Breathless press releases, over-interpreted meta-analyses and other ‘crud factors’ mean that weak research results can get overhyped to the public. It’s time for a cultural change in the social sciences.
Is a cassette player an “ordinary object” or a “mystery”? It depends on whom you ask, and ethnography can help you ask the right questions.
Yoshikazu Takada
Big data is all the rage in management circles and beyond, yet little is said about the understanding needed with such voluminous data. An important lesson can be learned from ethnographic research.
Research shows that consumers don’t like it when businesses make money. Why?
An Ottawa high school student looks at plain cigarette packaging examples on World No Tobacco Day in May 2016. Tobacco companies are railing against Ottawa’s plans for plain cigarette packaging in Canada.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
The Canadian government is currently drafting regulations on plain packaging for cigarettes. Tobacco companies are trying to weaken the regulations via lobbying and misleading PR campaigns.
Gap released a back-to-school ad campaign a couple weeks ago which included a picture of a young girl wearing a hijab which raised many questions for many people.
Gap Inc.
Gap’s recent back-to-school ad campaign was praised for its portrayal of the diversity of children. One of the girls in the ads was wearing a hijab: this raised a huge debate on social media.
Times Square is the Mecca of advertising.
Reuters/Chip East
Like the WNBA, the NBA went through fits and starts in its early years. Yet despite drawing similar crowds in the 1960s, NBA players earned far bigger paychecks than today’s WNBA stars receive.
Print advertising increasingly makes use of linguistic and visual syneasthesia to create multisensory experiences.
Workers produce medical marijuana at Canopy Growth Corporation’s Tweed facility in Smiths Falls, Ont., in February 2018. The company wants a a “greenhouse outlet” to sell its products.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Things and experiences that once seemed so enjoyable usually grow dull over time, something known as hedonic adaptation. Chopsticks offer one way to get some of that pleasure back.
While major brands like Coca-Cola have stuck by FIFA and the World Cup, others have not.
Maxim Shipenkov/EPA
Aeroplan’s recent survey on consumer habits became a scandal for the company after people complained the questions normalized intolerant attitudes about immigration and male dominance over women.
(Shutterstock)
The recent Aeroplan survey offended many consumers with questions they felt normalized intolerant views. But consumer research has a long history of learning about customers’ values.
Targeted advertising: good for Facebook and Google, not so good for you.
Shutterstock
Google and Facebook reign supreme over digital advertising. Yet the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and when the effectiveness of this advertising seems limited, should we ban this model?
Advertising mogul, Martin Sorrell.
Pierre Metivier / flickr
How Martin Sorrell built WPP from scratch into the world’s biggest marketing conglomerate.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participates in an armchair discussion highlighting the federal budget’s investments in Canadian innovation at the University of Ottawa in March 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Where and how do we learn to innovate? Our parents can’t teach us. Our bosses are trying to learn alongside us. Even post-secondary courses only provide us with the basics. Follow this recipe.
Beppe Grillo speaks in Rome on March 2, 2018..
Filippo Monteforte/AFP
While often lumped with other European populist parties, Beppe Grillo’s M5S is a movement of activist fans mobilized by the messages of his “celebrity brand”.
The ongoing Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal has generated big headlines, but consumer and marketing research have long questioned the actual effectiveness of psychographic segmentation.