by Ian Murray | May 6, 2022 | Advertising, Empathy
If you have read any of my stuff you will know that I am quite critical of social purpose marketing. Going against this new orthodoxy is quite a risk for a small outfit like house51 that depends on advertising and marketing for a living. Indeed, several friends and...
by Ian Murray | May 6, 2022 | Advertising, Empathy
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read that ‘The Empathy Delusion’ is about ‘the London Bubble’. Of course, our research is all about the marketing bubble. It is about how marketers work. Not where they work. It shows that no matter where you find...
by Ian Murray | Dec 6, 2021 | About house51, Advertising
Our recent work with with Thinkbox has enjoyed a bit of a purple patch during awards season. Following Gold at the MediaWeek Awards we picked up the prize for ‘Best Trade Body Research’ at the MRG Awards 2021. You can read more and see the launch...
by Ian Murray | Dec 6, 2021 | About house51, Advertising
It’s Gold! Our research for Thinkbox won at the MediaWeek Awards 2021 for ‘Signalling Success’ We love working with Thinkbox. They really are at the top of their game and always come up with interesting and challenging briefs that give us a...
by Ian Murray | Nov 25, 2020 | Uncategorised
I got up this morning still thinking about Steve McQueen’s beautiful and atmospheric ‘Lovers Rock’. It’s the 2nd film in his ‘Small Axe’ series. Andrew Tenzer and I talk a lot about holistic thinking. Orlando...
by Ian Murray | Nov 25, 2020 | Advertising
Since 2018, I’ve written three whitepapers with Andrew Tenzer that you may have heard of if you work in the UK media, marketing and advertising industries. It’s been an interesting experience seeing ‘Gut Instinct’, The Empathy Delusion’ and ‘The...
by Ian Murray | Oct 20, 2020 | About house51
We were delighted to ‘get the nod’ from the MRG last week. After winning Gold at the Mediatel Awards in February, ‘The Empathy Delusion’ has been shortlisted for ‘Best Research Initiative’. The winners will be announced in...
by Ian Murray | Jul 2, 2020 | Advertising
There’s an old saying about never wasting a good crisis. As recent events have shown, if you are out to change the world, unexpected events that disrupt people’s habits and norms provide ideal ‘moments of change’. So, it’s unsurprising that many people in our...
by Ian Murray | Jul 2, 2020 | Advertising
Last week we launched ‘The Aspiration Window’, our new study with Reach Solutions. Building on our themes from ‘The Empathy Delusion’ and ‘Gut Instinct’ we show how marketers misunderstand mainstream goals and aspirations. We link...
by Ian Murray | May 22, 2020 | Advertising, Behavioural Economics, Empathy
We’ve been busy working on our new research with Andrew Tenzer and Reach Solutions. Our new whitepaper, ‘The Aspiration Window’ will be launched at the end of June. More details to follow shortly. We warmed up with a free webinar on our award winning...
by Ian Murray | Apr 23, 2020 | Behavioural Economics, Emotion, Normal
In times of crisis, where is the line where our need for belonging and our desire to show gratitude and support for people putting their lives on the line for others, morphs into something more problematic? In this article (originally posted on LinkedIn) Ian considers...
by Ian Murray | Apr 9, 2020 | Advertising, Empathy, Oblique strategy
The Coronavirus crisis has created one massive accidental social experiment in adland. The crisis constrains and reduces every aspect of everyone’s social and economic lives. And it’s put the creative process and how marketers understand and engage with...
by Ian Murray | Dec 19, 2019 | About house51, Empathy
house51 has been shortlisted at the Mediatel Research Awards for the 3rd year in a row. We’ve been noiminated for our work with Reach Solutions on ‘The Empathy Delusion’ In 2018 we were shorllisted for ‘Research Agency of the Year’....
by Ian Murray | Nov 21, 2019 | Advertising, Behavioural Economics, Empathy
‘a shift in attentional style has led to advertising losing its humanity and its ability to entertain; it has turned sour’. A big thanks to Orlando Wood, from System1 for referencing our research in Lemon his excellent new book published by the IPA (and for the...
by Ian Murray | Nov 21, 2019 | Behavioural Economics, Emotion, Happy
We’ve been busy over the last few weeks launching our new project with ESI Media at the Festival of Marketing and then at the most verdant Petersham Nurseries in Covent Garden. See below… Life 2.0 Modern life just seems to keep getting busier and more pressurised....
