#gas rationing stickers

[stone-cold-groove]

The ABC of saving gas.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Gas rationing began on the East Coast in May of 1942. In this photo, Marjoria Doyle gets her coupons and sticker on July 9 at P.S. 69. There were eight coupons per page and each coupon could be used once a week. The number of gallons allowed depended on need; those whose need was deemed non-essential were only allowed 3 gallons. Commuters got a little more, those whose work depended on driving a bit more than that, and essential service providers such as doctors and clergy got up to 8 gallons. Most cars at the time got around 15 mpg.

The program was started not so much to save gasoline, which was in plentiful supply, but tires, which were made of rubber. The Japanese had cut off the country's main source of supply and the shortage was critical. Eventually this accelerated the development of synthetic rubber, but rationing remained in effect until 1945.

Photo: Murray Becker for the AP

[creativeadagencyadzze]

Benefits Of The Gas Pump Advertising

One creative and unconventional OOH tactics is to place ads in gas stations using the space in the gas pump or gas tanks as advertising space. Gas stations can employ its stage of 24hr availability as a advertisement tool. Hundreds of vehicles visit a gas station every day for refilling. It consequences in a high footfall inside gas stations. Thus, gas stations come as a lifesaver for those brands who want to promote their advertisement in every areas. On the contrary, posting banners won’t be a wise idea. The audience of rural areas is mostly less fascinated with advertisements. They don’t hold an inclination to try new products. Thus, gas pumps advertising ensures to provide the uppermost visibility.

Gas pump stations have become a trending place for an advertisement to seize the eyesight of their target audience. They afford eye-catchy visual effects in the payment meter and inside the stores. This becomes an operative medium of gas pump advertising. It harnesses the advantage of footfalls. It indirectly involve the customers snatching and creating a wide viewership among those who halt to refill.

Gas pump advertisers implement several techniques to augments the visibility of advertisements. Advertisements are positioned at eye-level on top of the pump, a place which is favorably unavoidable. It often grabs eye sights while refueling. This process can gain attention and consciousness of a product without any interruption from the daily routine of the viewer.

Gas pump advertising Benefits

24 hours of availability

90% of gas pump stations remain open 24 hours a day thereby the advertisements through banners, stickers and digital signs. It can get 24/7 exposure to tourists, passengers, motorists or pedestrians. They are in thought of booking a hotel, finding a shop or restaurant for certain purposes.

Elongated Exposure time

It takes around 7-9 mins for a vehicle to get refueled because of the long queue. Meantime, the target audience of the brand engrosses in a visual interaction with the gas pump advertisements that are displayed. It, thus rationalizes gas station advertising as an uncluttered means for advertising.

Magnify Impressions

With every 4-5 times, an individual stop to refuel their vehicle in a month the impression rates exponentially surge. With an average of more than 1k impressions in a month. They are generally considered as a cost-effective medium with low-cost production. It provide large space to opt for mega-sized billboards for better perception.

 Advertisement through nozzle and toppers

Without being ironical, advertisers and their clients can utilize every medium or surface for advertisement. Literally advertisers can place stickers over the frame of the gas pump hose. They carry a better recall rate and dwelling time. They can be effective for stores offering services in proximity to that location.

The process of gas pump advertising through topper is money-saving. They come in the form of static and dynamic medium. They are placed over the gas meters. It offers a high exposure time from the target specific audience.

To attain a perfect exposure of an advertisement, you must be certain about the situations. The needs of that particular geographic area and cater service accordingly. For publishing and posting community awareness advertisements gas station would be the most appropriate destination to sponsor.

[uno-universal]

Has the “A” GAS RATION STICKER on the window.Same one the car in the GODFATHER had in the “leave the gun.Take the cannolis scene”.It meant you could get unlimited gas when the average American got enough to run his lawnmower.Only Doctors,politicians,and GANGTERS got it.

Weegee (real name Ascher Fellig) was a photographer and a photojournalist who worked in Manhattan's Lower East Side tracking down subject matter by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activities. His unflinching, black-and white photography set itself apart by choosing realistic and sometimes grim scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death. Weegee published photographic collections and worked with directors as diverse as Jack Donohue and Stanley Kubrick. 1992 film "The Public Eye" and 2014 "Nightcrawler" were loosely based on Weegee.

