Mere Exposure Read online In E.T., director Steven Spielberg planned a scene where the alien creature was coaxed out of hiding using sweets. Keen not to miss a profitable opportunity, Spielberg approached Mars to use M&M’s for a small fee. Mars turned Spielberg down. Undeterred, Spielberg asked Hershey’s for product placement. Hershey’s had just launched Reese’s Pieces, so they jumped at the chance to feature the new chocolates on screen. Reese’s Pieces were used to lure out the alien. After...

Concrete Phrases Read online Take a look at this satellite photo. What do you see? Most see a busy Walmart car park. But stock market investors see earnings. RS Metrics sells daily satellite images of parking lots at 44 of the USA’s largest retailers. They photograph 67,000 locations every day (assuming no cloud cover). To a layperson like me, this seems ridiculous. Surely there’s a better metric investors can use to gauge business success? But investors place a high value on these images....

Deep vs Shallow Connections Read online A few weeks back, the world's best-known YouTuber (MrBeast) wrote a book with one of the world's most successful authors (James Patterson). The book is called "The Most Dangerous Games". It creates a fictionalised version of MrBeast's YouTube videos except with more death, romance, and other topics that publishers hope will keep people reading. I'd have wagered a pretty large bet that this book would succeed. James Patterson has sold 425 million books....