Marketing

I'm willing to bet that when the marketing departments of consulting firms sit down with their favourite marketing agency to discuss developing a new logo, there's one thing that isn't on their agenda: acquisitions. They'll discuss all the usual stuff, of course: brand values, the way the logo will look  on everything from neon to neoprene, and what sort of mood their preferred colour will illicit amongst potential customers, but the issue of acquisitions won't get a look in. I think that's a mistake.

Not many of us can claim to have a number named after us, but Robin Dunbar can. He’s the British anthropologist who famously linked the number of stable social relationships in a primate group with the size of part of their brain: the bigger their neocortex, the more relationships they have. Apply that to humans and you get around 150 (although estimates vary between 100 and 230): that’s the number of people you know and can stay in touch with, not simply your passing acquaintances.

Leafing through IBM’s chief marketing officer study, published in the last few days, I was struck by one particular chart which compares the reasons companies think their customers follow them via social media sites and their customers’ actual reasons. Interesting in its own right, it’s also – I’d argue – directly relevant to consulting firms.