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Overview
"HERD is a rare thing: a book that transforms the reader's perception of how the world works". —Matthew D'Ancona, THE SPECTATOR
"This book is a must. Once you have read it you will understand why Mark Earls is regarded as a marketing guru." —Daniel Finkelstein, THE TIMES
This paperback version of Mark Earls' groundbreaking and award winning book comes updated with new stats and figures and provides two completely revised chapters that deal with the rise of social networking.
Since the Enlightenment there has been a very simple but widely held assumption that we are a species of thinking individuals and human behaviour is best understood by examining the psychology of individuals. It appears, however, that this insight is plain wrong. The evidence from a number of leading behavioural and neuroscientists suggests that our species is designed as a herd or group animal. Mark Earls applies this evidence to the traditional mechanisms of marketing and consumer behaviour, with a result that necessitates a complete rethink about these subjects.
HERD provides a host of unusual examples and anecdotes to open the mind of the business reader, from Peter Kay to Desmond Tutu, Apple to UK Sexual Health programmes, George Bush to Castle Lager, from autism to depression to the real explanation for the placebo effect in pharmaceutical testing.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780470744598 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wiley |
| Publication date: | 08/17/2009 |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
He has held senior positions in some of the largest and most influential communications companies in the world – his last job was as chair of Ogilvy’s Global Planning Council, prior to which he was Planning Director at the revolutionary St. Luke’s Communications in London.
His written work has regularly won awards from his peers and is considered by many to be amongst the most influential being written about consumer and mass behaviour today. His first book, Welcome to the Creative Age, was widely read and discussed and has been translated into several languages. HERD has received recognition and praise in a number of fields and Mark has travelled extensively to talk about HERD with audiences drawn from both the business and the public sector.
Mark lives in North London but would rather be watching cricket or fishing, ideally somewhere sunny.
Read an Excerpt
Table of Contents
Dedication vAbout the Author xvi
Foreword by Russell Davies xvii
Notes on Paperback edition xxi
Introduction 1
At the 'cellotaph' 1
Ghostbikes 4
So how are we to explain this kind of thing? 4
Bigger boys made me do it 5
A book about mass behaviour 7
Mass behaviour is hard to change 7
Bad theory, bad plan. Better theory? Better plan? 9
Old news? 10
I and the other 10
Market research and me 11
We're all individuals – I'm not 12
Understanding the how not just the what? 13
What the book will cover 14
How to use this book 17
Part One: A 'We-Species' with an illusion of 'I'
1: The Super-Social Ape 21
Tea and kindness 23
Advertising works 24
Even more advertising works 25
We want to be together 26
Say what you see 28
A we-species 29
Are we stardust? 30
The successful ape 31
Homo or Pan? 32
When I grow up 33
Primates are social 34
Why the naked ape? 35
Sexuality 36
The infant ape 36
So why naked then? 39
The brain of a social ape par excellence 39
How others shape us 41
How we make each other unhappy 42
The social brain 43
The sound of the crowd 44
The empathetic ape 45
Language and stroking 46
The loneliness of autism 47
Collaboration: the keys to the kingdom 50
Self-interest and collaboration 51
Game on 51
Game over and over 52
Collaboration across the nation? 53
Learning from each other? 54
How collaboration built the world 55
Shirts – the work of many hands 56
Summary of this chapter 57
Questions to ponder 57
Questions and issues for marketers 58
2: The Illusion of 'I' 59
Pepper's ghost 62
What does Pepper's ghost tell us? 63
I woke up this morning . . . 64
What it is – oh, I forgot 65
Eternal sunshine and spotless minds 66
