The New Sex

Herdism or Mumism?

According to Mark Earls individual choice is not the big thing it has been cracked up to be. Evidence has come to light, which seems to suggest that our choices are for the most part driven by the social groups we inhabit. This thinking also has significant repercussions on how, we as customers relate to brands.

Important stuff and it all makes absolute sense especially given the new social interconnectedness afforded by the new digital networks. In other words not only interesting – this new stuff is also very timely.

And yet… I couldn’t help thinking of something my mother said to me when I was 14 or 15 years old. ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘Every generation thinks it’s the one that invented sex.’ Listening to Mark Earl’s speak you could be forgiven for thinking that this new thinking is err… new. And that this new way of thinking which gets to the bottom of how we really behave and what drives that behaviour will revolutionise the way market research is done in the future.

And yet…in 1984 a report was carried out which showed that when the suicide of a celebrity was reported there was ‘a significant increase in suicide rates in the months those articles were published.’ It’s not the only report there are countless others – not all of which have suicide as the main topic – they just have the same conclusions. If in doubt, which is where most of us are most of the time, then follow the crowd. When someone comes along with what looks like an answer that fits our inclination, be that inclination hunger or the wish to end it all, we say I’ll have some of that thank you.

The fact that we take our cues from the social networks we live in is hardly news – at least not new news. Behavioural psychologists have long since known the influence groups exert on our behaviour and decision-making. People who go to weight watchers might say they are going there to lose weight – most will probably believe that this is the case. But if we dig a little deeper we soon see that the reason they are going is to hang out with other fat people in order to feel okay about themselves. If I am an alcoholic I’ll hang around alcoholics that way I can have my behaviour confirmed as normal and socially acceptable.  The weight watchers business model is nothing short of sheer genius – certainly the closest thing I’ve come across to a perpetual motion machine.

What Mark Earls is saying is interesting. What’s more he says it in a way that is cogent and well thought through. You don’t get to have several books published on a subject without being able to string a sentence together. Mark Earls has certainly strung a lot of sentences together and strung them well. Herd is well worth reading as indeed was his previous book Welcome to the Creative age.

But really is this stuff new or are we just being strung along? In his opening gambit he sets out his stall by posing the question ‘what do we do in a world in which social learning is the prime means in which people shape their behaviour?  Although not explicit the inference and the argument it sets out is that the world we now inhabit is somehow different. Digital social networking has changed the way we operate and we need to rethink our approach to branding and the way we do market research.

Mark Earls latest book, Herd, provides us with the new methodologies and the new way we need to think about branding and market research. Herd is the new frontier a bright new dawn and  a brand new day in market research land. If all goes well it won’t be long before we see market researchers and marketeers rolling up to become Herdsman or Herdswomen.

Mark Earls is a master ‘brandsman’ – you only have to look at the Mark Earls brand to know this to be true. If he is half as good at delivering other companies brands, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, then to have him shepherding your company’s assets to the promised land would be a very useful thing indeed.

Although not part of the book’s main premise Herd has one other important message, that brand owners and those who work to improve them would do well to heed. And that is the only thing that sells better than sex… is the new sex.

Whilst I’d like to claim this insight, credit where credit is due. My mum – who incidentally and for the record went to weight watchers – was right, there’s nothing new under the sun just the latest generation who think there is – very insightful my mum. Think I’ll call this a Mumism. Perhaps there’s a book in there somewhere?

You can find the video of Mark Earls talking about his new book Herd on the Roy Langmaid website

Mark Earls, Marketing, Researc