using his hardened, sharpened genitalia to punch a hole through her abdomen.
“Sir, would you care to get car insurance from GEICO?.. its only $40 a month! We have a special offer for you!”
“Sir, how would you like to avail of our super awesome discount of 45% on a home loan? We can give you a special special deal.. just for you, we’ll make the discount 48%! plus, we’ll throw in a key-chain… Value for money!”
Telemarketing .. telemarketing… How many of you got calls like this? And what is usually your response to it? Bharath (colleague at the place where I work) has a pretty awesome take on why this wouldn’t work. My personal experience? I don’t own a car nor do I have the financial capacity to pay for a home. Yet, I get these telemarketing calls frequently. Why?
The answer is that firms don’t know who their customers/prospects are. Awful targeting, and even worse, insistent selling are some of the biggest turn offs in a customer’s mind. Telephony is a rich medium of communication! If used optimally, you can make some serious money! But no.
#FAIL..
Anyway.. moving on. In addition to using telephony to acquire customers, companies use the same medium to maintain it. I’m going to focus specifically on the ‘customer service’ people when they deal with product fails. Take for example, the case of a canceled flight. Your 11 am flight to NYC is canceled due to a blown tire. Now you can’t make it to the 1 pm sales call. WHAT DO YOU DO?
Step 1: Curse your luck.. then realize your luck has nothing to do with it. So then , you blame the airlines for screwing this up.
Step 2: You want to vent it out somewhere..You try your spouse/friend/relative. Not happening.. phone slamming ensues.
Step 3: Call customer service.
What happens next is very interesting.You wait for half an hour, braving
the annoying intercom music (usually opera or orchestra.. both of which i hate),
a gazillion automated lady voices, who can never get your name right (Indian names are especially decimated).
Automated msgs that take you on a key-punching spree on your phone until you’re back listening to the annoying intercom music
And finally, someone (most likely a call center from you-know-where) comes online and explains to you how he/she understands what you are going through and that they can book you only on a flight the next day. Blah blah blahblah blah..
But how many times have you heard this,
“I know I can book you on the flight the next day… but lemme see if I can do better than that. I’ll try to book you on a flight with another airline, even if it’s not a direct flight.. and not business class.. but I’ll do it for you, ABSOLUTELY FREE”
Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere… right? … Dont know for sure.. but I guess so.
This is a practice better known as ‘anchoring’. Many companies try to create the WOW effect for their customers. Zappos is the best example that I can think of. If your shoe is torn (and of course, if you bought it from Zappos.com), and you wanted to return it, the customer service rep goes out-of-the-way to make you feel better. They really make the customer ‘feel good’ about them. They prove to the customers that they really really do care. (A whole case study about this came out in the HBR 2010. For more, go there.. I could get into trouble for putting all the info in my measly little blog). In fact, executives today forbid customer service reps from using negative language like , ‘No’, ‘that’s company policy’ etc.
By using this anchoring method, do companies make money on the customer? I doubt it.. They certainly do gain some trust with the customer. Now imagine, if they could ‘differentially’ do this for their customers. Then we might be in business!
Lets not try to deny this. We love Steve Jobs, Apple and anything he does. An an Apple product release is big news…using the product like having an orgasm without the paraphernalia. Its true.. and we know it.
A long time Mac-dreamer (simply because I dont have the money to afford one), I was surprised to see the extent to which Apple enthusiasts defend ‘their’ Jobs (Steve). The latest issue being ‘Antenna-Gate’. The much hyped Iphone 4 has a antenna design flaw which took a month for Jobs to admit. But that wasnt what pissed me off. It was his first response to it. “you’re holding it wrong”. Read the whole thing here.
But try quoting this to a Apple-enthusiast. They’ll respond with one of the following,
1. Yeah. I knew about it before I bought the phone
2. If you have a problem with the antenna.. dont buy the phone! (rather Steve Job-ish in my opinion.. but whatever)
3. Well… Do you have an iPhone? If not, you dont know anything about using an Apple product.
4. Its a minor issue.
and finally.. the classic..
