Sleights of Mind

Despite increased awareness of behavioral economics in the industry, little advertising is shaped by using it. Does the future lies in attention economics instead.

In 2011, Jim Stengel, former CMO of Procter & Gamble, published his book Grow. In it, he analyzed 50 brands with the highest Millward-Brown loyalty scores to determine what might connect them. His answer was brand purpose, the shared intent of everyone at the company to improve lives. He compared this Stengel 50 index with the S&P 500 between 2000 and 2011 and saw that his index had grown 393% compared with a 7% loss in the S&P. It seemed…