During Covid-19 it felt like everyone was working from home. But this was a classic case of marketing myopia. Even at the height of the pandemic, less than half of British workers did so from home.
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In a study, led by chef Heston Blumenthal, those who were told it was ice cream didn’t like it – given it was pink they were expecting the taste of strawberry, not fish. But when it was introduced as ‘chilled salmon mousse’, to give people a fair warning, the reaction was much more positive.
Britain wouldn’t have cracked the German code without the Enigma machine – but they wouldn’t have done it without human creativity either. To narrow down the 159 quintillion possible combinations, the Bletchley Park team made educated guesses at certain words the message would contain; for instance they knew that the German forces sent out a daily ‘weather report’, and they knew that most messages would contain the phrase ‘heil Hitler’.
After smartphones were meant to kill off cameras, the Xiaomi 15 is bringing them back. It allows you to attach lenses and shutter buttons, giving reviving the old-fashioned point-and-shoot feel.
Several brands, like Barry’s Bootcamp, Tesco and Arsenal F.C. now use the same ‘year in review’ concept, but none resonate as well as Spotify’s. For one, music is heavily influenced by moods, trends and nostalgia, while buying groceries is a functional process based on needs and cost. Tesco’s Clubcard Unwrapped only serves to remind people how much of their income is spent on (often unhealthy) food. Essentially, these brands are mostly not limited by their ideas – they’re limited by their category.
On YouTube, fame is not the norm: a tiny proportion of channels (<1%) have more than a million subscribers.
Zappos, the online retailer, tells its call centre employees that they can never use a script, and they can never upsell. This unconventional approach makes the experience distinctly human, and has established Zappos as a leader in customer service.