I do apologise for this not being new content. I haven’t had much time to tap away at the keys, you see. However, I have stumbled across a few really interesting sites and blog posts over the weekend and following, is one of them.

I found this post on a new blog I have subscribed to, Branding Strategy Insider:

What are the most powerful marketing words in the English language? Since the early 60’s researches in advertising and academia have presented various findings. All agree the power lies in ten to twelve words. Here are the results chronologically:

1961: You, Easy, Money, Save, Love, New, Discovery, Results, Proven, and Guarantee

Source: [Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), Nov. 1, 1963, p. 4; Lowell (Mass.) Sun, Nov. 4, 1963, p. 5; Northwest Arkansas Times, Nov. 7, 1963, p. 4; etc.]

1970: The 12 most persuasive words in the English language are: you, money, save, new, results, health, easy, safety, love, discovery, proven and guarantee. According to the claim of researchers in the Yale psychology department.

Source: [Fresno (Calif.) Bee Republican, Jan. 20, 1970, p. 7; Yuma (Ariz.) Daily Sun, Jan. 20, 1970, p. B6; Burlington (N.C.) Daily Times-News, Jan. 20, 1970, p. 6A; etc.]

Here’s an Associated Press item from January 1972, in which the list takes on significance by being quoted from the Canadian Consumer Magazine:

The Canadian Consumer Magazine quotes a research report saying that the 12 most persuasive words in the English language are: You, money save, new, results, health, easy, safety, love, discovery, proven and guarantee. Note that the three-letter word “sex”, didn’t make the top 12.

Source: [Gettysburg (Pa.) Times, Jan. 17, 1972, p. 9; Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Jan. 31, 1972, p. 12; etc.]

Bill Gold repeated the list in his Washington Post column “The District Line” in July 1978.

In a recent issue, Trends reported that a study by experts had identified the 12 most persuasive words in the English language. They were listed as: “money, save, new, you, results, health, safety, easy, guarantee, discovery, proven and love.” Trends also mentions that public relations people and advertising copy writers are wondering how the study managed to overlook “free,” which along with “new,” was long considered one of “the best-selling words in the language.”

Source: [Washington Post, July 27, 1978, p.12]

Enjoy,

PJG

As any student would know, Wikipedia is a no-no when it comes to referencing. The fact that the information on Wikipedia is compiled by the general public ensures there will be inconsistencies in its validity. It’s not to say that all that you find on Wikipedia is incorrect, after all, a lot of it is directly quoted from credible references but there certainly are some gaps.

The thing I like most about Wikipedia is the ability to research information in a clear, intuitive manner. But what if you want to use the information in a university assignment? Well there are a few things you can do. I shall go through these in-depth:

(For the purpose of this article, I shall use ‘market segment’ -see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segment- as an example)

References

You will notice at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry, the ‘reference’ section. This contains references that were used in the composition of this entry on market segments. One of the references, for example, is:

Day, G. (1980) “Strategic Market Analysis: Top-down and bottom-up approaches”, working paper #80-105, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, Mass. 1980.

My suggestion if you would like to use a reference like this is to first Google it to see if it is available from a free source. In failing this, as a student you may have access to valuable databases of journal articles through your university website.

Also note, some of these references have a link to a PDF file of the listed journal article. This is really handy. Truth is, markers love you to reference academic journal articles!

External Links

One of my favourite parts of the Wikipedia page is the ‘external link’ section down the bottom. Here, you will find a group of links to various related websites. Websites which can of course be referenced. Well, provided they are creditable. An example of one of these links is:

Using market segmentation with digital marketing strategies [HYPERLINK]

Again, these links are generally to sites that have been used to build the Wikipedia entry.

Buzz Words

An overlooked part of the Wikipedia post is its buzzwords. By reading the entry, you are absorbing these words and discovering the definitions but they are handy for finding suitable references as well.

Lets say you have been reading this article on ‘market segments’ and you discover some information on ‘cluster analysis’. Well, by dropping this term into Google will open up a whole world of other sites that talk about ‘cluster analysis’ - sites that you could reference in your work.

Conclusion

I am sure what I have talked about is old news. But I am also sure many people out there are stuck when it comes to getting the most out of the usability of Wikipedia for research.