Unthinking: The Surprising Forces Behind What We Buy

by Harry Beckwith

Hardcover, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

658.8

Publication

Business Plus (2011), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 336 pages

Description

What do Howard Hughes and 50 Cent have in common, and what do they tell us about Americans and our desires? Why did Sean Connery stop wearing a toupee, and what does this tell us about American customers for any product? What one thing did the Beatles, Malcolm Gladwell and Nike all notice about Americans that helped them win us over? Which uniquely American traits may explain the plights of Krispy Kreme, Ford, and GM, and the risks faced by Starbuck's? Why, after every other plea failed, did "Click It or Ticket" get people to buy the idea of fastening their seat belts? To paraphrase Don Draper's character on the hit show Mad Men, "What do people want?" What is the new American psyche, and how do America's shrewdest marketers tap it? Drawing from dozens of disciplines, the internationally acclaimed marketing expert Harry Beckwith answers these questions with some surprising, even startling, truths and discoveries about what motivates us.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Jellyn

This was interesting. The author breaks it down into three categories. We buy things because they remind us of childhood. We buy things because er.. it fits our culture. And we buy things because they appeal to our eyes. Childhood:We like to play and we like bright colors.Culture:Americans are

drawn to loners, but we like to be a part of things. And we're basically optimistic.Eyes:We like pretty things. Which is ableist language, because he also includes 'smooth' and 'symmetrical' and things that you don't have to see to appreciate.There's some interesting tidbits in here, and I think it'd be interesting to try to write a book and market it with these things in mind.That said, I do have some issues with the book itself. He starts out talking about sports. Snoore. And he'll come back to sports now and again, too. And cars. And whenever he mentions sex, it's from the male point of view. Until I felt like every time he said 'you', and he said that a lot (which is also one of his points), he was talking to someone older and maler than me. In other words, not me.I think the book suffers for it, and he should've gotten a female coauthor or editor to really point these things out.At one point, he talks about how we all learned to spell the word 'geography'. Did you know there's a mnemonic for it? I didn't. I thought you just.. spelled it. It's not exactly the hardest word in the English dictionary. I wouldn't even put it in the top 100.He also seems obsessed with Nikes. Every third story, he seemed to come back to the stupid Nike shoes. Just how much Nike stock does this guy own?Also, here's a tip: If you're going to tell people to go to a website and enter a search term, well, you'd just better be darned sure that's going to work by the time your book goes to print. Because I got this book pretty hot off the press, and the result I got was "No result matches your query". So.I give it 3 stars for the interesting info in here and for the readability. But it definitely lost 2 for being sexist. Well, maybe 1.5 for sexist and .5 for that search not working and other uncorrected typographical errors.

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LibraryThing member RhodesDavis

"Stream of consciousness gibberish. It's like a mind dump of ideas trying to connect with advertising and things we experience in life. The actual substantive part would probably fit in a blog article but I abandoned the book after encountering several errors.

I LOVED Selling the Invisible. This

one didn't hit with me."

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LibraryThing member yamiyoghurt

Easy to read and entertaining, but some of the insights were a little frivolously put together.

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