5. @#$% you, man!
Now why do they ‘defend’ Jobs/Apple/iPhone so much?? I did a little reading and its called Cognitive Dissonance. They’ve spent $200 odd on a product (which they thought was perfect), only to find some faults with it. They want to convince you (and more importantly themselves) that they have made the right decision. And they will go a long long way to achieve that.
Its a little like chain smokers. You tell a smoker to quit cos he’s gonna die of cancer or something, he’s gonna say, “Smoking doesn’t cause cancer. its not been proven. Till then…”. That is cognitive dissonance. The person goes out of his way to look for support/evidence that his/her decision is the right.
So, creating cognitive dissonance is a good thing? I dont know… Do you think it’ll work with any product?
P.S- I’m not saying the iphone is a crappy product. I’m just sayin.. even if it was a crappy product… Apple can get away with it! Ain’t that a good thing?
Following along the lines of Ben Lyttleton of SI, I’m going to have my 2 cents on the Worldcup so far.
I’ve been watchin the WC off and on now. Not a big fan and all, but, hell.. it is the biggest event/festival right? Its been a lotta fun till now (with some exceptions), and I had some thoughts/rants on it.
1. Everyone wants in on it : As a learned friend of mine put it, ‘its that time of the year when everyone wants to know about soccer’. Good news for rule book publishers, TRPs, ‘Bend it like Beckham’-ish movies, and the like.. But dont drag it too far. MLS will remain the league of the ‘aged’! Beckham and ‘now’ Theirry Henry, arent gonna change much.
But, it certainly is a step in the right direction. More dollars certainly means more greedy soccer players means more viewership.. But not necessarily better football!
2. The bigwigs are a lot of hogwash - England, France, Italy have been total disappointments. Italy especially needs to stop bringing players from the old age home. I agree that old and wise is always good, but not on the field! My gramps always said..’Old and wise’ cant run and jump very much!
3. Its been one awesome drama too - The french soccer team meltdown was simply awesome to watch. Almost like a mega serial! I’m sure Evra, Domenech and that nameless trainer would do very well in a soap opera (very popular among the gossip hungry ‘housewives‘ of my country). While on the Domenech topic, I do think the fellow is a disgrace to the game. You’d agree, if you saw the way he reacted after France miserably lost to SA.
SPORTMANSHIP FAIL!
4. Everything is a conspiracy – Yeah.. the US vs. Slovenia disallowed goal was a horrible call. But I’m surprised at the crap thats being fed by the media about this. Apparently, they dont coach African refrees as well as they coach the rest of the world. What the hell! I mean, this is not some measly high-school girls soccer game (Palin’s soccer mom reference very tempting here). THIS IS THE FRIGGIN WORLDCUP! All the refs are handpicked, the best in the world.
Another conspiracy floating around was tht the ref, took money to make that call. . I mean,probable as it is, give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Its a worldcup game, probably his first tournament.. and he’s human too! If you are so hard on the guy, you should be the same for everyone! (case in point- the ref who screwed that perfect game in baseball barely a month ago).
I pray to god that the ref for the US-Algeria game doesnt screw up. Not for the sake of good football.. but his career!
As for that disallowed goal… YES IT WAS AN AWFUL CALL.. BUT IT WAS A HUMAN WHO WAS REF-ING. ITS PART OF THE GAME.. GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
5. Wimbledon- I feel bad for tennis today. I’d like to know how badly viewership has been affected because of the fifa WC. No regrets on that though. While on tennis, I hope you watched what I think might’ve been the greatest game in tennis in a long time. Mahut vs. Isner.. 10 hrs .. 5 sets… 59-59.. and still no winner!
. I mean,probable as it is, give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Its a worldcup game, probably his first tournament.. and he’s human too! If you are so hard on the guy, you should be the same for everyone! (case in point- the ref who screwed that 
