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Sunday

Mar192006

Happiness Inc.

Sunday, March 19, 2006 at 12:12AM

There's a fascinating article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about the science of happiness. This may be the next great advancement in marketing research. (Or it's the next road to ruin in the world of business if you are an anti-marketing cynic.)

...gearing up to do something can make you happier than actually doing it. "Anticipation is totally underestimated," says Prof. Knutson, whose work is funded in part by the National Institute on Aging and the MacArthur Foundation. "Why do slot machines have arms? You could just have a button -- but the arm heightens the anticipation."
Some marketers say such results will also reinforce a trend already well under way in advertising: selling the experience rather than the product. A running-shoe ad that focuses more on the pleasure of running, for example, can build a viewer's anticipation in a way that talking about the makeup of the shoe itself can't.

It sounds like the old "features vs. benefits" discussion is alive and well. The twist this time is the quantification of product benefits. It involves turning that subjective thing -- a perceived benefit -- into objective, measurable information.

"The results you get through facial testing are much more accurate than focus groups," Mr. Ksiezyk says. "In focus groups, people say what they think you want to hear, or there's a leader and everyone nods and agrees."

The unreliable nature of focus groups is remarkable. Bias is inherent in focus group research, and it's hardly a fool-proof method of determining the success or failure of a product. In as much as this new research can improve the product development process, I'm all for it.

Science Friday had a program last fall about Satisfaction and Happiness that covered similar ground. It's well worth a listen.

There are also shades of Blink here. Malcolm Gladwell's writing on facial expressions and snap judgements dovetails with this nicely.

Rob in

This crazy business,

Thoughts on life |

Mortgages

Saturday, March 18, 2006 at 02:12PM

I just read this interesting tidbit on Ask Yahoo.

... According to a 2001 study by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), "nearly 40 percent of all residential properties in the United States, owner-occupied and rental units, are not mortgaged but are owned free and clear." For a country so often criticized for its debt, that's not a bad figure.

Despite that, this is also true:

Those who wish to learn more about the demographics of the average American homeowner (be it person or corporate entity) can skim the report's 368 pages of scintillating facts and figures. One factoid that stood out to us -- from 1991 to 2001, the amount of outstanding mortgage debt on single-unit properties rose from $1.62 trillion to $3.48 trillion.

It's really amazing when you figure that the $3.48 trillion is only financing 60% of the homes.

Rob in

Meaningless statistics |

Fun Stuff at Work

Friday, March 17, 2006 at 09:38PM

Andy has been working on some new landing pages for the Step2 web site:

It's really nice that we can do this stuff in the office. Our outside developer is wonderful, but I'd rather spend our budget on the heavy lifting. Andy has quickly become a valuable team member and learns new skills almost daily. He is just what we needed -- someone who likes to sell yet also enjoys minding the details of our online business.

Rob in

This crazy business |

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Saturday

Mar042006

The Ever Expanding Video Game Culture

Saturday, March 4, 2006 at 03:22PM

Here's another cool article at Reveries about a new video "game" for the Nintendo DS that is specifically targeted at adults. This sure expands the use of video game devices to a whole new genre. I bet we'll see some news coverage of this being used as a therpapeutic device to stave off Alzheimer's Disease.

Lisa wants her own DS because she loves Jack's Nintendogs game. Who would have ever thought that the video game market would expand and morph into such a cultural phenomenon that spans all age groups? No wonder the toy industry is in shambles.

