(CAKE) RISER/GETTY IMAGES; (MILK) STONE/GETTY IMAGES; (OJ) STOCKFOOD CREATIVE/GETTY IMAGES; (COFFEE) IMAGE SOURCE/GETTY IMAGES
Making Marketing a Piece of Cake
People differ radically on what makes things similar, concludes a new study in Cognition. That’s a finding marketers, especially those buying search-engine ads, should heed, says its author, psychologist Zachary Estes of Britain’s University of Warwick. Estes found about 50% of roughly 200 subjects defined similarity in a “categorical way,” lumping dogs with cats, say, because both are animals. The other half were “thematic thinkers,” who paired dogs with bones instead. Lessons: If you sell cake online, include “milk” in the search terms you buy. “Or at the grocery, put your potato chips with the beer, not just with the snacks,” Estes says.
