How a tea drinking Englishman came up with 'America runs on Dunkin': PART 3 - The Return

Would an American have ever come up with ‘America runs on Dunkin’?

Or, for that specific line, did it have to be a foreigner?

Someone from the US would perhaps have started the phrase with ‘we’, or ended it with ‘us’.

Or, if staying in the third person, referred to it as ‘The US…’ or ‘The States…’ rather than ‘America…’

But I specifically meant ‘America’, much the same way, I think, that Paul Simon meant ‘America’ in the eponymous song.

Not so much as a geographic region or a nation state, but as a defining essence or spirit.

‘America’ as the shared belief in optimism, energy and the drive to keep moving forward.

I later learned of the existence of a tagline best practice rule - three, maximum four words, one of which should be the brand name.

But I stumbled upon the formula that day by chance - it had to be ‘America’ but then the rest just rolled off the tongue, and sounded pleasing.

A few years after the slogan’s launch, I found myself back in Boston visiting friends.

And having, somewhat ironically, now caught the caffeine bug back living in the UK, I naturally decided to start my day at Dunkin’.

It was after the morning rush was over and I found myself the only one there.

So after ordering my cappuccino, my eyes drifted to the posters on the wall and the cups on the counter.

And whether overcome by some powerful nostalgia, compelled by a yearning to reconnect or simply uncomfortable with the silence, it just came out.

‘That line, ‘America runs on Dunkin’… that was me, I wrote that’.

Instant mortification.

Why on earth had I volunteered that?

How crazy would the guy busy making my coffee think me to be?

So all the things he might say on turning back around raced through my mind.

‘That’ll be three dollars and fifty cents’.

But of course.

No time for small talk.

We’ve got a country to keep running…

How a tea drinking Englishman came up with 'America runs on Dunkin': PART 2 - The Revelation

Day 24.

Those two simple questions had proved not so simple after all.

And now there were only six days left before the client presentation, with the clock’s ticking verging on the deafening.

A sub-group had agreed to meet from noon that day at a local hotel, with an implicit understanding around its commission.

Until something happens in Jurys, it stays in Jurys.

Why were we finding this so hard?

We knew all we needed to about the brand.

And we were additionally armed with deep insights from a recent, and unconventional, piece of audience research.

In the study, Dunkin’ daily regulars had been asked to go every day for a week to Starbucks instead, and Starbucks’ devotees to go to Dunkin’.

(A research technique I’d been told as a trainee was called ‘Inundation and Deprivation’.)

These plucky volunteers were:

• Interviewed beforehand about their expectations for their reverse visits

• Given diaries to record their thoughts and feelings after each of these visits

• Then invited back, once the week was over, to debrief the moderator on how the experiment had gone for them

Safe to say that none of them were considering changing their allegiance.

And it became clear that for the Dunkin’ regulars, their choice of venue wasn’t just a matter of habitual loyalty but of tribal identity: they ritually went to Dunkin’ to start their day because it reflected their core values and sense of self.

And we also learnt that many of the things we’d long feared might be brand weaknesses were often the very markers of that identity.

So, for the Dunkin’ tribe, the absence of comfy, inviting seats didn’t signify spartan conditions: it recognised that they did jobs where time was money, so they’d rarely be at leisure to sit and sip.

Similarly, they saw the practice of adding any requested sugar on the customer’s behalf not as a constraint on their individuality, but as a practical means of speeding them more efficiently on their way.

So we now understood the core user as well as the brand: yet the solution to the riddle remained elusive.

The stumbling block kept proving the central ‘are we a bakery or a coffee shop?’ tension - how could we give up either without losing too big a part of ourselves?

Looking back, I rack my brain to remember any possible prompts or primes that morning.

Did I stop for petrol on the drive into the city centre?

Did the radio programme I was listening to reference a third way?

Or did the necessity of not arriving at the meeting devoid of an idea once again prove the mother of invention?

But as I pulled into a space on the upper tier of the Clarendon Street lot, it suddenly hit me.

The reason we can’t make an either/or decision is because it isn’t an either/or question.

It’s a neither/nor situation.

Dunkin’ is neither a bakery nor a coffee shop - it’s a fuel stop.