False memories 66
Monkey see 68
Lazy minds 69
Don't think too hard 71
Retelling the story 72
The big when 73
The illusion of consciousness 75
Depression and the distorted self 78
Treatments 79
Summary of this chapter 81
Issues arising 82
Questions and implications for marketers 82
3: 'I' vs. 'Us' 85
Yes we can 87
Travelling for real 89
Beware Greeks 91
Ubuntu 92
Peace and reconciliation 93
Wo die Zitronen blühn 95
Studying consumer tribal behaviour 97
Beyond marketing 97
Far from the madding crowds 98
The politics of 'I' 100
The collective mind 100
No such thing as society 102
Is the rest of the world so wrong? 102
'I' ideology 103
How social psychology got individualized 104
'I' research 105
Expert opinion 106
Heroes and villains, and other individuals 108
Unhappy feet? 108
The curious tale of curious George 109
What this chapter has demonstrated 110
Some questions 111
Issues for marketers arising from this Chapter 111
Part Two: The Seven Principles of Herd Marketing
4: Key Principle No. 1: Interaction 115
At the market 117
At the urinal 118
In the lecture theatre 121
Complexity vs. complicated 122
Complexity as a way of seeing the world 123
Interactive animals 124
Interactive humans 125
Back to the football 126
Learning from the Mexican wave 127
At the office 128
Meanwhile, somewhere in Aberdeen 129
Summary so far 130
Every day, every day, in every way . . . 130
Crime and punishment 132
New York, New York 133
The physics of crime 135
More crime, less physics 136
Crims, saints and floaters 137
Fighting on the beaches (and in the suburbs) 139
The facts 139
Analysis 141
What to do about such riots 143
Markets and interaction 143
Behavioural markets 145
The challenge for market research 146
Issues arising 147
Implications and questions for marketing and business 147
5: Key Principle No. 2: Influence 151
Saturday night's all right 153
Faces in the crowd 154
1-2-3-4 . . . 155
Brainwashing 156
Brainwashing and conformity 156
Parallel lines 157
Fear and needles 158
Hands together, please 159
The placebo effect 160
What do you do to me? 161
Stupid boy 162
Marky Mark is not Influential 163
Why one-to-one is wrong 164
Charidee, my friends 165
Relation-canoes 165
Relationships redux 166
Channel tunnel vision 167
From you to me to me and everyone I know 168
Getting over yourself 169
More influence 170
The Milgram experiment 171
Let the tapes roll 172
How good people do bad things 173
Born unequal? 175
Naturally influential? 176
Social influencers 178
Connectedness 179
Meet Lois 180
Influence and influencers 181
Researching influence 181
Learning from Decision Watch 182
The Influenced not the Influencer 184
What this chapter has shown 186
Some questions for marketing 187
6: Key Principle No. 3: Us-Talk 189
Don't believe the hype 191
Children of the revolution 192
So why is the record industry so scared? 193
Scary Mary 195
What can we learn from the Arctic Monkeys' success? 196
Boom time for WoM Marketing 196
What does Marketing (really) know about WoM? 197
WoM Fact 1. Word of mouth is seen by consumers to be more important than other influences on individual purchases 198
WoM Fact 2. Word of mouth is seen to be getting more and more important over time 199
WoM Fact 3. Word of mouth seems to operate in both B2B and B2C 201
WoM Fact 4. Word of mouth is a global – and not just a North American – phenomenon 202
Astroturfing 204
IMotorola 205
WoM Redux 207
Grooming & feeling good 208
Talk and grooming 209
More grooming talk 209
How bad science changed the mind of a nation 210
Real impacts 214
What can we learn from the MMR case? 214
The conversation has already started 215
Us-talk again 217
It's not all (or even mostly) about you! 218
Paying for it 219
Talk in the real world 219
Talking about telly 220
That one number again 221
Don't Matter What You Say: the One Number Still Matters 224
What this chapter has shown 224
What's next? 225
Questions for marketing 225
7: Key Principle No. 4: Just Believe 227
Disappointed of Des Moines (or Dunstable)? 229
Meaning in a world of oversupply 230
Three principles explained 231
Goodnight Vienna 232
I believe 233
Cardigan Bay's third biggest clothing company 234