[hclib]

Gas Rations? Use Naphtha!

During WWII, the U.S. Office of Price Administration (OPA) rationed gas to assist in the war effort. Massive gasoline shortages, combined with a desire to conserve rubber, led to a system in which gas cards and stickers were distributed to those who could justify a need. A-level card holders, the lowest priority, and the bulk of motorists, were entitled to 3 to 4 gallons of gasoline per week. Military industry workers, doctors, mail carriers, and other VIPs were granted larger rations.

Use of naphtha, a synthetic fuel, was also limited by the OPA, nevertheless, unrationed naphtha, an expensive and troublesome fuel source, was common. In 1945, Minneapolis filling stations were selling more stove naphtha than regular rationed gasoline--the naphtha going to motorists who resisted gas rationing. Though not intended for use in cars, the fuel could be used in cars “under the most advantageous conditions,” according to the OPA. 

One Minneapolis naphtha-burning motorist relayed his routine to the Morning Tribune: “When he leaves his car for any lengthy period, he removes the spark plugs, cleans them and puts them on a radiator. When he wants to start the car again he rushes the warm plugs back into their places. It’s a little messy, he admits, but better than walking to the corner grocery store or riding a streetcar downtown.” (Minneapolis Morning Tribune, February 4, 1945)

Gas rationing ended in states beginning in August, 1945.

Photos of Minneapolis Sunday Tribune reporter Milton Kaplan purchasing motor ether and naphtha from Leonard Skeleny, service station operator, February 4, 1945. Photos from the Newspaper Photograph Collection in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

[objectivistnerd]

imacapitalist replied to your post “Recipe for Success”

Carbon tax? No.

Apparently @imacapitalist​ unfollowed me because I support a carbon tax. Here’s why I think that’s a silly thing for a self-professed capitalist to do.

First off, anthropogenic climate change is pretty undeniable at this point. There’s no rational way to look at the data from the last century and conclude that carbon dioxide emissions are not the most probable cause—especially given the well-established physical mechanisms. I’m a rocket scientist, not a climate scientist, but understand enough about the research process in general to know climate scientists are genuine and that there’s no reasonable grounds for doubting their conclusions.

So what should we do about it?

I’ve heard libertarians of discuss property rights as an alternative to government pollution controls. The line of reasoning is valid so far as it goes: pollution (including, we presume, greenhouse gas emissions) are a negative externality, and those affected by pollution have the right to be compensated for the damages. The Coasian framework applies in the case of, say, dumping toxic waste on someone else’s property, but breaks down in more complex cases. Privatizing rivers sounds difficult, but at least theoretically plausible.

I have yet to hear any serious proposals for how we’re going to privatize Earth’s atmosphere.

We’re dealing with a classical commons tragedy. A certain amount of greenhouse gas emissions are economically desirable, but we’ve long since passed that point. There are better technologies available but no clear incentive structure for switching over. In the case of, say, an overfished pond, we can reasonably enclose the commons and let the ownership’s profit motive direct the socially optimal price per catch. There’s no easy way to do that with the atmosphere of an entire planet.

The obvious alternative is having economists determine the socially optimal price of carbon emissions, and having the government charge that price.

I see this as directly analogous to the situation with police and national defense. Sure, we can imagine scenarios where private policing becomes the norm without developing a monopoly, but that’s not really the best place for us to be spending our energies. It makes more sense for the government to provide those services to all citizens rather than lose a huge amount of utility from hyperbolic discounting. There’s plenty to criticize the current implementations of the police and military—the US government is spending way more than is socially optimal—but contrary to the anarchists I don’t see that as a disproof of the concept in general.

Current carbon pricing proposals are easily the most market-friendly strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change. Instead of a massive government spending program or invasive regulations, we can relax existing emission limits and simply charge a flat fee per ton of CO2 emitted. A bill considered in Congress last year proposed starting at a relatively low rate and increasing it over time to account for the increasing social cost of greenhouse gas emissions.

The capitalist should support the basic idea of a carbon tax because it provides an impartial incentive to convert to cleaner energy at the pace appropriate for the entity in question. Combined with deregulation and a reduction in subsidies to “green” energy, this can represent a serious policy improvement. Instead of the government playing favorites, we can simply charge a uniform penalty for pollution and let the market sort it out.