It supplies all the sustenance hard-working Americans need to keep themselves running.

Once that stubborn knot had been loosened, the logic cascaded as I sat there at the wheel, car stationary but mind racing.

WHO IS DUNKIN’ FOR?

The everyday folk who keep America running.

WHAT IS DUNKIN’ FOR?

To help keep them running, every day.

It’s like America runs on Dunkin’.

AMERICA RUNS ON DUNKIN’…???

Well, it has a certain rhythm…

And it’s definitely ‘bold and declarative’, just how the client wanted their new line…

At a minimum, I knew I had a solid contribution to the meeting - so could at least now get out of the car.

On arrival at Jurys, I scribbled out four supporting legs to the idea on a piece of hotel notepaper, and it seemed to hold water.

So when the project lead asked, ‘anyone got any new ideas?’, I was excited as well as relieved to hold it up and talk it through.

‘Yeah - that’s it’.

The team got straight behind it, and we all got to have a weekend after all.

‘Yeah - that’s it’ was what Management said when they saw it too - and, most importantly, so did the Marketing Director and the Dunkin’ Brands CEO when we presented it to them with all due fanfare on Day 30.

The creative teams did incredible things to quickly convert a simple thought into an arresting, enduring design style and inspired launch campaign.

By March of 2006 we were all in Vegas to witness its five star launch to the assembled franchisees.

And by the following month, the campaign was on air, online, on cups.

‘America runs on Dunkin’ was live in America.

(TO BE CONCLUDED)

How a tea drinking Englishman came up with 'America runs on Dunkin': PART 1 - The Call to Adventure

I was working recently on a project referencing famous advertising slogans and decided to look online for some fresh inspiration.

To my delight, high up on the first ‘best ever slogans ’ list I clicked on, sat the one I wrote, ‘America runs on Dunkin’.

Higher even than ‘A diamond is forever’ - for me, the slogan of all slogans.

That, and the fact that it will soon be exactly 15 years since its conception, made me think this might be a good moment to tell the story as I remember it of how ‘America runs on Dunkin’ came to be, for those interested in reading it.

To both keep it digestible and committed Aristotelians happy, I’ll do so in three parts.

With an eye to three specific curiosities relating to its invention:

• I was a planner, not a creative

• Who grew up in the UK, not the US

• And drank only tea, not coffee

The story began, back in the fall of 2005, with an assignment.

Dunkin’ had a new Vice President of Marketing and he was coming into the agency to meet the team for the first time.

Which, of course, got everyone a little on edge.

Since we had been wrestling for a while with two big ‘crossroads’ dilemmas:

1) was Dunkin’ first and foremost a baked goods company - or a beverage company?

2) should it now seek to appear more like Starbucks - or less like Starbucks?

Perhaps he might express disappointment with the perceived rate of progress on resolving these dilemmas?

Or suggest that others should now be given the chance to wrestle with them too?

But after listening patiently and politely to our historical summary and situation analysis, he announced that he had a task for us.

He wanted us to go away for a month (remember, it was 2005) and come back with our answers to these two questions:

• WHO is Dunkin’ for?

• WHAT is Dunkin’ for?

And that was it.

In the meeting room after he’d left, amidst the used pink and orange cups and leftover donuts, the mood was one of relief.

Answer two straightforward questions - how hard could that be?

We don’t need a month, we’ll be done by the end of the week!

Won’t we?

TO BE CONTINUED…

If the nudge becomes a poke, will we all develop immunity?

Last week, someone dressed in garish primary colours knocked on my door.

It was not a good time, so I was very much hoping he would get to the point.

But he was clearly all set on unleashing a few behavioural economics inspired prefatory comments before doing so.

"You will have been hearing a lot in the news about the dispute between milk manufacturers and the supermarkets..."

(Or words to that effect.)

This was such an unusual opening gambit from a doorstep salesman, and delivered with such focus, that I could tell straightaway it was being consciously deployed as a form of subject framing - but I wasn't sure exactly what.

An implicit way of saying, 'I'm here about something important'?

Or maybe a form of flattery - 'you're the sort of person well up with important social matters' - or, conversely, implied shame - 'you must be aware of this matter, surely'?

Either way, my defences were now up.

