Bad Science

Dropped out of your sociology course? Flunked your psychology finals? Then why not get a job in branding? Never one to let the facts get in the way of a good soundbite, our door is always open for those with maximum brass-neck and minimum integrity…

Or so it would seem. Off-brand has been observing from the sidelines the increasing amount of speculation and generalisation passed off as scientific fact in the corridoors of brand consultancies and market research agencies.

Take, for example, â??Kevin Robertsâ?? continual assertion that we, (the consumer), are 20% rational, 80% emotional. Not only does this make the simplistic assumption that emotional and rational qualities are two ends of a finite spectrum, mutually exclusive, but it even goes one further by making the staggering suggestion that we are all, (yes, every human on planet earth), 20% rational, 80% emotional. What is even more staggering is that when this fact is presented, no doubt incorporated into a rather swish presentation, to management boards and branding conferences the world over, it seems to go largely unchallenged.

It’s little wonder that corporations and ad exec’s are so in thrall to this kind of mumbo-jumbo. They work in fundamentally fickle and risk-ridden businesses, unwilling to look the potential failure that brings squarely in the eye. In the feverish rush to find the formula for ‘brand loyalty’, a desire to understand human behaviour, the psychology of preference and how the brain processes brands has led to agencies becoming entranced by those claiming to understand the ‘science’ behind the behaviour of the consumer. In his excellent â??Century of the Selfâ?? TV series, Adam Curtis charts the emergence of thinking on the subconscious mind, led by Sigmund Freud, and how his American nephew, Edward Bernays, then used this to create the PR profession in 1920’s American, instantly converting an academic and scientific line of thought into a tool for engineering consent, in both political and marketing terms, which heralded the emergence of today’s consumer society.

We now, more than ever, have to comprehend that the brand (the object, the product, the service) is whatever the customer or user says it is. But we also have to realise that trying to create that brand by second guessing their subconscious desires and emotional triggers is a fruitless and impossible task and no amount of ‘scientific’ research can offset that. I think the way to reconcile these two things is really simple. Design with empathy and a world view, and simply try to do something that is different, and good. Do ‘light’ testing, and feel your way as you go. Don’t think of research as a seperate pre-cursor to the design, but rather an evolving process that grows with the design.

And finally, be as creative and imaginative in research as you are in the design task at hand, because the only thing I do know for certain is there is no ‘formula’.

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