Carbon taxes are the only way to achieve “free market energy policy” while accounting for the long-term impacts of CO2 emission. Currently, marketplace actors do not take those impacts into account because, for various reasons, they tend to think in the very short-term. Some of this is thanks to onerous regulation and the general instability of non-libertarian representative democracies, which I certainly agree we should address. I am not an anarchist, but still a libertarian—just a consequentialist one.

It’s quite clear that many of the governmental attempts to help the environment have done more harm than good, but we have to be realistic here. We’re not rolling back the regulatory state overnight, and even if we did, humans would still be subject to hyperbolic discounting. Carbon pricing deals with that problem.

For the record, my preferred carbon pricing schemes don’t put the money into the general pot (though that might not be the worst way to balance the federal budget). The economically optimal solution involves a citizen’s dividend that returns the money to the citizenry. Because the carbon tax will increase the sticker cost of products and services which entail the emission of greenhouse gases in their provision, a carbon tax will necessarily reduce the wealth of the populace. I don’t deny this. A carbon tax and dividend plan, such as that proposed by the Niskanen Center, would give all that money back to the people. In a way, this is a sort of redistributive system, but only insofar as it punishes the destroyers of future value and compensates those who gain the least in the meantime from that destruction.

I’d love to live in a world where this isn’t necessary, and a properly-crafted carbon pricing scheme would sunset once global greenhouse gas emissions drop to environmentally acceptable levels. Nobody wants to damage the environment; pollution continues primarily because non-polluters are incurring an economic cost that makes them less competitive. (Combining a Pigouvian tax with the divident system reverses this incentive structure: individuals receive the dividend regardless of whether or not they pollute, but can avoid paying the tax by purchasing genuinely green products and services.) The current situation is a straightforward coordination problem; one of the few places where state power is justifiable.

Justifiable does not equal justified, mind you: we need reason to believe that state intervention will have the desired positive outcome. I think that most of the government’s attempt at environmental stewardship fails this test; a carbon tax and dividend does much better for the reasons I’ve outlined above.

If you see a more practical strategy for dealing with climate-related externalities, I’m genuinely curious. I haven’t heard one yet.

[danbily]

Seville, Ohio KBJJ on 10/05/2019

This FBO was great about crew car use for our adventure. Look what we found parked next to us at the airport. This 1929 Ford still had its gas rationing sticker from WW2.

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

(I’ve been having a really rough couple of days, so I thought in an attempt to shake myself out/do something else/just distract myself, I’d post a snippet of a fic I’ve been working on now and then (subject to any edits of course), so I hope you enjoy! Also sorry about the lack of read more, I’m not able to get onto my laptop at the minute)

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CUCKOO

Jughead pulls out some of the books in his locker; he’s slowly been emptying it out for weeks, taking things as and when he’ll no longer need them for class. The sight is somewhat bittersweet, in that his locker is just one more thing that won’t belong to him anymore, a place where he could keep his things solely his, now to be recycled, given to someone else. His stickers and notes would no longer litter the door, the picture of him and Jellybean from the summer his grandparents had let him come and visit already moved to his wallet, his books and folders gone from their permanent place inside. Locker 235 would have no memory of Jughead Jones beyond tape residue, just like most of his peers.

Jughead internally rolls his eyes at himself, not wanting to sink to the level of waxing poetic over an empty locker. The slam of the door coincides with another loud noise echoing down the corridor.

“Betty! Betty, wait!”

He knows the name. He knows the voice calling it. He hasn’t spoken to the owner of either in a long time.

Surreptitiously as possible, Jughead casts his gaze over his shoulder, one hand still raised and resting against the dial on his locker.

The first thing he sees is Betty striding purposefully down the hall, shoulders back and hair flying about her face. The weather’s been at a steady eighty degrees for the past few weeks now, and the smooth curve of her shoulders are exposed in the sleeveless, white top she’s wearing. Begrudgingly, Jughead’s eyes fall to the strip of skin between the hem of her shirt and the band of her jeans that’s showing. Just as quickly he moves them down to the pink Keds on her feet and back up to her face. He can’t put his finger on it, but there’s something that’s almost un-Betty like about her today.

Or maybe there isn’t. As her eyes find his on her way down the hall, he realises that it’s been a while since they’ve looked each other in the eye. What does he know about Betty Cooper anymore?