"I'm sorry, but would you mind quickly telling me what you're here about this afternoon?"

"Yes, of course."

(Phew.)

"I've been meeting with many of your neighbours this afternoon, and receiving a very positive response..."

Now the game was up, as this one I knew - social proof or norming, predisposing me to be more open to his proposition because others personally known to me had been earlier.

And I'm sure further nudges would have followed, but by now I'd lost patience and asked him just to tell me what it was he was selling - which turned out to be some sort of subscription service for farm delivered milk.

Which I then politely, but firmly, declined.

Musing on it after, it struck me that supporting local milk farmers was a cause I might well have been interested in - had the heavy-handed, oh-so-conspicuous application of pat nudge techniques not alienated me first. 

After all, it's very difficult to allow yourself to buy something, however desirable, if you know full well you've been, at least in part, manipulated into doing so.

Which then got me wondering a little about the future of applied behavioural economics.

The point of 'nudges', of course, is that they are meant to be so subtle, so implicitly delivered, that you are manipulated without ever suspecting you have been.

But when they're presented as crudely as this, you're all too aware of them - and presumably, after you've heard the technique once, you know how the trick is done and it loses its hold.

Even worse, in time we could all end up becoming highly attuned to, and suspicious of, every attempt at nudging.

Which, given its proven ability to encourage all types of pro-social behaviour when other more traditional techniques have failed, would be a great shame.

Did Remain select the wrong core motivation?

When there's nowhere left to run, is there room for one more... post about the referendum?

If the answer's 'no' - I hear you bro, no offence taken.

But if there is, then here's the Lucky Man's observation...

For a political campaign to be effective, its central message must be rooted in one of our core motivational values.

That way, it can transcend its specific scope and imply the fulfilment of something bigger.

And thereby not only win hearts and minds, but motivate the requisite action (get out and vote) as well.

So when the campaign kicked off in February, I was most curious to see which motivation each side's strategists would select as their emotional anchor.

Given its long stated goal was independence and freedom, the Leave camp was almost obliged to choose Autonomy - which it duly did, expressing this via the potent invitation to 'take back control'.

So now it was over to Remain.

In our lives, we all experience a fundamental tension between wanting to follow our own individual path and wanting to be an accepted member of a bigger group: we are constantly seeking the right balance between standing out and fitting in, as we instinctively know that both are essential to a happy and successful life.

So given that Leave had gone with the 'individual path' end of this continuum, to maximise contrast the obvious move for Remain was to embrace the opposite 'bigger group' end, and anchor the campaign around Affiliation (connection with others.)

But instead, it chose Security.

This was, we're told, because it had become political lore that a late flight to perceived safety had determined the Scottish independence vote in 2014, and would do so again this time.

And perhaps the inherently conservative nature of a Security narrative instinctively appealed more to the Conservative leaders of the Remain team than the more social(ist) leaning Affiliation one.

But this choice, in the Lucky Man's humble opinion, proved a significant strategic mistake.

As I see it, there were two major disadvantages to Security, as compared with Affiliation:

1) Security is entirely Prevention orientated - it is about stopping loss from occurring - while Affiliation can support a meaningful Promotion angle - the world can be a better place for all of us if we get together. This Prevention orientation led to Remain coming over as a purely 'negative' campaign, soon to be tellingly lampooned as 'Project Fear'.

2) Messages about preventing loss inevitably appeal most to those with the most to lose. And given the uneven distribution of financial assets across the UK today, that meant the over 55s. But it was clear from the start that this was a demographic that would lean heavily, and often inconvertibly, towards Leave - partly because much of it had long been more afraid of a different and more emotionally compelling form of loss, relating to memory, identity and sense of belonging. And those, of course, who felt they had little to lose in the first place were understandably left cold by a 'don't throw it all away' plea.

For me, the-Remain-ad-that-got-away was a modern telling of the classic 'Hilltop' narrative of the 70s - I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, etc.

In this putative Affiliation based execution, the peoples of Europe would somehow have been shown coming together, if not in perfect harmony, at least in an exciting and inspiring spirit of curiosity, connection and mutually beneficial co-operation.

(A bit like a good day in a Euros fan zone, as I was fortunate enough recently to experience.)

