where to look (aka Societing)

If you haven’t done so yet, you should check out the brilliant Prof Bernard Cova. For the last few years he’s been doing mould breaking stuff which is laying the foundations for Herd-type thinking (and the kind of stuff Faris Gareth and John’s blogs have been throwing up recently)

In particular, he’s been arguing that we’re looking in the wrong place to understand consumption behaviour. We look down at level 2 (through individual’s psychology/psychopathology) or if you’re bonkers in the head (and get easily dazzled by scientific stuff) down at level 1 (the physiological stuff in the brain). Or up at level 4 (aggregated versions of the individual stuff – markets, society etc).

All of which is the wrong place to look because being social creatures, our consumption behaviour (like everything else) is done in front of/with others (real or imagined). So go for the pink, he says: the tribal level…the many shifting ‘tribal’ groups we live out our lives in

I love the way this pushes psychology (the study of individuals) out of the way and creats an intellectual framework for the tools of social science whose tools we’ve been finding so useful in recent years (sociology, anthropology, ethnography). Instead of Marketing, try Societing.

Oh, and it’s great to have a non-anglo saxon voice in the debate. How much of marketing theory is middle clase Northern European?

Allez Bernard!