The corner of her mouth ticks up into something resembling a smile and Jughead’s stomach somersaults. As soon as it’s there, it’s gone, Betty turning away, and he’s left wondering if—knowing that—he imagined it. The lingering feeling in his abdomen says otherwise, but Jughead’s got more sense than to listen to his gut.

Betty scoops her hair into one hand, pulling it into a soft of makeshift ponytail while ducking her head towards the ground, lifting the strands from the back of her neck, relieving the heat, and it strikes him. He doesn’t remember a day when Betty hadn’t worn her hair up to school, in all the years he’s known her. The change makes him feel uneasy, in the same way that his emptying locker had done.

“Betty, would you just listen?” The voice comes again, closer this time. Jughead looks further to his right and sees the owner, barrelling down the hallway, expression pained, thick brows pinched.

Archie could have easily caught up to Betty, Jughead thinks, watching the boy that used to be his friend trail behind her forlornly. She’s not particularly running down the hall, and four years of school sanctioned sports hadn’t exactly left Archie out of shape. No, there’s something else stopping him from reaching out to her.

Jughead may be a social outcast—a self-identified loner—but he’s not completely oblivious. He’s privy to the churning of the rumour mill, as much as the next student.

Golden girl Betty Cooper had walked in on her footballer boyfriend, Archie Andrews, in flagrante with her best friend, Veronica Lodge.

Maybe being popular wasn’t all it cracked up to be. At least at this end of the social spectrum no one cared about the enthralling details of your private life. At Betty and Archie’s heights? They were the proverbial fuel of the high school hierarchy.

But, that wasn’t his problem, Jughead thinks as he lets slip a small sigh, tuning out Archie’s continuing pleas by replacing his headphones and turning in the opposite direction. They’d abandoned him. Whatever trials and tribulations became the prom king and queen were none of his business anymore.

Right?

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“Five, four, three, two…” Jughead has taken to actually muttering a countdown out loud like some teen cliche as he watches the second hand drag by in slow motion. It’s his last class of the day (there’s some saving grace in that it’s English—going out on something of a high) and the bell is so close to ringing he can practically feel the vibrations in the air.

The small, red hand finally reaches the twelve, and just like that it’s all over. The shrill ringing of the bell sounds and almost simultaneously a cheer erupts from the majority of seniors surrounding him.

Jughead looks over just in time to see Ethel Muggs rolling her eyes at the farce around them. “You’d think none of them remember these are the best days of our lives,” she mutters sarcastically, and Jughead lifts the corner of his lips in a smirk.

“Thought that was college?” he quips back. Ethel laughs with him as they both gather their things and head for the exit.

“Have a good summer, Jughead. I’ll see you around, maybe?” Ethel asks as they step into the blinding sun (another eighty degreer) and head down the front steps to the parking lot.

“Sure. You too, Ethel.” He’s not sure if they actually will cross paths again, but he supposes he should make some sort of effort to keep in contact with the girl who’s been nothing but a friend to him over the past few years. Bonding by mutual exile might be more appropriate as a label, but the sentiment is still there. Jughead can’t imagine keeping in touch with anyone from Riverdale, though. Too many loose ends to get knotted. His hometown had served its purpose; he’d got his education and his grades, and now it was time for the next step: out.

He isn’t looking up as he approaches his truck, which is why when a familiar pair of pink Keds come into view he’s almost stepping on them before he realises there’s someone leaning against the driver’s side door.

“Whoa, what—” he blurts out, stumbling to a stop.

Betty’s got one ankle crossed over the other where she leans. The jeans have been replaced by a denim skirt today, the length of her legs on display. She’s been taking advantage of the sun, Jughead thinks, as his eyes involuntary trail them. She’s wearing another sleeveless top, this time tucked into her waistband. Her hair’s down again.

Betty smiles, a small thing really, and Jughead frowns.

“Hey, Jug.” It’s been a while since he’s heard his name in her voice—it prods at unwelcome memories, buried somewhere near those memories of his mom’s happy stories. “How are you?”

“How am I?” Jughead repeats, thoroughly confused. He has no idea where this is coming from, or why she’s here, what she wants, but he didn’t expect that to be the first thing she asks. He doesn’t say anything more and her smile falters a little before it’s back.

