Readers of this blog will know that I maintain a healthy skepticism about the value of neuroscience when it comes to market research. Here’s a link to one of my posts that reference this topic.

I do not doubt that the latest techniques for understanding how we make decisions hold a lot of promise. However, I question whether in most situations they add enough value to justify the additional cost. Now, however, we have proof that neuroscience adds something tangible—the perception of validity.

My colleague, Graham Page, drew this post on LanguageLog to my attention.

Stylish British department store Harvey Nichols is going to the dogs. Well, a man and his dog, to be precise. Harvey Nichols recently announced that it is teaming up with the animated team of Wallace & Gromit, the claymation stars of "The Wrong Trousers," "A Close Shave" and "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

This might mean little to readers not familiar with British culture, but imagine "The Simpsons" meets Saks Fifth Avenue and you will have some idea of this unlikely combination.

Yesterday I was involved in a lively discussion of issues related to the measurement of advertising effectiveness. This wide-ranging conversation covered a number of topics but the one that continues to attract my attention is the challenge posed to advertisers by media fragmentation. When it takes more money to reach fewer people and your budget is fixed, why not stick to what you know works?

Facebook knows a lot about me. It knows where I live, what my activities and interests are, what music and movies I like, and a lot more. So why do I rarely see an ad that is relevant to me in my newsfeed?

Apparently I am not alone. While Dynamic Logic’s AdReaction® 2007 study found that most people were ambivalent to the idea of advertising on social network sites, a recent survey by Prospectiv found that nearly 9 in 10 social network users found few (or none) of the ads they saw to be interesting or relevant.

Where will marketing be 40 years from now? Someone just posed that question to me. Of course no one knows the answer, but I am hoping that together we can assemble a few ideas. I have listed some ideas on the topic in this post and I hope that they may provoke you to add your thoughts too.

In spite of the prognostications of Raymond Kurzweil, I do not believe that in 40 years we will all be scanned and living in virtual reality full-time. I’ll be happy if someone can finally come up with a form of flying personal transport that works. People have already been working on that for more than forty years.