Your source for knowledge, reports, thought leadership, and other tomfoolery. No fluff. No folklore. Just sticky, science-backed brand truth.
The Most ABSurd Blog
Are Olympic medals a banana curve?
Is the Olympic medal count a bell curve, a banana curve, or something else entirely? Spoiler: it’s a perfect example of a universal pattern.
Is churn normal in B2B industries?
We think B2B relationships last forever—but CustomerGauge data shows churn is way more normal than anyone admits.
Do Grocery Loyalty Programs Work?
Dr. Jorna Leenheer studied 1,900 Dutch households across 20 supermarkets—and seven loyalty programs later, the results might surprise you.
Does travel ‘consumption’ follow brand laws?
Unless your only client is the Department of Defense, your buyers probably follow the banana curve—a universal pattern hiding in every market.
Do brands grow via loyalty or penetration?
Should you grow by getting more buyers or getting buyers to buy more? Dove’s decade of data makes the answer pretty clear.
What’s the “car door thunk” in your category?
That satisfying car door thunk? It’s no accident—it’s psychoacoustics at work, proving how easily our brains let one impression shape another.
How Do You Handle the Brand-Catagory Paradox?
How do you stand out when every brand copies the same features, benefits, and even personality?
Want better recall for your ads?
What does it take for people to actually remember your ad was for you? DVJ Insights tested it with 1,200 viewers—and the results are eye-opening.
Is customer satisfaction overrated?
Does it really matter if customers say they’re ‘highly satisfied’? The data says yes—and also, not really.
Are expensive spirits sold in heavier bottles?
You’d think pricier booze comes in heavier bottles—but across 800 spirits, the correlation between price and weight is basically zero.
Does click-through rate actually matter?
Nielsen analyzed 500 campaigns and found click-through rate predicts… nothing—not recall, awareness, intent, or even ROI.
Are there small brands with high “loyalty”?
Are there brands with few buyers but heavy loyalty? Kantar’s global data says nope—penetration and buy rate move in perfect lockstep.
Running radio ads? Fix your brand linkage!
System1 tested 131 radio ads—and even right after hearing them, 40% of people couldn’t name the brand.
Should you trust in-platform attribution models?
Does last-click attribution actually prove your ads drive sales? Probly not—it’s messy, biased, and confuses correlation with causation.
Do Small Brands Follow the Law of Double Jeopardy?
Big brands win on both penetration and loyalty—that’s Double Jeopardy—but small brands love to wiggle the pattern.
Do platforms “own” their users?
Do social platforms really ‘own’ their users? Nope—cross-usage data shows audiences overlap way more than we think.
Do we “own” our customers?
We like to think our buyers are ours alone—but Coke vs. Pepsi (and pretty much everyone else) proves otherwise.
How Much Do Ad Agencies Love Young People?
Advertising loves to talk diversity—but when it comes to age, agencies still skew young. Really young.
How much organic food do people rilly buy?
Think organic buyers spend all their money on organic? In Germany, only 4% of households put even 20% of their food budget there.
Can music influence what people buy?
Can music really nudge what people buy? A UK wine shop experiment says oui—and ja.
