48 . Glasgow Business March/April 2014
BIG TALKS Iain Muirhead Senior Account Manager, The BIG Partnership
Everything is not always as it seems
»Iain Muirhead on the importance of separating fact from fiction E
verything you know is wrong... OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration (I mean, I assume you can get your own name right!), but a glance at recent research
reveals we can be prety poor at taking in information – even when there are important issues at stake. Te research, carried out by
“Misconceptions about
you, your company, or your product, can cost you a great deal of money”
Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1015 people aged 16 to 75, lists 10 misconceptions held by the British public in serious areas such as crime, teenage pregnancy, immigration and benefit fraud. On a lighter level, the ever-wonderful
brain-straining TV quiz QI continually reminds us that things we always thought we knew are, in fact, nonsense. Lemmings don’t jump off cliffs; Nelson’s
last words were not “Kiss me, Hardy” (but the rather more desperate “Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub”) and the planet Mars is brown, not red. If you’d like to spend an enlightening hour
finding out many more sticks you’re grabbing the wrong end of, I highly recommend Wikipedia’s list of common misconceptions. Dumbfounding highlights include the
revelations that Mussolini didn’t make the trains run on time; bulls aren’t angered by the colour red and humans have many more than five senses. Marie Antoinete did not say “let them
eat cake” when she heard that the French peasantry were starving due to a shortage of bread. Te exact words were actually “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat brioche” – a rich type of bread). Ronald Reagan was never
seriously considered for the role of Rick Blaine in the 1942 film classic Casablanca, eventually
FIND OUT MORE... For more information on The BIG Partnership, visit
www.bigpartnership.co.uk
played by Humphrey Bogart. Tis belief came from an early studio press release announcing the film’s production that used his name to generate interest in the film (yes, he was a bigger star than Bogie at the time, believe it or not). It is commonly claimed that the Great
Wall of China is the only human-made object visible from the moon. In fact, the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up. Bats are not blind. While around
70 per cent of bat species, mainly in the microbat family, use echolocation to navigate, all bats have eyes and are capable of sight. All this truly, as Stephen Fry would say,
is “quite interesting” but there’s a serious side to it. Misconceptions about you, your company, or your product, can cost you a great deal of money. Customers may be basing their buying
decisions on what they think they know – and these ‘facts’ may be 20 years out of date, confused with another product or business, or just plain wrong. Tat’s why maintaining a good public
profile can’t be done with a one-off advert, press release or event. Te tide of public opinion waits for
no one. It takes effort, imagination and – above all – persistence, if you want to keep your head above water. In today’s world, that means actively
engaging with your customers and the wider public through social media, having a website which gives people something worth reading, and guarding your reputation with your life. One final misconception: only young
people are interested in social media ... WRONG! Twiter’s fastest-growing audience is 55 to
64-year-olds while, for Facebook and Google+ it’s the 45 to 54-year-olds. Not a lot of people know that.
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