by Ian Murray | Sep 5, 2019 | Advertising, Behavioural Economics, Empathy
Our new whitepaper with Andrew Tenzer at Reach Solutions launched in July 2019 and is doing great business. The Empathy Delusion is something of a companion piece to the Gut Instinct whitepaper that caused a bit of a stir in 2018. Here are a couple of extracts to give...
by Ian Murray | Mar 16, 2019 | About house51, Brexit, NewMR
Samuel Johnson famously said that ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For there is in London all that life can afford’ It certainly helps to love, (or learn to love) London if you want to forge a career in the UK market research industry. The...
by Ian Murray | Nov 8, 2018 | About house51
house51 is delighted to be nominated for Research Team of the Year at the MRG awards. The winners will be announced at the gala dinner at the MRG International Conference in Bratislava on 23rd November 2018. Ian and Andrew Tenzer from Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror)...
by Catherine Heaney | Nov 20, 2017 | Advertising, Behavioural Economics, Brexit, Emotion
The news that there are a lot of angry people in Brexit Britain isn’t going to rock anyone’s world. We only have to turn on our TV’s and social media to see there’s enough anger around for everyone. But, when house51 got together with our friends at BMB to collaborate...
by Catherine Heaney | Oct 4, 2017 | Advertising, Behavioural Economics, Implicit
Thinkbox, the marketing body for UK commercial TV, commissioned house51 to conduct an innovative and ground-breaking study, exploring the mechanics and psychology of TV partnerships. Our study sought to understand how TV sponsorship works – both on an implicit...
by Catherine Heaney | Oct 4, 2017 | Behavioural Economics, Implicit
You might have seen Ian at the 4th Brainy Bar event talking about how implicit research helps us reach deeper insights. The Brainy Bar events showcase current research in the field of neuroscience and psychology. This time the focus was on implicit measures and how...
by Ian Murray | Apr 25, 2017 | Behavioural Economics, Brexit
So, here we go again! In her statement on Tuesday the Prime Minister justified calling an early general election on the grounds that it was necessary to put an end to the ‘political gameplaying’ that ‘endangers the security of millions of working people’. Of course,...
by Ian Murray | Dec 22, 2016 | About house51, Brexit, Design Thinking, Innovation, Normal, Tech
Well, no one could say that 2016 was boring! ‘Mishmash’ means ‘a confused mess, mixture, jumble’. A pretty apt description of 2016! So, in no particular order, here’s some things that got us thinking this year. Our list for 2016...
by Ian Murray | Dec 22, 2016 | Behavioural Economics, Brexit, Easy, Empathy, Fair, Happy, Innovation, NewMR, Normal
Our ladies in the supermarket have been working hard in the last quarter of 2016! Here they are again in a blog that originally appeared in edited form on researchlive. So, what do you think these ladies have stopped to talk about in the supermarket? Obviously, we...
by Ian Murray | Dec 22, 2016 | Behavioural Economics
When the OMD UK Insight team told us about their plans for Future of Generations last year we knew it was a project we had to get involved in. At house51 we pride ourselves in being ‘interested in people, not consumers’. So helping OMD UK to bust some myths about...
by Ian Murray | Dec 22, 2016 | Behavioural Economics, Brexit, Trust
Imagine I gave you £50 and asked you to share it with a stranger. You get to decide how much you want to keep for yourself and how much you give to the other guy. The catch is the other guy has to accept what you offer them or you both walk away with...
by Ian Murray | Dec 22, 2016 | Behavioural Economics, Brexit, NewMR
If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? What do you think the answer is? The correct answer is 5 minutes. But if you didn’t get this, don’t worry, you are in good company. A lot of people get it...
by Ian Murray | Jul 21, 2016 | Innovation
What is innovation? Most people make the mistake of thinking innovation and invention are the same thing- about creating something new…. something original…from scratch. At house51 we think originality is overrated. But don’t take our word for...
by Ian Murray | Jun 30, 2016 | Behavioural Economics, Innovation, NewMR
It’s been a busy few months at house51 so there’s been a bit of a lull in our blogging activity. We thought we’d get back on course by updating you an a few things we have been up to in recent months. Back in March we gave a presentation at the IIEX...
by Ian Murray | Jan 27, 2016 | Behavioural Economics, Innovation, NewMR
My favourite business book of 2015 is ‘Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics’ by Richard Thaler. It’s a memoir of 40 years of ground breaking academic endeavor in which Thaler concludes that behavioural economics has gone mainstream: ‘Behavioural economics...