There would have been no voiceover, as the more that's explicitly stated, the more there is always to logically counter-argue - just a powerful visual narrative, stirring soundtrack and a 'Vote Remain' sign-off at the end.

If the resulting story board had been focus group pre-tested, I'm sure it would have been rubbished for its lack of 'facts' and persuasive rational argument.

But if it had run, I'd bet it would have entered the electorate's unconscious and had a powerful influence.

Just one last thing, as it's high time to move on.

Wouldn't Stay have proved a much more emotionally compelling brand name than Remain?

Remain is associatively what objects do, like residue in a test tube after a chemical experiment.

Stay is what people do, particularly when they're in a relationship.

As such, stay pulls much more at the heartstrings.

It's much harder to reject an appeal to stay than one to remain.

Songwriters instinctively know this.

Should I remain or should I go?

Oh won't you remain... just a little bit longer?

Remain with me...

Not quite the same, is it?

Yes, it was probably only a small thing. 

But then again, 4 points is quite a small number.

We need you today, O Mandy Brands!

I have a pet name for my 2006 Honda CR-V - Mandy.

Because much like the eponymous protagonist of the Barry Manilow classic, it came and it gave without taking.

From the moment I drove it home two years ago, the ratio of give and take in our relationship has been decidedly one-sided.

It does everything I ask it to without demur and, bar fuel and an annual health check, it asks for nothing in return.

For which, in an over-stretched life, I cherish it dearly.

This sobriquet recently came to mind when thinking about the role of brands today.

Ever since it became technically possible for brands to engage consumers in more than just a one way relationship, it's been fashionable in marketing circles to talk in terms of mutuality, reciprocity, 'two way'.

But I'm not sure we ever actually asked consumers what they wanted - perhaps for fear of what they might say, in the majority of cases, that they did.

Namely, one way - in their favour.

You help me achieve my goals, and then ask for nothing in return - not likes, shares, recommendations to others, interest in your purpose or participation in your long-winded content.

In short, you make no demands on my precious time and energy whatsoever. You just serve.

Right now the future feels most uncertain.

But one thing we can be pretty sure about is that all our lives are only going to get even more hectic and demanding.

In which case, won't it be these Mandy Brands - the ones that come and give without taking - that we'll appreciate most?

- Brands like Paypal, which I know will always be there for me at the sometimes stressful moment of online payment, while leaving me alone the rest of the time.

- Or Google Maps, which will reliably direct me right when I call on it, but make no call on me outside of those moments.

Brands we can rely on to always satisfy our needs, but without themselves ever becoming needy.

Poor Mandy may have been unjustly sent away but, as life gets tougher for everyone, I can only see these sorts of brands taking ever more permanent residence in our lives.

Ignore them, researcher, for they know not why they do

Sainsbury's used to run a scheme called Brand Match.

You may well have used it: but if not, the way it worked is that after checking out you'd receive, along with the receipt, a print-out stating whether you'd just paid more, the same or less for branded goods than you would have done if you'd shopped at a competitive store(s) instead.

And if you'd paid more, the Brand Match chit would act as a voucher for the exact difference, deductible from your next Sainsbury's shop.

Psychologically, it was genius.

It satisfied the Prevention (avoid loss) motive by providing full reassurance that you weren't wasting money by indulging in the occasionally guilty pleasure of attending the mildly more middle class supermarket, and at humans' preferred level of effort expenditure - zero.

And on those occasions when you were due a rebate, it satisfied the Promotion (achieve gain) motive by delivering a mini fist pump moment for getting money back for choosing Sainsbury's when you'd have chosen it anyway, because it's the mildly more middle class supermarket.

As the rebate felt like free money, and the print-out small and easy to lose, at least this shopper would usually go and spend it immediately on something unnecessarily discretionary like chewing gum - so I'd give them their money straight back anyway.

But I'd walk out the store feeling in my limbic areas like a winner, and dead set on returning.

In short, they were wise enough to let me feel like I'd outsmarted them, thereby completely outsmarting me. 

It was a mini masterclass in the application of behavioural science.

But this April it was announced that Brand Match was to come to an end.

Apparently, the company had talked to its customers around the country and they'd told them that having lower regular prices was more important than Brand Match.