“Um, this is your truck, right?” Now he’s completely lost.

“I have the keys,” he replies wryly, lifting them up like proof. She giggles again, and he wishes, with a flush, that she’d stop.

“I know this is a bit out of the blue but I need a ride later and I was wondering if you’d mind driving me. Gas money provided, of course,” she says somewhat shyly, gathering her hair into that attempt at a fleeting ponytail again.

“What?” Jughead asks eloquently, his mouth refusing to close fully.

“Please?” Betty asks again, drawing her lower lip between her teeth. Her green eyes are wide and pleading, chipping away at Jughead’s resolve with each passing moment.

“Where do you need to go?” the remains of his rational side thinks to ask, garnering as much information as possible before he agrees to be her chauffeur (because he will agree, he thinks with a pang of self-pity).

Betty chews on her lip some more before answering. “Would it influence your decision at all if I decided to keep the location on a need to know basis? As in, when you need to know, you’ll know,” she says apprehensively.

Jughead wonders if drawing this out any longer will preserve some of his pride, which will definitely disappear when he says yes. He tries to chalk it down to morbid curiosity. “Sure, I guess,” he tries to sound vague, like that’s doing any favours.

Betty’s face lights up with a mixture of relief and gratefulness, and she leans in towards him before she stops herself, instead reaching out and laying a hand on his forearm. “Thank you, Juggie! Pick me up at eight?”

She’s gone before he can answer, and he thinks it wasn’t really a question anyway. The spot where her hand had been against his skin burns the whole ride home.

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“I’m not gonna go,” Jughead tells himself more than he tells his friends, rolling a beer mat absently between his hands.

“And abandon Princess Peach in her hour of need? Yeah, right,” Sweet Pea scoffs from his position in front of the Street Fighter machine in the corner of the Whyte Wyrm, not even looking up from the intense game he appears to be caught up in.

“Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jughead hollers back, chucking the mat at the back of Sweet Pea’s head. His friend lifts one hand briefly to flip him the bird before going back to his game.

Jughead had wanted to transfer to Southside High his sophomore year of high school, but his dad had refused, despite them living in the district. FP had been unmovable in his desire for Jughead to get the best out of school that he could, and no matter his allegiance to the Southside, he knew that didn’t come on this side of the tracks.

It had been hard not to resent his father for metaphorically feeding him to the dogs (Bulldogs, to be precise) in that way, but the further he got from the initial sting of betrayal—and the two month stint living at the Twilight Drive-In—the more thankful for the decision he’d become. It was true that Jughead felt far more affiliation with the kids, like Sweet Pea, like Toni, that grew up on the same side of town as he did. There was a toughened skin, a pessimistic outlook, that developed amongst all of the Southside kids early on that made them feel united—as much as any leather jacket could.

Another thing his father had refused him was an initiation into the Serpents, into gang life—another thing to set him apart from the people that lived around him. FP didn’t want that for Jughead, and while he could understand a father’s desire to protect his son, Jughead couldn’t help but feel shunned, an outsider amongst outsiders. It only made him more determined to pass through Riverdale on his way to more.

Despite this, the kids on the Southside were far more accepting of him than the ones at school ever were, and there was a comfortable cushion to fall back on in his friends here that even a self-professed loner needed sometimes.

“He’s not wrong. You have got something of a hero complex,” Toni smirks from behind the bar, wiping down the sticky surface. Jughead feels his face burn and doesn’t try to disagree. “We all know you’re gonna go.”

“We don’t know that,” Jughead tries to defend lamely.

“Oh, Jones. It’s a sad, but familiar tale. And we all know it includes you going to do whatever bidding the Mother Teresa of the Northside wants you to do,” she lifts a pointed brow at him.

“What does she want you to do?” Sweet Pea chimes back in with a genuine curiosity.

“She didn’t really give me much to go on,” Jughead shrugs, stealing a handful of peanuts from the packet Toni has open on the bar.

“Guess you’ll have to go and find out,” she says coyly.

“I still might not go,” he repeats after a few beats, his words met with a chorus of groans.

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At five minutes to eight, Jughead slowly pulls up to the curb on Elm Street. It bothers him how easily he’s remembered Betty’s address, and the one next door to it. A swell of sympathy grows for Betty as he thinks about having to live next door to the boyfriend that hurt her. Still, even though he doesn’t know what Betty’s plans are post-high school, he assumes that it won’t be the arrangement for much longer.

