And now for something interestingly different: mathematics & truth. Always an interesting combination (even more so since Gödel). I remember as a child (first lessons on high school) I was fascinated by the logic rules we learned, especially the rule a leads to b, where the assumption a did not nead to be true and still could lead to b, being yet a true consequence. I could not buy that at all.
Now, I know it to be very true, and see the workings of it in marketing and research often: an idea or insight or finding that is not true, can lead to wonderful valid consequences. Or, otherwise put, bad ideas can (and often do) lead to good marketing.
Let me explain that at the hand of quantitative research, where reality is boiled down to a two axis system (the preferred language in marketing). I have seen this presented in boardrooms, where the board made decisions on the position of their brand in relation to other brands on the quadrant. Typically this is irrational behaviour if you understand the math of it. The brands are all taken from a multidimensional space, maybe more than a 100 dimensions. Calculations are made to adjust this to a two dimension space. If you understand how much information is lost if you translate the 3-dimensional space (the earth) to a map, you can understand what is lost in this excersice. There is an exact measure to express the amount of information loss: the ‘Eigenwaarde’ (I only know the dutch word for it, sorry). Each axis has its own ‘eigenwaarde’. For this kind of research 0,18 is a rather high value and beyond 0,25 is very difficult to go. This means that 25% of the original information is maintained on that axis. That means that 75% is lost.
This is how decisions are made in the boardroom. But …. as I explained, it can be very usefull to do. There are various reasons for that. I won’t dive in it right now, but I would like to highlight one rule: the rule of focus. No matter the value of the information, if it leads to a focus, and if this focus leads to action, often something goods comes out of it. The action leads to positive energy in the organisation, everybody is happy and this is an important aspect of good marketing.
I really do not mean this in a cynical way. I most certainly don’t want to argue that we don’t need good research anymore (we do), or that we shouldn’t fight bad research (we should). I only want to explain that there is some robustness in the research and marketing process. It is like disentangling a very difficult clotted piece of wool: you just start plucking somewhere as long as you do that with some attention you will get there.
