122: Why we're wrong to think of ourselves as individuals with the HERDmeister, Mark Earls

This week, we followed the HERDmeister to find and catch behavioural science buff, Mark Earls.  Dubbed by DO Lectures as “Britain’s answer to Malcolm Gladwell…without the hair”, Mark is a prolific thinker, recovering account planner and best-selling writer.  We shoot the breeze on the intimidatingly smart Paul Feldwick, being public enemy no. 1 in the eyes of market research, why we’re not individuals, copying, learning Welsh, what he’s optimistic about in the industry and tons more. In fact, we had to stop and reload a few times to take aim at bollocks brain scans and infantilising the creative genius, before wrangling a stampede of listener questions. What an episode. ///// Find Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter   Check out HERD HQ Get your mitts on all Mark’s books: Copy, Copy, Copy  Herd  Creative Superpowers  Welcome to the Creative Age  Here’s Strands of Genius guest curated by Giles  And ISOLATED Talks  If that wasn’t enough, keep an eye out for chances to catch Mark IRL at upcoming The Marketing Society events  Timestamps (01:48) - Quick fire questions (02:44) - First jobs, being a tour guide and working with Paul Feldwick    (08:38) - Becoming a behavioural science geek (aka becoming HERDmeister) (17:17) - Why we’re wrong to think of ourselves as individuals  (22:00) - Stop overlooking the influence of culture   (36:32) - Copying and the value of creative triage  (48:13) - A shed load of listener questions  (53:50) - Why brain scans are bollocks  (1:07:07) - How being a lover of both language and languages helps him understand people, communication and culture (cc Lisl Macdonald)  (1:31:12) - 4 pertinent posers  Mark’s book recommendations are:  Why the Germans Do it Better by John Kampfner The Invention of Tradition by Eric Hobsbawn  Hooligan by Geoffrey Pearson  Books by Jhumpa Lahiri  From the Diary of a Snail by Günter Grass /////