Recently I met one of the readers of this column who told me that they have always thought of black swans as some kind of birds I like writing about . They added that now that the pandemic hit us , they now know what a black swan event is . Nassim Taleb author of the book Black Swans states that for an event to be viewed as a black swan it has to be rare and extreme that can be seen through the prism of rationality later on .

I have been thinking about the new normal and wondering how something new can be normal but since “ if you know , you know ” it has become accepted as common reference to the current times . We can still think of the new situation as abnormal since there is nothing normal about it ; this appropriately captures the spirit of the moments we are experiencing . The new abnormal would be things that we are doing more than we were doing before and those that have started doing that we weren ’ t doing .

Back to basics , back to essentials and why the eyes have it

One of the words that has gained new prominence is “ essentials ’. Various studies carried out tell us that people say that Covid-19 has made them understand the true meaning of the word . For marketing , this means that we have to go back to basics like customer satisfaction , loyalty , value for money and aim at putting a smile on the customers face in these gloomy times . Our messaging also need to direct consumers to essentialness of the products and services that we offer . A service like market research becomes essential because the consumers ’ minds have been reformatted by the pandemic . This makes forecasting based on past trends inappropriate calling for the need to get new insights in order to reduce the decision making risks .

Research tells us that when you see something that interests you the pupils in your eyes dilate or expand , they contract if a thing disinterests you . For this reason it is said that poor kids see a shilling looking bigger than the rich kids do . This means that we are probably seeing currency notes looking bigger nowadays than before for scarcity reasons . Why is this important ? You may ask and I would like to tell you that if the eyes are the window to the soul then they are a source of very deep insights or part of what I referred to as thick data previously in this column .

To give a personal experience , I would like to refer to my photo used in this magazine ; many readers have been asking me why I had to wear such big govggles , others tell me things that make me respond with the words like , “ It ’ s my time to blush ”. I tell them that I took that photo in Montreux , Switzerland in a research exhibition . Someone was selling the idea of eye tracking research to me , I put the eye tracking goggles on and I was shown a picture of a model in a swimsuit to look at . After a minute I was shown a heat map on a computer highlighting the parts of the model my eyes focused on , it was amazing , your guess is as good as mine , I was sold into the technology . So , if you are looking at getting insights into essentialness , the eyes have it .

There is new fame in the walk of shame as consumers unapologetically adopt new and cheap brands

As I write this I am riding in the night SGR train to Nairobi from Mombasa and we are ten in a coach that carries seventy two . With my ears to the ground I have eaves dropped a conversation among some lady passengers who sound Ugandan ; one of them has declared that there is no shame in the walk of shame because “ everyone is doing it .” Remember that in our last piece we named high rate of emergency dating and first dates as one of the unconventional indicators of a poorly performing economy . My night owl behaviors are at their best added to a 2021 vision I pick up the conversation as meaningful . It reminds of the study we conducted on “ what is in the handbag ” with some theory suggesting that the kitchen sink can be found inside there . Well , we were looking for brands and we found Goma rubber shoes by Bata in the handbags .

Those who had the Goma in their bags explained that one of the reason for it was that they are very useful during the walk of shame that walk after a random night or as a ‘ Corona Babe ’, you walk in wearing sexy high heeled shoes and leave as quietly as possible in the morning wearing sandals or the Goma they said . Something else they said was that if you are walking in a posh area it can as well be termed as a walk of fame . The distance of this walk has

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The New Abnormal In Marketing