Which only brings to mind the axiom of the renowned cultural anthropologist and brand consultant Clotaire Rapaille when he wrote that "the only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say."

If one asks customers in any kind of formal research setting whether they'd prefer the money back/promotional scheme or everyday low pricing, they're likely to say EDLP each time, either because they aren't consciously aware of the psychological benefits of the scheme or because they are aware, but are damn well not going to reveal such private mental machinations to a room full of grumpy strangers.

Voting for everyday low pricing instead sounds rational, level-headed, responsible: the sort of comment sure to elicit mass head nodding and a highly comforting round of 'I agree with Alan'.

So it's not the respondents' fault for answering that way - it's the convenors of this sort of research for asking it that way.

They might do better to spend the money instead on a copy of Richard H. Thaler's wonderful recent book about the rise of Behavioural Economics, 'Misbehaving'.

In it, he talks about something he names 'transaction utility' - the perceived quality of the deal itself, and whether the individual felt like she got a good one. Classical economics would argue that this factor doesn't matter, but psychology tells us it makes all the difference in the world.

And while coupons and discounts and Brand Match type rebates provide bags of transaction utility, EDLP provides none - for by its very definition, there is no reference price provided against which to compare the price you're being asked to pay, and thus no opportunity to feel like you've 'won.'

Helping to explain why, when introduced by retailers previously associated with deals and offers, such a pricing policy, apparently, often proves disappointing in practice.

So it will be interesting to see whether Brand Match is gone for good or whether it will make a return, in at least some form, down the road.

But more so to ponder why it is that, in a world where...

A) we now know beyond reasonable doubt that most of what we do is driven by unconscious motives, and thus beyond our ability to accurately explain...

B) we have more actual behavioural data than we would ever have the time even to analyse...

...we continue to ask people why they did what they did in the past, or what they think they might do in the future, and give priority to their answers?

Or even why listening to our customers is still considered such a corporate badge of honour, when ignoring them (in the politest possible way, of course) might not only deliver more value to companies, but also to those very same customers themselves?

This boy can, yet most definitely Cannes not

The ad industry was probably too absorbed in its existential crisis to have noticed, but another hammer blow to our belief system was struck yesterday - in the shape of the release of GoCompare's first quarter results.

Here's what was reported...

- In the first quarter of 2015, while Signor Compario was cooling his heels on advertising's Elba, revenue rose just 1%.

- But this time around, following his new but not so improved return, it rose 19%, with profits predicted to jump between 20% and 30%.

- And the share price of Esure, GoCompare's parent company, rose a healthy 4.3% on the news: just the kind of unambiguously positive impact on shareholder value that the industry longs to crow about.

So should we await the raising of flags in Belgrave Square and of pints across Hoxton?

Er, no, not really.

For while this is advertising effectiveness, Gio, it's not as we know it to be.

Because we know, don't we, that advertising works when people like and enjoy it - when the viewer (in case of video) is offered an entertainment-based reward in return for their attention.

Yet this is regularly voted the country's most hated campaign.

And we also know that today's brands connect by engaging with consumers, thereby nurturing relationships.

Yet it seems that the most meaningful act of engagement this campaign inspires is people going on social media to complain about it.

So if we're going to continue to be taken seriously when claiming that our clients' business performance is our number 1 concern, we're either going to have to come up with some solid reasons why this is a freak, an aberration, the exception that proves the rule - or take a hard, objective look at some of our blanket assumptions.

Especially as I'm pretty sure that nine or so hours into my future there's someone who'll have read yesterday's announcement without a hint of surprise.

Cultivation of meaningless distinctiveness? Tick.

Prioritisation of shallow but broad reach over narrow, targeted engagement? Another tick.

Strategic focus on increasing the brand's mental availability? Tick three.

It's how he told us brands grow, and grow 2.

So given these numbers, fresh on top of all the ones he laid out, we really should start listening.

Mind you, I think Gio's entourage might have done something pretty darned clever with this latest campaign.

For years, many of London's finest advertising minds have tried all manner of ways to make him even just a tad more simpatico, but to little avail.

Until someone, perhaps, took inspiration from the company's very premise that the human mind evaluates comparatively, not absolutely...