Nintendo’s latest videogame hit is not a shoot-em-up for kids but a brain-trainer for adults, reports Ginny Parker Woods in The Wall Street Journal (2/23/06). This success story — 1.8 million units sold — is happening in Japan, but Nintendo hopes to export it to America in April. In Japan, sales are fueled by the existing popularity of “brain-sharpening exercises” as well as the celebrity of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, the scientist who developed the game, which is called Brain Age. In America, Nintendo hopes that the game will find favor among older consumers, perhaps most of all baby boomers anxious to keep their minds sharp and help ward off dementia.
Brain Age is designed for Nintendo’s DS, a hand-held gaming device that “opens like a book and has two screens … Simpler than most other videogames, Brain Age flashes questions on one screen while the player writes answers on the other. The player is peppered with a series of timed drills, allowing the game to measure the user’s ‘brain age.’ Twenty is the best, because that’s around the age at which most people’s brains are fully developed but still agile. Most users find that they are much ‘older.’ But by working through rounds of exercises … players can bring down their brain age and chart their progress over time.” Nintendo hopes that it will both sell a lot of copies of Brain Age, as well as the DS devices on which they must be played.
That strategy has worked really well in Japan: “Around a third of the people who buy games in the brain-building series are over 35, and another third are between 25 and 34 … Many of these older gamers have lined up to buy their first machines in order to play Brain Age, and the DS is currently sold out in Japan because production cannot keep up. ” When Brain Age goes on sale in the U.S. on April 17, it will feature various memory and reading drills as well as soduku puzzles. Nintendo hopes that the new game will get an extra boost when it introduces its new Revolution console which, because it eliminates the sometimes complicated keypad controllers, is expected to appeal to adults. As Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explains: "We have to get nongamers into videogames … to do this we have to completely change the nature of game play." ~ Tim Manners, editor

Rob in

This crazy business,

Thoughts on life |

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Saturday

Mar042006

American Leisure

Saturday, March 4, 2006 at 03:16PM

Pretty interesting coverage of a new article by Virginia Postrel in Reveries. She writes cool stuff that I should read more often.

The surprise is, Americans spend a lot more time — six whole weeks — on vacation today than they did in 1965, reports Virginia Postrel in The New York Times (2/23/06). It all depends on how you define “vacation” — because there is leisure time and there is leisure time. The difference between leisure and work is divided by that for which we might otherwise be paid (or pay someone else). Going to St. Lucia, for instance, qualifies as leisure because you probably wouldn’t pay someone else to do that for you. Cooking dinner, on the other hand, might be something you enjoy, but in theory you could just order take-out. So, the rise of microwave ovens and takeout dinners is one reason we aren’t “working” as much as we did in the past.
Based on that definition of leisure, economists Erik Hurst and Mark A. Aguiar have written a paper in which they calculate that “leisure had increased 5.1 hours a week, holding demographics like age constant. (Without that control, leisure has grown 4.6 hours). Assuming a 40-hour work week, that is like adding six weeks of vacation — an enormous increase.” That increase “is particularly striking for women … In 2003, women spent 11.1 fewer hours a week working at home than they did in 1965. The biggest drop, 6.2 hours a week, came in cooking and cleaning up after meals — not surprising, given the enormous growth in restaurant and takeout meals and the spread of microwave ovens. More women working outside the home created more demand for such conveniences, which, in turn, enabled more women to work outside the home.” As Dr. Hurst notes: “A women who was working full time in 1965 was also working full time at home, almost — 40 hours in the market, 20 or 25 hours at home.”
As for the men (the bums), well, here are the stats: "Ninety-seven percent of men ages 21 to 65 had jobs in 1965, compared with 87 percent in 2004. That drop accounts for about 60 percent of men’s increase in leisure time." In addition: "Low-educated men used to work a lot … Now they don’t work a lot," says Dr. Hurst. "If they’re unemployed, I would have expected them to do much more home production to offset the fact that they don’t have a salary." (There’s a reason they call people like Dr. Hurst "academics"). His research also finds that 40 year olds don’t work nearly as much as they did in 1965 and that "longer life spans mean more retirement years." Says Dr. Hurst: "It used to be that you worked till 65, and died at 66. Now you work till 65 and die at 80." Happy Monday. ~ Tim Manners, editor

Rob in

Meaningless statistics |

What American City Are You?

What City am I?

Saturday, March 4, 2006 at 03:01PM

Found this at Blogthings (via Virginial Postrel).

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll.
You're totally weird and very proud of it.
Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way.

Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

Rob in

Meaningless statistics |

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