Outdoor threads 235
Nice to have? 235
Think differently 236
The journey (home) 238
Jamie's dinners 239
Being Naked 242
Anomalous Thinking 243
Back to the future 245
Enron and everything after 247
A challenge – does belief pay? 247
So what does the study show? 248
You are not alone 249
Free and legal 250
A is for . . . 252
Before we go 253
1. Be who you are 254
2. What do you believe in? Find it and live it! 254
3. Act like you mean it (and don't act like you don't . . .) 256
Summary: taking a stand 257
Some questions arising for marketing 258
8: Key Principle No. 5: (Re-)Light the Fire 259
Keep the home fires burning 261
The fire inside 262
Easier to extinguish than light 264
The misfits 266
Relighting my fire 267
The power of dreams 267
Dream a little dream 269
Vile bodies 270
A familiar situation 271
Girl talk 272
The danger of missions 273
You too can look like this 273
More belief 276
'T ain't what you say 277
The fire inside – summary so far 279
Where next? 280
How to work out what to do? 281
More behaviour thinking 282
Show, don't tell 282
Interlude: Beyond Petroleum 284
Belief in a cynical age 287
Cynics and dogs 288
Spotting cheaters 290
Conclusions 291
Questions for marketers 291
9: Key Principle No. 6: Co-Creativity 293
Unlikely popstars vol. 103 295
Charidee, my friends 296
Number one and everything after 297
So what does the 'Amarillo' syndrome teach us? 299
Originality and creativity 300
(Value) chain of fools? 301
Is this new news? 303
Hi-tech co-creativity 304
Welcome to SIM City 305
Rewriting history (together?) 306
Galileo, Newton and Einstein 307
Another 'pencil squeezer'? 309
Co-creativity – summary so far 309
Meetings, bloody meetings 310
Kick-off 312
At the theatre 313
Co-creative marketing attempts to change mass behaviour 314
I saw this and I thought of you 315
Using co-creativity to change internal audience mass behaviour 317
The Hawthorne effect and after 318
Co-creative innovation 319
Two types of co-creative networks 320
The Ocean's 11 dream team 321
Co-creativity and market research (1) 322
Co-creativity and market research (2) 323
Some ideas that co-creativity challenges 323
Some questions for marketing 324
10: Key Principle No. 7: Letting Go 325
What a score! 327
The limits of my powers 329
The loneliness of the touchline 330
What Carwyn did and didn't do 331
The loneliness of the manager 332
The company as machine 332
Reducing the human element 333
Children of the lesser god 334
Another point of view 335
Human remains 336
Interaction businesses 337
A different kind of job 337
Back to the drawing board? 340
So what can you do? 342
More human physics 342
Crisis, what crisis? 343
Let them all talk 344
Talk with the talkers 347
What do they talk of? 348
And finally . . . 348
As inside, so outside 349
The end of management 349
Some questions for marketing 350
Part Three: Making Sense of the Herd
11: Conclusions 355
Life, the universe and giant aquatic reptiles 357
Seeing things differently 358
Conclusion 1: Our species is first and foremost a social one 359
Implication 1: Stop thinking and talking with words that conjure the 'I' perspective 360
Conclusion 2: Individuals are unreliable (if not largely irrelevant) witnesses 360
Implication 2: Don't ask 360
Conclusion 3: Interaction is everything; interaction is the 'big how' 361
Implication 3: Understand the how-mechanic and use it 361
Conclusion 4: C2C, not B2C 361
Implication 4: Get the system to work for you 362
Conclusion 5: MVC vs. MIC? 362
Implication 5: Rethink targeting 362
Conclusion 6: Communication is not about sending information 363
Implication 6: Communication and action 363
Conclusion 7: What people say is just the most visible influence 364
Implication 7: Make peer-to-peer interaction the real goal of all marketing (and not just WoM) 364
Conclusion 8: Be more interesting 365
Implication 8: Find your Purpose-Idea and live it 365
Conclusion 9: Co-create 365
Implication 9: Learn to be a great co-creator 366
Conclusion 10: Letting go 366
Implication 10: Rethink 'management' 366
Postscript to the Paperback edition 369
And it's goodnight from him . . . 369
Endnotes 371
Index 385