Ever clicked “No thanks, I don’t like saving money” when declining an offer? That’s confirmshaming – guilt-tripping language designed to make you feel foolish for opting out. I’ve had more than a few encounters with American investor spivs shouting, “So you don’t like making money?” as if I were a penny short of tuppence. My […]
Category Archives: Customer Insight
September
23
Dark Patterns Part 3: Sneaky Defaults
posted by Mike O'Brien
Distraction is a marketer’s best trick – and a brand’s biggest risk. Ever been too distracted to notice the “subscribe me to marketing emails” box already ticked? Or that extra insurance slid silently into your cart? That’s the power of defaults – exploiting the fact that in the rush of shopping, most of us aren’t […]
September
23
Dark Patterns Part 2: Hidden Costs
posted by Mike O'Brien
You’ve chosen the product(s) – think Amazon’s upsell suggestions. You’ve entered your details. You’re seconds from hitting “buy.”Then – the sting: extra fees revealed only at checkout. This is drip pricing or hidden costs. Airlines perfected it. Hotels followed. Now, it’s everywhere from concert tickets to clothing. Why it works Behavioural economics calls this the […]
September
23
Dark Patterns Part 1: Urgency & Scarcity
posted by Mike O'Brien
We’ve all felt it: the ticking timer at checkout, the red text screaming “Only 1 left!”, the banner warning “Hurry – 37 people are looking at this right now.” These are urgency and scarcity tactics – designed to trigger a primal fear of missing out (FOMO). Why it works Behavioural science explains it. Scarcity is […]
September
23
When “Choice” Isn’t Really Choice
posted by Mike O'Brien
The Dark Pattern Problem in E-Commerce In 2022, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that over 60% of major e-commerce sites were using “dark patterns” – manipulative design tactics that steer consumers into decisions they might not otherwise make. These aren’t glitches. They’re deliberate choices by designers and marketers. Think: Each one leverages […]
July
12
The quantum marketing skills challenge.
posted by Mike O'Brien
Most of the marketing tasks that once took highly-skilled teams weeks to accomplished can now be actioned in minutes by an individual with a smartphone. Even the most complex programmatic campaigns are triggered, delivered and dynamically optimised in milliseconds. But speed isn’t everything. While marketers make every effort to optimise business and human productivity, […]
December
03
The 12 A’s of Christmas
posted by Mike O'Brien
Santa has been busy thinking about what you want for Christmas My early Christmas gift to one and all readers is my definitive A-Z list (with a twist ) of marketing in the digital age… the twist is that they all begin with the letter A. There’s optimisation for you. Attention Keeping in touch with the […]
October
03
The ABC of OVP (Online Value Proposition)
posted by Mike O'Brien
As Leonardo DaVinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” So my as-simple-as-it-gets take on developing a powerful OVP (Online Value Proposition) is… “Be more useful than useless.” The process is as follows: A. Assess what customers find most useful B. Be especially mindful of things that remain useful over time C. Commit to remaining demonstrably more useful than […]
April
16
Get agile or get left behind
posted by Mike O'Brien
On February 11-13, 2001, at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, seventeen software developers got together to, as they put it: “Talk, ski, relax, and try to find common ground.” What they produced and signed up to was The Agile Manifesto: a 12-point commitment to optimising the development of software […]
February
03
The RISE of the micro marketing machine
posted by Mike O'Brien
The past makes me confused about the future of marketing The Bellwether report for January 2015, found that the “fragile nature of the economy has knocked the confidence of marketers and forced many to adopt “cost-efficient” online strategies to reign in their advertising spend.” It then went on to state that, “Despite the slowdown in advertising spend in […]
December
16
Laughing time is almost over for the agency as we know it
posted by Mike O'Brien
In two minds about the future of advertising and marketing Sir Martin Sorrel himself admits if he was starting out again he wouldn’t build the kind of mega agency he runs today. He is busy looking towards China, digital and customer insight to maintain momentum while wondering, like the rest of us, is there a better […]
July
17
Nest on its way to your home and beyond
posted by Mike O'Brien
Big Brother’s toe in the door or the start of bringing Amazon-style customer service into our everyday lives? I am firmly in Nest’s corner on this one. The idea of my home and many of the objects in it anticipating my every need, want and desire is going to be good for our lives and […]
July
14
Wherever you go, there you are – together with contextual marketing.
posted by Mike O'Brien
Time for marketing to stop living in the past… and the future for that matter. Living in the present moment is essential to a happy life according to Buddhist practitioners of mindfulness. It helps us to eliminate ego-centric concerns about the past and speculative fretting about the future from our lives. In the present moment, we can create […]
February
03
Rightware delivers benchmark tool to identify the fastest smartphones and tablets
posted by Mike O'Brien
Like all good ideas – Basemark X is focused on being useful to customers
January
22
Hi my name is Mike and I am an insight infoholic.
posted by Mike O'Brien
How well do you know your customers? Developing deep, actionable insight into the world of customers is fraught with difficulty for small businesses. Those huge databases chock full of accurate, well classified and richly segmented collations of relevant data sets will forever be in our hearts but not within reach of our budgets. So do […]
