Current Topic: Strategy

How do you judge a person's status? Do you look at his or her clothes? Or their possessions?

According to the Shape-SES theory, most people tend to infer a person's socioeconomic status from his or her body shape. And this turns out to be the case for products and their shapes as well! 

So, what kind of package shape do you think of as luxurious? Or what would you describe as a high-status product?

A recently published paper suggests that packaging shape affects how we categorize products and judge brands' status. 

Do you want to learn more about how product packaging is used to position a brand in the consumer's mind? Continue reading!

Did you know there's a hidden route to consumer preference? A recent study has demonstrated that even the most subtle features of a brand name, such as the mere pronounceability of words, affect consumer attitudes. By choosing a favorable brand name, consumers' attitudes towards your product or brand might improve. But how to come up with such a brand name? 

Every word requires specific movements of the lip, tongue, and throat muscles. Changing any movement can distort the whole name. For example, try articulating ''L'' without moving your tongue. Pointless! Movements on specific locations within the mouth are necessary to articulate consonants. Some consonants are pronounced in the back of the mouth, some in the middle, and some at the front, resulting in either inward-wandering or outward-wandering words. Research has now demonstrated that this direction of the movements in articulating consecutive consonants has a considerable impact on consumer preference. Also called the 'in-out effect'. 

Do you want to know more about the in-out effect and how to come up with a favorable brand name? Continue reading! 

What brand do you think of when you hear ‘George Clooney’? And ‘Michael Jordan’?

Exactly, Nespresso and Nike! These are both brands that have successfully implemented celebrity branding.

Many organizations use this type of advertising. But does every celebrity endorsement work for every product or brand?

You might have already guessed correctly: no. Well then, what makes it effective? Does the celebrity simply have to be attractive? Match the product? Have a good public image?

Over fifty years of research on celebrity endorsements has tried to explain this. Recently, two researchers proposed a framework that structures these theories. It explains which strategy is valuable for you, based on your product’s or brand’s value proposition. Curious? Let’s dive into it!

Do you ever think about the first impression you leave on others?

If you are like most people, you do. After all, we only have one chance to make a great first impression, right?

But leaving a memorable first impression is not just relevant for people. It’s also very important for online retail brands. In fact, leaving a positive first impression elevates returns, sales, and brand experiences!

Curious to find out how? This blog will explain how brands can use their product delivery packaging to leave an exceptional first impression on their customers.

Ideas. They are the rocket fuel behind many of life’s best decisions. And some of the worst.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur in search of fruitful business avenues, a storyteller pondering on a thought-provoking new narrative, or just a tourist contemplating what new things to do for holiday. For many of these decisions, we tend to turn inside for answers. In a very real way, we’re internally brainstorming with ourselves, trying to wrap our hands around these pearls of wisdom we call ideas.

Initial ideas differ widely in their vividness and concreteness. We tend to love vivid ideas. The entrepreneur could suddenly connect the dots between a brand-new technology and a target market that has a need that just screams to be met. The writer can conjure entire plotlines out of thin air in a matter of seconds, beginning, middle and end. And the tourist may suddenly decide to go bungee jumping in the crater of a sleeping volcano – I know I did.

But do these sudden crystal-clear notions always provide the best path to go forward? You may be able to think of some of your own initially brilliant ideas that turned out to be lukewarm at best – I know I do.

And what about those other ideas that were not fully crystalized yet, causing you to throw them out of the window? Of course, the million-dollar question is: how many of those prematurely discarded ideas would have turned out to be brilliant?

Countless of studies have been done on how individuals evaluate the creativity of their final ideas. But the psychology behind how we evaluate and build upon the initial figments of those ideas during the creative process itself has rarely been studied.