All opinion pieces
To design an all-one-one “super app”, financial institutions need to understand how different consumers relate to different kinds of money. Drawing from original ReD research, Millie Parekh Arora Arora and Tamara Moellenberg outline some dos and don’ts in American Banker.
The lesson Danish companies should take from Silicon Valley is that they need to grasp both humans and technology, if they want to improve their AI-efforts.
Learning models from video games offer three key lessons for building more effective digital tools for improving financial literacy.
LE CERCLE/POINT DE VUE - La France a un avantage culturel unique grâce à la présence importante des sciences sociales dans la société. Nos entreprises devraient y voir une opportunité.
The more we rely on AI and machine learning, the more work we need social scientists and humanities experts to do.
When our shared understanding of worth undergoes a fundamental structural shift, only the humanities can help us gain perspective around our changing norms, networks and social institutions.
Banks frequently lament their inability to deepen connections with their consumer, but in order to do that they will have to transform their relationship with the world as a whole.
Platforms for personalization and self-expression are eclipsing ready-made lifestyle brands, write Christian Madsbjerg and Sandra Cariglio.
Would you use a driverless car if your chauffeur was your status symbol? Tech’s unspoken hurdles
What Silicon Valley is missing is an understanding of people—what is meaningful to them, the way they live their day to day lives, what would make a difference for them on an ordinary Tuesday in Phoenix or Shanghai. There is a dearth of deep, nuanced cultural knowledge in tech. Luckily, there is an app for that: reading.
To understand Trump’s popularity, you need to understand the principles guiding life in rural America.
Succesful companies design for the everyday life of the consumer, and not just the clinical trial
As recent news of Macy’s tumbling stock prices suggests, today’s middle-class shoppers are looking for more than a bargain.
At the heart of "affective computing" are three misguided ideas about human emotions - some philosophical due diligence on the matter.
For marketers, truly valuable customer data comes in two forms: thick data and big data. Combining the two approaches can solve many of the problems that each category of data faces on its own.
The more we understand the rich context of our consumers’ lives, the closer we can get to their most meaningful moments. As global brands, it’s time to get back in the room.
Jun Lee and Mikkel Brok-Kristensen, Partners at ReD Associates, argue that developers should stop trying to develop wearables for life, but instead focus on how they can teach the wearer how to live without them.
Partner at ReD Associates, Mikkel Brok-Kristensen, explains how Coloplast successfully changed their innovation process towards a nonlinear and non-hypothesis driven approach.
In the last decade, Lego has risen to become the world’s ‘most powerful brand.’ Mikkel B. Rasmussen, Senior Partner at ReD Associates, discusses how and why in Strategy+Business.
According to Christian Madsbjerg, co-found of ReD Associates, Heidegger’s philosophical writings have never been more important, but now they risk being overshadowed by his sympathy for Nazism.
Based on an ethnographic research project on children’s play, ReD Associates partner Jun Lee argue that today's kids may need a "play rehab" as a consequence of over-parenting.
Ethnographic studies have revealed that customers feel that their banks lack interest in their wellbeing, because they are being treated as numbers in a database rather than as actual people.
As women's role in emerging markets is evolving a striking trend is becoming clear - professional women around the world are using alcohol to assert their independence.
Christian Madsbjerg, Co-founder of ReD Associates, discusses how the Google Glass Explorer program, which enable people to record every moment of their lives, might influence our perception of privacy.
Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Krenchel of ReD Associates argue that big data is worthless without thick data, which can capture the why and how behind the numbers big data provides.
At its core, all business is about making bets on human behavior. Despite the fad big data might not be the most useful tool to do so because it miss the important context of customers’ everyday lives.
As business problems are becoming increasingly complex, companies have begun to turn to big data. But big data analytics do not paint a completely meaningful picture of why people act the way they do.
In this article, ReD Associates’ Charlotte Vangsgaard, Mikkel Brok-Kristensen and Mads Holme discuss the need to take a patient-centric approach to guide early drug development and clinical trials.
In response to a Venture Beat article about the growing importance of big data, Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Krenchel from ReD Associates write about the danger of making computers more like humans.
Music discovery has become a new trend offered by services like Spotify and Pandora, but often the context of discovering music is more influential and meaningful than the substance of the music itself.
Mikkel B. Rasmussen, co-founder of ReD Associates, argues that instead of Google's 20% rule a clear focus and problem to solve is better for moving from thinking about innovation to leading innovation.
Big data are useful for answering straightforward questions, but truly great marketing campaigns are able to tap into a larger cultural zeitgeist, which is missed by algorithms.
Responding to the Washington Post article “Do we need more humanities majors?,” ReD Associates co-founders Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen argue that the answer is a definitive yes.
Despite media portrayals of Chinese women as passive and meek, ReD Associates’ research in China shows that women, now more than ever, have empowered mindsets and practices that govern their lives. ReD Associates partner Charlotte Vangsgaard discusses in Quartz how the Chinese media does not reflect the cultural and economic realities of Chinese women.
There are two types of data found in the social sciences: big data and thick data. Big data in and of itself gets people wrong because it focuses solely on correlation, not causation.
According to a recent study from ReD Associates, young adult women were more likely to look for information from Facebook than from other sources like Google.
What’s the purpose of Facebook? Austin Carr from Fast Company reports on a study ReD Associates conducted, where the company surveyed five hundred members from the Facebook community.
A new type of luxury is emerging across industries. This new phenomenon is known as “masstige,” a combination of “mass” and “prestige.”
Bruce Mau Design, a firm based in Toronto, Canada, is pioneering a new way of doing design. Instead of the traditional focus on products, their focus is on studying the world.
In the world of marketing, creativity is surrounded by a high level of mystique. However, California-based consultancy IDEO has developed a more rigorous approach to working with creativity.
By relying on target-group analyses the political parties end up trying to "sell" the same political message, which makes it difficult for voters to differentiate between the parties.