Recommended reading this week
Think with Google: Brand building
Psychological insight: Mark Ritson reflects on Les Binet’s and Peter Field‘s work to point out that emotional connection relates to long-term brand building whereas adverts shorter term sales-driven advertising is more likely to result in immediate action.
Tim Harford: The forecasting paradox
Psychological insight: We never really know which forecasts to pay attention to. The paradox is that to discover whether a forecast is accurate we’d need to let events happen – yet the purpose of the forecast is usually to encourage action to prevent events happening! So a good forecast actually prevents the events occurring, yet we never actually see the proof of this.
https://timharford.com/2025/01/the-truth-about-the-forecasting-paradox
Campaign: Brand safety concerns are overegged
Psychological insight: There is very little difference in the performance of adverts next to ‘unsafe’ news articles. Executives appear to agree that too much focus on brand safety is harming advertisers.
The Drum: Launch of Edelman’s Trust Barometer
Psychological insight: Young people appear to place more trust in their peers as a source of news, rather than qualified journalists. Two thirds of people cannot differentiate between facts and misinformation in the media.
