Last Friday I spoke at the Consumer Insights Conference hosted by the Yale School of Management. I was particularly intrigued by another presentation given by Sarah Moore, assistant professor at the University of Alberta, titled “Some things are better left unsaid: How word of mouth influences the speaker.” Because Sarah’s work provides a new perspective on word of mouth (WOM), with a focus on the speaker rather than the listener, her findings have interesting implications for customer service.

In advance of my visit to Brazil next week, I have been pondering the differences between mature and emerging markets. From my vantage point, many differences seem obvious, but I wonder if they seem so apparent for marketers who work in Brazil, Russia, India, or China? In this post I will outline some of the key differences that I see. Then I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter, wherever you live.

Last Thursday evening I was sitting on the sofa reading Kevin Gardner’s The Granite Kiss and idly thinking of the dry stone walls I might one day build. The radio, tuned to Public Radio’s Marketplace, was on in the background. I had been reading only a few minutes when I became aware that what I was reading was addressing exactly the same subject as an interview on the radio: the myth of authenticity. Marketers all know that today’s consumers desire authenticity, but what is the real motivation behind that desire?

In the lead article in Monday’s AdAge, titled, “Marketers Blame the Consumer in New Save-the-Planet Pitches,” Jack Neff summarizes the new message from marketers to consumers vis-à-vis responsibility for sustainable consumption: “It’s not us. It’s you.”

Neff offers recent U.S. marketing campaigns as evidence that marketers have shifted their focus from their own sustainability efforts to encouraging more responsible behavior from consumers. I would agree that as consumers, we are ultimately responsible for our behavior and its impact on the environment and global warming. But does that absolve companies from their responsibilities?

In recent years, clients have become ever more insistent in their demand that researchers deliver results in a way that engages the audience. Researchers can respond to this demand in a number of ways, including the use of storytelling, workshops, and data representations that are visually compelling. Anything that  helps engage people with research findings - what they mean, and what marketers should do as a result - is a good thing, but a recent experience of my own made me wonder if the need to tell stories is at odds with the need to present statistics. By writing this post I hope to explore the issue further.