by Ian Murray | Aug 24, 2015 | Behavioural Economics, Design Thinking, NewMR
I wasn’t aware there was an issue between design researchers and other market researchers until I came across this blog last week. Like any well-read and curious researcher, I have enjoyed following design thinking as its impact has grown in business and social...
by Ian Murray | Aug 24, 2015 | Trust
Business is getting serious about social leadership. But research conducted by house51 suggests that big business has a long way to go to establish itself as a credible force for good in society. In the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, and the relentless...
by Ian Murray | Jul 4, 2015 | Behavioural Economics
Nudgestock 3 did exactly what it says on the tin. It’s an annual ‘festival of behavioural science’ run by the guys at #ogilvychange. It’s also a great excuse for a day out at the seaside. This year an eclectic bunch of advertisers, marketers, academics, policy...
by Ian Murray | Jul 4, 2015 | Behavioural Economics, Tech
I’ve been reminded of this quote a couple of times over the last week or so while watching the FA Cup and Champions League finals. It’s from Paul Dolan’s latest book Happiness by Design. Dolan explains how we can all make our lives more pleasurable and purposeful by...
by Ian Murray | May 18, 2015 | Behavioural Economics, Empathy, Trust
See below for a YouTube video of our talk at Digital Shoreditch 2015 (Connect Day 14th May). We used data from our recent study on trust, ethics and mindful consumerism as a platform to consider why big business continues to fall so far short of ordinary...
by Ian Murray | May 15, 2015 | Behavioural Economics, Empathy, Innovation, NewMR
Power in the business of tomorrow, will flow to those who have the best information about the limits of their information (Alvin Toffler) Market research is awash with case studies and anecdotes from behavioural economics. The top line on over 40 years of diverse...
by Ian Murray | Apr 14, 2015 | Behavioural Economics
Here’s one that Dr Ali wrote for our friends at Sumo Insight “Any research that is asking people to consciously reconstruct their lives mentally, will always result in an inaccurate answer” The influence of behavioural economics has come on at a pace in the last...
by Ian Murray | Apr 5, 2015 | Innovation, NewMR, Oblique strategy
I was reminded of something Peter Rees said the other day, during a LinkedIn discussion entitled “How do we define NewMR?”. Peter is a City Planning Officer for the City of London. I came across his thoughts while reading Londoners Craig Taylor’s absorbing oral...
by Ian Murray | Apr 4, 2015 | Behavioural Economics, Innovation, NewMR, Oblique strategy
If you have read my modest collection of posts so far you will have gathered that I am a big fan of John Kay’s ‘Obliquity’. It seems to me that Kay makes an irrefutable case for the power of unintended consequences across all facets of business. I take three key...
by Ian Murray | Mar 31, 2015 | Design Thinking, Innovation
What is innovation? Before you read on, pause for second and think about your answer….. How easy did you find it come up with a definition? And how prominent was new technology and new methodology in your answer?……. Our business discourse is...
by Ian Murray | Jan 23, 2015 | Oblique strategy
I love modernism. I am the kind of guy who instinctively tweeted ‘SAVE PRESTON BUS STATION!’ when I heard on Radio 4 that it is going to be demolished (its since been saved for the nation). My favourite place in London is the Barbican. Being a fairly...
by Ian Murray | Jan 22, 2015 | Empathy, NewMR
An oldie, but (I hope) a goodie. I wrote this one a couple of years ago for Greenbook. It’s still very relevant to what we are trying to do at house51. So here it is again. Recent ads in the US for Honda and Hyundai, dramatise a situation that any parent or any adult...
by Ian Murray | Jan 22, 2015 | About house51, Empathy, NewMR
Don’t get us wrong, we love Tom Fishburne. And this is one of our favourites. We love it so much we have licenced it for our new website. It illustrates something that we think about a lot- egocentrism in business and the lack of empathy that is limiting creativity...
by Ian Murray | Jan 22, 2015 | About house51
So, why house51’? We are interested in people not consumers. We think you should be too. 51 is the number of my house. Our business shares that number as a constant prompt to stay connected to the real world that we all inhabit and share beyond the strategy and...
by Ian Murray | Jan 22, 2015 | About house51, Behavioural Economics, Empathy
Well, it was a choice between the dog……Or this guy……. Our mission at house51 is to promote the power of real world thinking. We do this by embracing empathy, instinct and evidence. Data and evidence dominate modern work and leisure time. But...
