#19 – Understanding Conceptual Closure, Loyalty and Trust, the language of our bodies, the end of collabs, and the limits of search marketing
Good morning everyone.
A family-holiday caused delay means this edition hits your inboxes even later than usual. (Apologies.) But I truly hope that the below selection of links makes up for this delay. It’s a meandering journey all about understanding: understanding the limits of collabs and search marketing, understanding Conceptual Closure, Loyalty and Trust, the language of our bodies, and the difference between British and American children’s stories.
Enjoy the clicks:
Make the Collabs Stop. Amanda Mull argues that nobody really needs a Harry Potter themed spatula. Or, most other brand collaborations for that matter. ”If, say, 95 percent of this garbage vanished from the face of the Earth tomorrow, no one would miss it. You might have noticed by now that we’ve talked a lot about what the companies involved in collabs get out of their continued popularity, and not very much about what regular people get from having this constant churn of largely meaningless novelty shoved in our faces. That’s because, in most cases, actual consumers get nothing except more junk.”
What if people stopped searching your category? Dr. Grace Kite shares the case study of the mattress category and the searches for mattresses during and after Covid19 to illustrate a point a lot of smart people have made and yet only few marketers seem to implement: search marketing doesn’t generate demand. “The marketing tools haven’t changed. It’s just that they have no demand to work with, and search marketing can’t generate demand. It can only harvest it.”
Marketers Need to Understand Conceptual Closure. Andrew Tindall’s post introduced me to the notion of Conceptual Closure (is it embarrassing that I’ve never knowingly heard of it before?) It’s a theory of how our brain processes information that gives very good reasons to not only introducing a brand at the end of a creative execution, but to make it central (i.e. inseparable) to it. "The sort of thing that can trigger conceptual closure is anything which tells the brain 'This is the end of the story. This is an end of the narrative'," Emeritus Professor Richard Silberstein, explained in a WARC article from 2017. “What the brain is looking for is what's called an 'event boundary', (like) the difference at the end of one (lump), the punchline of a joke, for example.”
Why Loyalty and Trust Aren’t the Same Thing. Rachel Botsman, who became a bit of an authority on trust since her book, offers us a glimpse into the things she has learned during her research on trust (and loyalty.) Her article skips through some thoughts on our relationships with people and brands, who we’re loyal to and who we trust, and why these two things might be connected but not the same: ”The Latin word for loyalty, faithful, and trust is the same – Fides. Interesting, because customer trust doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with loyalty (nor satisfaction or advocacy.) You can believe in what the company stands for and not buy anything from them. You can be satisfied with a one-off experience but never come back. You can even trust a brand to do something very specific but have zero loyalty to them.”
The Paradox of Listening to Our Bodies. This is an interesting, philosophical read about another concept I’ve never heard of before: interoception – the inner sense linking our bodies and minds. There are three different categories of it, the third one having to do with how our bodies and minds, together, sense and respond to the flow of events. That’s the type of interoception we refer to when we say we “listen to our bodies” or “go with our guts.” It’s a great read, so if you read one thing today, read this. A little downer before you head over to the text: ”Consistently perfect interoception is impossible: sometimes we listen to our hearts, but they have the wrong message; at other times, the message is right, but we don’t hear it. The body itself changes our capacity to listen.”
Why the British Tell Better Children’s Stories. As someone who’s getting paid to identify (and sometimes even understand) cultural differences between regions, countries, or consumers, this article was a nice reminder how our culture impacts our creative expression (and how we are susceptible for certain narratives.) According to the author, Colleen Gillard, British stories tend to be more fantastical, drawing on the country's pagan folklore and ancient countryside, while American stories are more realistic and moralistic. All of which, of course, can be explained by the cultural and historical roots of both nations.
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