Since 2010, @ProfByron’s How Brands Grow has become one of marketing’s most influential texts.

It concludes with 11 law-like patterns, discovered by analysing data spanning many decades, countries & categories.

I’ll summarise the laws, along with a quote, here.

👇 Thread 👇 Double jeopardy law:

Brands with less market share have far fewer buyers, and these buyers are slightly less loyal.

💬 “Smaller brands get 'hit twice': their sales are lower because they have fewer buyers who buy the brand less often.”

The psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002.

His book Thinking Fast & Slow distills his work on human decision making. In doing so, it highlights both the brilliance & limitations of the human mind.

Here’s a summary.

🧵 Thread 🧵 Kahneman begins by introducing the mind’s two modes of thought.

System 1 is automatic, fast, unconscious & effortless.

System 2 is deliberate, slow, conscious & effortfull.

The first accounts for around 95% of all our mental processing. The second, 5%.

James Webb Young believed that the production of ideas was as definite as the production of Fords.

In 1942, he published his five-step process in the book A Technique For Producing Ideas.

I’ll summarise it here for those who haven’t read it.

👇Thread👇 1. Gather raw materials

There are 2 kinds of raw materials. Specific materials relate to the product or the target audience. General materials are not directly related at all. Gather both. There is no subject that a really good creative person cannot be interested in.

Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy, by @philbarden, ends each chapter with a one-page distillation.

I’ll use these 6 pages to summarise the book for those who haven’t read it.

👇Thread👇 1: Decision Science

2 systems influence all purchase decisions: an implicit, autopilot system & an explicit, pilot system. Marketers must consider both systems. However, a new understanding of the autopilot’s enormous capacity has uncovered a new & exciting opportunity.

I recently finished reading Building Strong Brands (1996) by @DavidAaker.

It finishes with 10 guidelines that provide a good overview of the book’s main themes.

I thought I’d summarise them here in case others find them useful.

👇Thread👇 01. Brand Identity

Brand image is how the brand is perceived, brand identity is how the brand aspires to be perceived. It gives direction, purpose & meaning to the brand. Identity is central to the brand’s strategic vision and is the primary driver of brand associations.

I read @rshotton’s book The Choice Factory back in February after winning a copy through @neilperkin’s newsletter, Only Dead Fish.

Here’s a summary of the 25 behavioural biases that the book covers.

👇 Thread 👇 Bias 01: The Fundamental Attribution Error.

We overvalue personality and undervalue context when analysing behaviour.

During a recent re-read of Truth, Lies and Advertising I distilled Jon Steel’s ten rules for qualitative research.

So, with a little creative license, I thought I’d share my notes in case others might find them useful.

👇 Thread 👇 01. Be out of it: You can’t do qual research from behind a desk. So get away from the office. If you’re working on a fashion brand visit a fashion store. Read fashion magazines. Meet shop assistants. Talk to models. Find photographers. Immerse.