NORTHERN PLANNER

I'm not the only one whothinks agencies, and most specifically planners, need to engage with Behavioural Economics. Basing ideas on how people behave is supposed to be what we're good at. But…

..let's not fall into Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome. Most of it is really common sense. Like most credible stuff, it makes sense because we know it already, it just hasn't been codified. Take the concept of rewards to make people do stuff they don't want to…….

It also means proper research that looks at what people really do, going out and meeting them in their own environment, absorbing the culture. You won't get that in a focus group.

Speaking of groups, I was reading in this that groups are very bad at making decisions. They tend to polarise around very radical decisions, or very moderate ones, depending in the group dynamic. So you either go too far, or you get nowhere. Bad for focus groups and testing work, worse for workshops. Are brainstorms etc really useful for anything more than getting client buy in? Are the late nights getting stimulus ready better spent having a few people that work together well kicking some stuff around?