Trying to figure out why things work. Mixed results.
Dan Bond writes about the decisions, systems, and incentives that shape why things succeed or fail. Marketing, behavioural psychology, architecture, housing policy, and whatever else is interesting.
Category or tag:
marketing
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Orange not beige
In 1968, Cliff Cooper opened his music shop in London. He painted it bright orange, inside and out, giving it a luminous presence you couldn’t…
READ TIME:
4–6 minutes -
Measuring the unmeasurable (without the mysticism)
Sometimes, you mention something during a webinar, and six months later, it appears in someone else’s article. This happened when I shared our approach to…
READ TIME:
2–3 minutes -
Momentum and milkshakes
Ray Kroc was having the kind of day that makes you question your life choices, like accidentally joining a mime troupe. It was 1954, and…
READ TIME:
4–6 minutes -
Browse Basket Buy with data expert Oliver Spark
Picture this: It’s Tuesday morning, and somewhere in England, a man is staring at a spreadsheet with an enormous amount of intensity. Perhaps he’s dropped…
READ TIME:
3–4 minutes -
Efficiency can kill magic (or why trains are so plastic)
In 1938, stepping aboard the Flying Scotsman felt like entering a gentleman’s club that travelled at 100mph. Mahogany panelling gleamed under brass fittings. White-jacketed stewards…
READ TIME:
4–7 minutes -
The beignet principle
The hurricane of 1812 had other plans for The Butcher’s Hall. What had stood as the French Market’s main building since 1771—a Spanish-built structure where…
READ TIME:
6–9 minutes -
Gas tubes to good vibes
Georges Claude was trying to solve a lighting problem in 1910, not invent the aesthetic foundation of every trendy 21st century coffee shop. But there…
READ TIME:
4–6 minutes -
The surrendering of the four Ps
There’s something deeply unsettling about realising you’ve spent fifteen years in marketing without REALLY doing marketing. Not properly, anyway. Not the full-spectrum, four-pillars-of-the-discipline kind that…
READ TIME:
6–9 minutes -
The marketing principles that matter (according to me)
Here’s the thing about marketing principles: everyone’s got them, some are borrowed from someone else’s LinkedIn post, and approximately 73.2% of them sound profound and…
READ TIME:
5–8 minutes