...and wondered whether the best way to make Gio seem more likeable might be to surround him with a supporting cast who somehow manage to be even more aggravating than he is?

That way his arrival comes as a relative relief - anything to stop that cabbie talking - and his appeal unavoidably elevated by dint of not now being the least likeable person in the story.

It's a bit like how Monday night's Stamford Bridge showdown worked: when up against a Tottenham side possibly just three wins from the title, Chelsea suddenly came across as a most delightful bunch of lads.

Or, sadly, how all election campaigns these days seem to work...

If it comes to mind, it comes to be

On Monday, after 24 hours of speculation, it was confirmed that the venerable department store BHS was going into administration. Given that up to 11,000 jobs would be put at risk as a result, the story quickly became headline news.

Two days later we heard something else about BHS.

That same Monday had proved its best trading day of the year to date, with sales up 80% on the equivalent day in 2015.

This piece of news was announced with an air of irony, bordering on bemusement: why had the brand been most successful on the very day when it had been in the news for being extremely unsuccessful?

Well, at least in part, simply because it had been in the news.

For the first time in years, BHS was on the nation's mental radar.

And that alone, presumably, was enough to get more people than normal to go shop there, even if the happening that got it on that radar was distinctly negative.

This sort of thing happens because we are 'cognitive misers'.

Thinking burns up a lot of energy, so we do it only when we really have to.

If we can just stick on the automatic pilot and go with the unanalysed flow, we will.

So as a result, if something readily comes to mind, it often inevitably comes to be.

We had a personal experience of this phenomenon during the early days of Dye Holloway Murray.

In our first year or two, the lion's share of pitch RFPs that came our way was referred by one particular consultancy, with whom we'd built a solid relationship.

So we spent a lot of time and energy trying to think up new ways to impress them - speculative creative ideas, thought pieces about branding and communication, and so on - in the hope of getting more. 

Until one day we noticed something.

The instances when we received an RFP from them were invariably right after we'd bumped into one of their principals on the street.

Presumably that random encounter had made us top of mind, so if they returned to the office soon after to be briefed by a new client, we'd be on the tip of their tongues as an option.

The penny dropped that we'd been pursuing the wrong communications model: trying to achieve persuasion, when salience would prove much more effective.

So we stopped doing all that extra work, and one of the Partners would regularly just take a stroll around their office area during lunch hour instead, in the hope of seeing and being seen.

By memory we ended up receiving at least as many RFPs, and certainly expended far less time and thought to get them.

Sometimes the advertising game is a lot simpler than we make it...

Just throw me a frickin' JTB* here...

There's a particular online clothing company I buy from a fair bit.

And recently it appears to have programmed a piece of code that ensures that if I don't go on to buy an item I clicked on, I soon get an email reminding me that I 'seemed to like it'.

In doing so it's applying a number of tried and tested behavioural economic nudges - including exposure effect (the influence of simple familiarity) and loss aversion (this wonderful item was almost yours, now you're letting it slip away!) - and I guess it must be proving commercially effective, as otherwise they wouldn't carry on doing it.

But I can't help thinking they might be missing another psychological trick or two here.

Firstly, the fact that it happens every time has given me licence to be more indecisive than before.

For now that I know they'll send me a reminder before the day is out, the incentive to get it at this moment while it's in my head is removed - I'll get another chance to think about it later, so why jump in and make the decision now? (No decision before its time...)

And secondly, the receipt of that email turns a simple transaction into a higher level battle of wits and wills...

For I'm assuming there are two main reasons why someone checks out a piece of clothing online, but doesn't go on to buy it there and then:

A) On closer inspection, they went off the item

B) They continued to like the item, but not so much its price

If the reason was 'A', the reminder email is wasted - the customer didn't ultimately like the item, whatever their measurable online behaviour made it 'seem'.

Which leaves 'B' as the dynamic in play - and for most people, if the list price was the deterrent, then their neocortex is going to need to be thrown some kind of bone to get them over the hump.

I call this bone the JTB - or Justification To Behave*.

It's the deal, offer, nugget of information - bit of anything, really - that allows the neocortex to withdraw its executive veto, thereby letting the emotional brain get its way.