He isn’t quite sure how to announce himself, and decides on waiting in the truck for Betty to come out. As the clock ticks over he expects the shiny, red door to swing open but nothing happens. His fingers twitch towards the door handle as the minutes pass by and nothing moves in the still of the night, but finally something catches his eye.

There’s a shadow passing down the side of the Cooper house, scaling its way down the trellis that crawls its way up to the side window. The shape forms into a person, all long legs and loose, blonde hair, finally landing on the porch with a dull thud.

Betty hurries down the steps and all but flies into the truck, eyes bright and breathing heavily. Absently, Jughead notes she’s wearing a pair of denim shorts.

“You came,” she exclaims, still in something of a hushed whisper, body turned towards him on the bench seat.

“Said I would,” Jughead replies casually with a lift of his eyebrows, like he hadn’t spent all afternoon locked in an internal debate about that very fact. He can practically feel the heat radiating off her bronzed skin. “Front door out of order?” he jokes with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the house.

Betty shrugs, the dusting of pink across her cheeks matching that creeping in around the early evening sky. “This is something of an unauthorised outing,” she leans in to tell him. She smells like the smokey air of summer barbecues, with an undertone of something sweet, like some kind of flower he doesn’t know the name of. “I trust you’ll keep it confidential,” she grins, teasing.

“Scouts’ honour,” he drawls, holding up three fingers before putting the truck in gear.

He hears a light snort and turns to her questioningly. “You were never a scout,” she scoffs with conviction, rolling down her window to let some of the stifling night air in.

Jughead jolts in surprise and wonders what else she remembers about him. He clears his throat, grasping the steering wheel with both hands. “So, where are we going? I kind of need to know,” he asks, bringing them back to her earlier terms.

“Right,” she chuckles, pointing in front of them, indicating straight on. Jughead pulls away from the curb as she continues to talk. “Do you know where Veronica Lodge lives?”

[smoothshift]

This is a true survivor, it still has the original spare and the gas ration sticker via /r/Autos

[hotrodsmitty]

Reproduction WW2 gas ration sticker. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdXOST7O1dP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

NYC shooting wounds 16 (WSJ) Police are searching for a gunman who wounded 10 people on a busy New York City subway train and platform. Six others were treated for shrapnel wounds, smoke inhalation and panic, according to the New York Fire Department. A Manhattan-bound train was approaching the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn around 8:30 a.m. ET, when the suspect put on a gas mask and opened a canister he’d taken out of his bag, filling the train car with smoke before opening fire, police said. No motive has been established for the shooting, and it isn’t being investigated as an act of terrorism.

Sticker shock: March inflation likely set new 40-year high (AP) With ever-rising costs for food, gasoline, housing and other necessities squeezing consumers and threatening the economy, inflation in the United States likely set yet another four-decade high in March. The government’s consumer price index being released Tuesday is expected to show that prices shot up 8.4% from 12 months earlier, according to economists surveyed by the data firm FactSet. That would mark the fastest year-over-year inflation since December 1981. And it would surpass the 7.9% 12-month increase in February, which itself set a 40-year high.

Power restored in Puerto Rico nearly 5 days after blackout (AP) A private company announced Monday that power had been fully restored to Puerto Rico’s almost 1.5 million customers nearly five days after a fire at a main power plant sparked an island-wide blackout and prompted public schools and government agencies to close. Officials are now focused on investigating what exactly caused the failure of a circuit breaker at a substation within the Costa Sur power plant in southern Puerto Rico, one of four main plants in the U.S. territory. The blackout outraged and worried many on the island of 3.2 million people, including those who cannot afford generators and have medical conditions including diabetes and respiratory issues that depend on electricity for their treatments. The outage snarled traffic, shuttered businesses and forced some people to sleep outdoors given the heat.

