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HolyCow
London
Head of Strategy at M&CSaatchi/Lida, author, public speaker, musician, entrepreneur and proud dad.
Interests: Playing/teaching guitar, cultural studies, anthropology, semiotics, political history, philosophy, rugby, wine, people, good manners, prompt payers.
Recent Activity
Big Data - the comedic empty vessel and Animal Spirits
Posted Feb 27, 2013 at HolyCow
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Six Provocations for Planners in 2013
Posted Jan 15, 2013 at HolyCow
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HolyCow added a favorite at Noisy Decent Graphics
Jan 1, 2013
HolyCow is now following jonleach16

Jul 4, 2012
Planners: We don’t need no ‘T-boys’ – we need the X-Men!
Posted Jul 2, 2012 at HolyCow
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HolyCow is now following Neil Perkin
Mar 19, 2012
Lovely in many ways - look forward to hearing David's take on it too. Personally I like the dichotomy between the fact that 'behaviour' has an observable output - yet the actual moment of decision making doesn't. Both are valid in terms of lights going on in the brain - but it really depends on how you use it.
'Neuromarketing' by its very etymology is wrong on many levels. But that doesn't mean that observable data of human response to stimulus might not be useful.
In that sense, data is only useful in the context it is deployed within - to create a business out of it for marketeers was wrong-headed, its usefulness may lie elsewhere perhaps in medicine or a range of drivers of mental health - but it never really had a place in marketing. I hope it doesn't disappear - rather that its application can be used where it can be most effective for the species.
Behaviour change however - has never been solved by marketers - or theories of causation in primates (OK yes - limbic brain reverberations etc - but never empirical. Nudge and Behavioural Economics is simply about choice making - trade-offs - one choice is easier to act upon based on time and effort - 'hyperbolic discounting' for example - yet can never account for cultural cascades before they materialize in culture. We weren't able to predict it then - and we won't (hopefully) in the future.
We can just understand the mechanism a bit more - but not be able to predict the outcome.
Can't wait to hear more.
Hope your well
Best
M
Neurononsense revisited: a new dawn?
Last night at a reception in memory of the late and great Ginny Valentine, an old buddy of mine asked me what I thought about the proliferation of neuromarketing techniques and the general air of "brain is best" in market research communities. Perhaps I should have just referred him to David ...
HolyCow is now following Ben
Sep 28, 2011
Thanks for the props Gavin - hope your well there.
Best
M
Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week
As usual there was plenty of good reading last week. I hope that as you read each of these posts that you take the time to bookmark the blogs and subscribe to their feeds. Most of the people who are featured in this weekly wrap up consistently deliver quality thinking and content – and I would e...
Willem - thanks for your response - love the fact that you relate to Timon and Pumba - made me laugh out loud. I am very much a Hakuna Matata person anyway having lived through many Scars and Hyenas over time - they come - they go - only once did I work for a King - but he left for sunnier climes too!
Agree - there are Simbas out there - no doubt and they shall claim their rightful place eventually - but first they have to prove themselves right?
Really enjoying following your adventures Willem - looking forward to the next installment.
Take care buddy,
M
Kings & Hyenas
Steve Henry started a debate carried by Campaignlive last week about who should run agencies – creatives or account people. And that there is a disturbing trend towards banal unexciting work being produced in the UK. And creatives should be the right people to lead us out of our problems. A...
Thank you Claire - love your blog btw - gorgeous!!!
Kings & Hyenas
Steve Henry started a debate carried by Campaignlive last week about who should run agencies – creatives or account people. And that there is a disturbing trend towards banal unexciting work being produced in the UK. And creatives should be the right people to lead us out of our problems. A...
Gagey!!!! Howz tricks dude? And thanks btw - press here is full of nonsense. And badly run agencies mostly. Hope your well.
M
Kings & Hyenas
Steve Henry started a debate carried by Campaignlive last week about who should run agencies – creatives or account people. And that there is a disturbing trend towards banal unexciting work being produced in the UK. And creatives should be the right people to lead us out of our problems. A...
Thanks Iain - much appreciated.
M
Kings & Hyenas
Steve Henry started a debate carried by Campaignlive last week about who should run agencies – creatives or account people. And that there is a disturbing trend towards banal unexciting work being produced in the UK. And creatives should be the right people to lead us out of our problems. A...
Kings & Hyenas
Posted Aug 3, 2011 at HolyCow
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A perfect observation Carol thank you. Hopefully they can and do by finding the useful not just the interesting for consumers. Although they are symbiotic ;)
M
For planners only.
I met someone yesterday who was interested in what I am doing at work. He wants to get into the industry. I asked what he read. He didn’t mention any blogs written by planners. I asked why. He said there aren’t really any that he could name. We went through his list. Mostly they were...
Planning = Getting started + peripheral vision + instincts + facts
Posted Jul 26, 2011 at HolyCow
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For planners only.
Posted Jul 21, 2011 at HolyCow
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Doing 'bad' things
Posted Jul 15, 2011 at HolyCow
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The dangers of being liked
Posted Jul 13, 2011 at HolyCow
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Indeed. Although the crowd always did our job for us - we just had no way of measuring it.
We do want to be entertained - and sometimes we want to shop. And sometimes just chat. And if brands can be useful and interesting at these intersections then we can have a fair value exchange.
Problem is most don't.
We design for technology not people. And sometimes to please ourselves and a Cannes jury.
If there truly is a link between Cannes success and getting on big and exciting pitches then it has merit.
If the winning work sells lots of stuff then it has merit.
If the winning work uplifts brand metrics around favorability then it has merit.
Otherwise its just us talking to ourselves. And that has merit too.
But only in the context it appears.
Context is everything
It appears that there is some despair in the industry currently about the value of the Brits contribution to creative culture at Cannes. If not despair - a lot of head scratching. Claire Beale summed it up nicely recently: 1) Lack of creative leadership due to churn (this also raises ano...
Context is everything
Posted Jul 11, 2011 at HolyCow
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Oiling the wheels of inspiration
Posted Jul 8, 2011 at HolyCow
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Gimme some air...
Posted Jul 8, 2011 at HolyCow
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Good points Chris - and your right about the way they are hiring the digital folk. Be interested to see how this one pans out.
Good to see you too - must get that lunch on soon.
best
M
Crisis Planning.
It is not often that planning really gets talked about or debated in the press, so it was rather heartening to see that there was some column inches devoted to a discipline that I love more than my own mother (not really Mum – just kidding there). And so, with steaming hot burrito in one...
They are not John. Which is why CEOs don't want us to talk to them about it. If we got better at it then we would add value and not have an issue. Planning needs to lead this and the article should/could have been about skillsets around creative business planning not around advertising and what needs to change. We have lost our way because we got caught up in delivering multi-channel technology strategies with no proper financial rigor. Fun certainly - but not something the CEO is particularly interested in.
Crisis Planning.
It is not often that planning really gets talked about or debated in the press, so it was rather heartening to see that there was some column inches devoted to a discipline that I love more than my own mother (not really Mum – just kidding there). And so, with steaming hot burrito in one...
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