Advertisers have long used these - think of 'triple filtered', 'beechwood aged', 'never knowingly undersold' and so on - while tending to think of them more as purchase driving RTBs (Reasons To Believe) than the rubber-stamping JTBs that behavioural science has revealed them to be.

But if I'm not to feel like I've capitulated in my item standoff with the retailer, I'm going to need one of these to accompany that reminder email. Otherwise my neocortex is going to further dig in its heels (so to speak, I appreciate that neocortices neither have nor wear heels.)

Some sort of price discount or offer package would be ideal, as that would address the pain point directly - though I can understand that doing so would train the customer to always wait for the inevitable compromise offer, and thereby reduce the potential for full price sales.

But how about an accompanying nugget about the quality or provenance of the item's materials, the unique inspiration behind its design, how happy other people have been with the item (social herding) or even just how it was only made in limited numbers, so won't be around long (scarcity value)?

None of these might sound like good reasons to buy, but I'm not looking for a reason - I'm just looking for a rationalisation.

Because it's not me who needs winning over here, it's the CFO...

Does the postie's Tuesday bag hold the answer to our productivity problem?

Over the past few years I've been working from home a fair bit.

And when you work from home, you can't help paying peripheral attention to the arrival of the post: when, how much, etc.

So soon I started to observe a minor phenomenon - there was less post delivered on a Tuesday than on any other delivery day.

In fact, on a good number of Tuesdays we received no post at all - which was rarely the case on other days.

Finally I decided to ask our friendly postie: am I imagining it, or do we get much less post on Tuesdays?

'Everyone gets less post on Tuesdays' came the reply.

'It's always been that way. I guess no-one does any work on Mondays...'

Now apparently here in the UK we have quite the productivity problem. Together we produce much less per hour than our fellow workers in countries such as Italy, France, Germany and US, and have done for quite some time.

And this stubborn underperformance represents such a barrier to accelerated economic growth (and resulting raised living standards) that the Chancellor is said to have recently described it as the 'challenge of our time.'

Given that, it's not surprising that all sorts of things are apparently being considered as potential solutions: reforming higher education, improving transport links and national infrastructure, devolving power to cities and regions, and so on.

And no doubt they are all of vital importance.

But they also all sound dauntingly big and complex to bring about. When you're setting out to change something like 'Skills', where exactly do you start?

So what if the government instead took the advice of Chip & Dan Heath in their best-selling book Switch (How to change things when change is hard) and sought to 'shrink the change'?

(That is, break the desired change into tangible, bite size pieces and then take them on one by one, rather than tackling the whole abstract thing in one go.)

What if they started by going all in on inspiring us to get more done on Mondays?

Undoubtedly the maths is very complicated, but surely a, say, 5% improvement in Total Monday Output (TMO) would make a big old dent in that overall productivity gap?

This wouldn't be achieved by the kinds of invitations to love Mondays, and so forth, so beloved of job sites: Monday, as we know, comes after Sunday, and Sunday is too powerful a competitor to take on. (See 'Manic Monday', The Bangles.)

But maybe some more subtle, and real world, nudges might make a difference?

For example, could a scientific study be produced and promoted proving that Mondays feel like they go much quicker if you get your head down?

Or could employers be incentivised to select and reward a Monday Employee of the Month, for the individual at their firm who's led the way in making Mondays as industrious and productive as midweek days?

Maybe we could even appoint a dedicated Ministry of Mondays, whose sole remit would be to devise and implement ideas to eke more output out of this most miserable of 24 hour spans?

So much to think about, but I'm done for now.

It's Monday morning and I haven't checked out what the internet thinks about the Jamie Vardy red card yet...

Campaigning on eggshells through The Frighted States of Amygdala

In 2014, a team from Y&R New York partnered with the wonderful Dr. Joel Weinberger of Implicit Strategies to present a brilliant and, as it turns out, politically prescient paper at an ARF event.

Applying Implicit Strategies' unique methodology, the team set out to discover, among other things, which, from a list of 16, were considered the most important values to not just the conscious but also the unconscious minds of a representative sample of Americans.

The results were fascinating. 

When the question was asked explicitly (consciously), the top three values emerged as follows:

1) Helpfulness, 2) Choosing Your Own Path, 3) Meaning in Life

But when the probing was done implicitly, and therefore derived only from the respondents' unconscious, things turned out quite differently.

