Rosling and Gladwell

There are a few things I got out from Dr. Rosling’s video. First, social changes occur before economic changes. Second, there are differences between different areas even though all the areas belong to the same country. Third, it is dangerous to use average database and made generalization conclusion, because there are a lot of differences within a country. The Gapminder software that Dr. Rosling works on is an eye opener. You would think that such interactive tool to view statistical data will be super expensive and there will be limited number of people who will be able to afford it. It’s good that tools like that are available to everyone. Besides, visual presentation of data helps me a lot to see the relationship and trends, especially over a certain time period. I think having the visual representation helps to bring up the importance of the data.

In the video by Gladwell, he talked about horizontal segmentation, idea of universal, and variability. He also used a few examples to demonstrated that people don’t know what they want, and people can’t always explain what and why they want something. I think his speech tied well with the reading for this week, segmentation and neuromarketing. Instead of focusing on finding the prefect product to produce in order to make the customers happy, we may want to segment the customer, find out what they want, and provide the product accordingly in order to make them happy. Studying the mind of the people will be one way of doing it.

In order to find out the impact of neuromakreting on non-profit organization, I did some research. In the article Is it right for charities to use neuromarketing?, the author listed some pros and cons of using neuromarketing by charities.

Pros

- a new way to increase funding and resources

- the best charities aren’t rewarded or given funding as it is

Cons

- charities should win donors based on their mission, evidence of outcomes, etc., not ‘tricks’

- neuromarketing could create a battle among charities, ability to get funding and resources may depends on budget and psychology expertise of a charity

Another thing I found out is the history of neuromarketing. While neuromarketing is a concept that is new to me, the term neuromarketing was actually coined in 2002 by Ale Smidts. Hence the concept have been around for over a decade! :-O