
Our article in the Jan ‘09 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.
Martin Lindstrom’s new book and company, Buyology, hope to kick start the next wave of neuromarketing. Will they deliver?
We talk to Martin Lindstrom from his New York City hotel.
Just hours after Barack Obama is elected US President, Lindstrom is getting ready to leave the US for his European book tour, the US tour having generated over 700 articles, including many in the mainstream press and an appearance on the couch of TV’s The Today Show.
It’s his bid to popularise the business book: “I realised that no one reads business books any more…what people, including business people, really read is novels…that’s the style I’ve tried adopting in Buyology.”
And the book is indeed a pleasant, easy read. But that’s one of the criticisms levelled at it by the Bob Barocci, CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation, who apparently dismissed the book in an Advertising Age article by saying that the ARF did not review “pop” books.
Notwithstanding that, the book has received widespread praise and is a bestseller.
So, just what is Buyology all about?
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And the winner of the Buyology giveaway is…Elizabeth Luke.
Elizabeth is a senior at the University of Southern California spending her final semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam. She is a communication major with an interest in persuasion and consumer behavior. She will be graduating magna cum laude in December 2008, and shortly after, she will begin her career as a research analyst for emerging consumer products at Nielsen BASES.
Elizabeth’s book is on the way, thanks again to Martin Lindstrom and publishers Random House.
Here are Martin’s responses to some of the questions you sent in (thanks for all the entries):
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Sir James Dyson is one of John Kearon’s heroes. Both are entrepreneurs. And both believe passionately in the power of supreme engineering innovation to deliver progress. So when the opportunity came up to have a chat with Iain Carruthers, brand consultant and now second time author, this time of an authorised biography of Sir James, we jumped at the chance to get the two Dyson aficionados in conversation. Iain’s managed to pull together a fascinating series of insights that should appeal to entrepreneurs and brand marketers alike. Once you’ve heard this, dive into the book: Great Brand Stories: Dyson
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The fact that companies like Toyota and Tesco and Proctor & Gamble in many of its categories have shown that you can in fact keep improving delivery on the basics, shows that it’s not just a commodity…
(Patrick Barwise)

The renowned marketing Professor Patrick Barwise is a relatively rare animal, an academic with commercial instinct and pragmatism. Here he talks to Michael Warren about the ramifications of his two most recent books, ‘Simply Better’ (which won the American Marketing Association’s 2005 prize for the best recent book in marketing), and one that he is currently writing with the working title: ‘Customer Insights – Beyond Market Research’. His ability to cut through marketing myths, hype and meaningless jargon using solid reasoning reinforces his position as one of the industry’s most valued thought-leaders
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The assumption is that by-and-large, individuals make decisions on their own. My Herd point-of-view is that people influence each other, often without realising it

Mark Earls’ latest contribution to life, the universe and everything is gaining traction. His new book rethinks how people make decisions and discovers as a result that much of current research practice is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions and interpretation of consumer behaviour. Quite fitting for this self-styled ‘Contrarian’. The book provides psychology underpinning for many recent phenomena such as social networking, engagement, conversations, ethnography, blogging and predictive markets by showing how we act as groups and not individually. Part of our monthly column for ESOMAR’s Research World magazine
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“China will account for 25-30% of world trade in 20 years time”

We all know about the surging economies in India and China and how they stand to become the largest within decades. But in this conversation with the passionate and authoritative Prof. Richard Scase, we hear how this and other global issues such as climate change and energy shortages, will affect everyone in both a personal and professional capacity. It’s not a pretty picture, but then again we need leading forcasters like Richard to get us all to act before it’s too late
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Recorded live at the Euro MR Event 2006 Read the rest of this entry »
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“When you’re in a revolution there are only two sides…and the side that wins is the one going forward…buying into the modern world”
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In this thought-provoking chat, Dan O’Donoghue tells Olaf Willoughby why the end of advertising agencies is nigh, why planners should return to their roots as consumer champions, and why researchers shouldn’t expect guidance from ad. agencies during this time of media flux
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“The board of Tesco still spends one week every year on the shop floor … in order to know what’s going on at the duck level.” (Patrick Barwise)

In this, the first preview podcast for the upcoming European MR Event in London, John Kearon of BrainJuicer and his roundtable of marketing and business thought-leaders discuss the future of research.
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- Ed Keller, The Keller Fay Group, and co-author, The Influentials
- Prof. Patrick Barwise, LBS, and co-author, Simply Better
- Peter Fisk, The Foundation, and author, Marketing Genius
- John Kearon, Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer (Host)
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In this, the third of four preview podcasts ahead of ESOMAR Congress ‘06, one of the industry’s foremost entrepreneurs, John Kearon of BrainJuicer, speaks to one of the nation’s most accomplished serial entrepreneurs, Sahar Hashemi, co-founder of Coffee Republic and founder of new startup Skinny Candy. Sahar talks about ways to stimulate that all-important entrepreneurial spirit within all of us so as to cultivate innovative and fresh thinking
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Joseph Jaffe, the innovative marketing thinker, is the author of Life After the 30-second Spot in which he passionately argues for marketers and advertisers to embrace the more imaginative and engaging techniques in an era of media fragmentation and consumer generated media
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