Only one of those three even (and just barely) made the unconscious top 10.

This time the medal ceremony honoured the following:

1) Maintaining Security, 2) Sexual Fulfilment, 3) Honouring Tradition

As the authors visually summarised, this all suggested that while conscious America seemed to be identifying itself with Oprah Winfrey, unconscious America appeared more in tune with Tony Soprano.

Given their findings, I doubt Dr. Joel and his partners have been as surprised as many others by the way the Republican Primaries have been going so far.

If maintaining security is the most cherished value of the electorate's unconscious, then any candidate who appears to be highly engaged with the core concept of threats is very likely to resonate. And if the collective amygdala is in an activated state, appeals to calm reason won't get a hearing.

But perhaps a twist in the tale is starting to emerge: for surely the one thing would-be banishers of threats must be most careful to avoid is being perceived as possible threats themselves? If one's implicit promise is an end to fear, then it could prove fatally undermining if one starts to be seen as a potential new source of it too. 

When the unconscious feels threatened, it will instruct its host to do whatever it takes to feel safe again. So if the land of the free is also at present the land of the somewhat afraid, then the ultimate winner will likely be the one not who most clearly notes that mood, but who appears most capable of relieving it. 

Where it matters most, America still wants to believe in a place called Safe.

Might Regulatory Focus Theory help explain Arsenal's lack of killer instinct?

One of my favourite recently encountered psychological theories is that of Regulatory Focus.

It runs, in a nutshell, something like this...

The twin foundational motivations driving us are Prevention - the desire to avoid losses, and thus survive - and Promotion - the desire to achieve gains, and thus thrive.

One encourages us to seek means of staying safe - such as, say, when we get vaccinated - and the other, means of getting ahead - such as when we place a bet on the Grand National.

So we all follow the impulses of both, in response to the specific context we find ourselves in.

However, apparently we also each have a dominant motivational focus, shaped by our personality; so that in situations where either might be appropriately applied, we will likely default to the same one each time to guide our behaviour.

So those for whom the Prevention motivation is dominant will default to playing it safe in order to avoid a loss, as their over-riding goal is not to make a mistake that could have been avoided.

While those motivated more by Promotion will take a risk in order to try and achieve a gain, as their over-riding goal is not to miss out on a possible opportunity for advancement. 

Or in sporting terms, Prevention leaners play not to lose, while Promotion leaners play to win.

Which all got me thinking, once again, about the recent history of Arsenal.

The common lament among supporters is that the team consistently 'chokes' - it works its way into winning positions (such as atop the Premier League table) but then lets the opportunity slip away.

Can this perhaps be explained by the club having a dominant Prevention focus? 

The theory runs that we all perform best when there is good 'fit' between the specific situation we are in and our dominant motivational focus.

So Prevention leaners revel in 'backs against the wall' scenarios, while Promotion leaners are more inspired by 'wind at our backs' ones.

And if you think back across Arsenal's recent history, it is generally when threatened with imminent failure, rather than beckoned by possible success, that it has performed best.

Likelihood of failing to qualify, after so many consecutive appearances, for the Champions League? Impressive late season surge.

Potential to win the Premier League, after twelve barren years? Inexplicable late season collapse.

It can seem that it takes the threat of calamitous loss to get the club truly, fully motivated.

After all, even its greatest recent achievement - the 2003-4 unbeaten season - could be seen as a Prevention focus triumph first and foremost, since there's nothing quite like the goal of maintaining a blemish-free, perfect record to galvanise a Prevention leaner.

If so, maybe the change in club mentality that so many fans and pundits are now calling for is simply this - a shift from a dominant Prevention to a dominant Promotion focus?

If they get their wish, the effects are likely to be profound: for a near inevitable consequence of a Promotion focus is not just an increase in success, but also in volatility - see Chelsea, 2014-16.

But that might just be speaking like a Preventer...

Is there anything in marketing quite as forlorn...

... as an attempt at local community outreach that doesn't spell the town's name right?

I'm sure there must be a Beaconfields somewhere in the world, but nowhere near the Beaconsfield outlet this sign was placed outside.