A selection of articles and essays on consumer behaviour, research, and decision-making.
While no longer updated regularly, this archive reflects some of the themes and thinking behind Philip’s work.
What’s Your Product Worth?
What’s your product worth? It’s a simple question but, from the perspective of consumer psychology, quite a complex one to answer. Of course there is the issue of the price. But it’s very hard to know if you have it priced…
Influencing Emotion
There’s no shortage of research that shows we’re fundamentally emotional creatures. The triggering of emotions sets in place the reactions that become our behaviour and, somewhere or other along the way, our conscious mind catch…
How Advert Placement Influences its Impact
If you’ve read The Secret of Selling you’ll already know about the way in which apparently peripheral elements can have a dramatic influence on consumer behaviour. It all stems from the fact that the different areas of our brain…
How to Reduce the Damage when Things Go Wrong
For some reason young children often find it hard to apologise. Things get out of hand when they’re playing and the next thing you know one feels so aggrieved about something the other has done that she throws a toy at him, he reacts …
Retailer Insanity: Why Asda (Wal-Mart) Has Lost the Plot
I don’t own shares in the UK supermarket chain Asda (or rather their parent company Wal-Mart) but if I did I would be selling them just about now. Earlier this month Asda announced that they wanted to invoke a new era of ‘democr…
How to Reduce the Damage: Saying Sorry
Following on from last week’s article that reported on a study that had found apologising could be more beneficial than compensating customers who felt aggrieved ( it’s here if you missed it), I said I would give some pointers f…
The Brain Science of Disappointment: What happens if you let your male customers down?
I’m willing to admit it. In fact, it can be quite hard to hide. I have big feet. Despite having parents of average height my mother’s parents’ genes found their way down the line to me and ended up with above average heigh…
The Subliminal Power of Clean
It’s fascinating how unaware we all are of what really drives our behaviour. We’re convinced by our conscious minds that what we do is driven by what we decide on the basis of our beliefs. We are kidding ourselves. More evidence…
Putting a Value on Lazy Consumers
This morning as I was leaving my bedroom I looked at the empty mug sitting next to my bed. Ten minutes earlier it had contained a most welcome cup of tea that made the transition from sleepiness to life altogether more palatable. I had a lo…