The war next door: Conflict in Mexico is displacing thousands (Washington Post) María Jesús was grilling tortillas. Patricia was frying pork ribs. Adriana was sipping a cup of tea to calm her nerves. For the Martínez sisters, that Friday was shaping up like most Fridays in their mountain village, the women preparing lunch in their simple homes as their husbands tended the fields. Then the women’s father, Javier, sent an urgent warning: The Jalisco cartel had arrived. “Our lives changed in a minute,” said María Jesús, 31. Gunmen in four armor-plated “monster” trucks had been spotted just across the valley, Javier told his children. They grabbed their kids and ran. Three months later, 17 family members are crammed into an abandoned restaurant here in Coahuayana, a banana-growing town on the Pacific coast, home to an estimated 1,000 Mexicans uprooted from their communities. An estimated 20,000 people have fled violence in the past year in Michoacán state, roughly the size of West Virginia. Thousands more have abandoned their homes in other states like Zacatecas and Guerrero. Forced displacement is generally associated with armed conflict. Yet it’s become such a problem in ostensibly peaceful Mexico that the country’s Senate is considering legislation to offer humanitarian aid to victims. “We are at war,” said Alma Griselda Valencia, a congresswoman from Michoacán. “The fact the government doesn’t want to accept it, is something else.”

Chile announces unprecedented water rationing plan as drought enters 13th year (Reuters) As a punishing, record-breaking drought enters its 13th year, Chile on Monday announced an unprecedented plan to ration water for the capital of Santiago, a city of nearly 6 million. “A city can’t live without water,” Claudio Orrego, the governor of the Santiago metropolitan region, said in a press conference. “And we’re in an unprecedented situation in Santiago’s 491-year history where we have to prepare for there to not be enough water for everyone who lives here.” The plan features a four-tier alert system that goes from green to red and starts with public service announcements, moves onto restricting water pressure and ends with rotating water cuts of up to 24 hours for about 1.7 million customers.

UN: Nearly two-thirds of Ukraine’s children have fled homes (AP) Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, and the United Nations has verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, though the number is almost certainly much higher, the U.N. children’s agency said Monday. Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is “quite incredible.” He said it is something he hadn’t before seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work. “They have been forced to leave everything behind—their homes, their schools and, often, their family members,” he told the U.N. Security Council. “I have heard stories of the desperate steps parents are taking to get their children to safety, and children saddened that they are unable to get back to school.”

Kyiv comes back to life (Washington Post) Kyiv is coming back to life—despite half of its 3 million residents having fled and Mayor Vitali Klitschko warning them to stay away. Rocket attacks could happen at any moment, he said; Russian saboteurs might still be in the city. Yet some people already have returned. Six times as many cars were on the road last week as the week before, according to police officials. The capital escaped the destruction and mayhem that many feared, a fate its suburbs instead suffered as Russian forces tried to encircle Kyiv during their month-long occupation. In those outlying towns, mass graves and torture chambers are still being uncovered. Investigators are gathering evidence for thousands of potential war crimes amid the flattened rows of modest homes and apartment blocks. And the sirens here still blare daily, even if the last shell fell more than two weeks ago. Checkpoints clog traffic. Regional police said 10,000 mines left by the Russians in Kyiv and its suburbs have been found and deactivated. There are certainly more, they added. Even so, signs of reemergence are everywhere. More than 900 supermarkets are open, as well as 460 cafes, the city government said on Sunday.

Ukraine’s Economy Crumbles (Foreign Policy) As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues with no end in sight, the economic cost of Russia’s campaign is beginning to come into focus. On Monday, the World Bank forecast a staggering 45.1 percent drop in Ukraine’s GDP, as the war severely constrains the country’s imports and exports, public and private investment collapses, and household spending dries up amid a refugee and displacement crisis. The speed of the drop is unheard of in modern conflicts; it wasn’t until two years into Syria’s war that its GDP eventually halved from pre-war levels. Although less steep, the downturn in GDP is not only set to impact Ukraine. Russia’s economy, under heavy Western sanctions and experiencing the flight of international capital, is also expected to contract by 11.2 percent. Ukrainians are considering new ways of fundraising. On Monday, Oleg Ustenko, the chief economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that negotiations were under way with several countries to conduct a “mass attack” to seize major Russian assets, including oil tankers, as a form of war reparations.

Ukraine war moves Finland and Sweden closer to joining NATO (Washington Post) If one accepts the rationale that Russia invaded Ukraine to thwart Kyiv’s entry into NATO and check the Western military alliance’s eastward march, then on those grounds alone, President Vladimir Putin’s gambit has been a disaster. The Russian assault on Ukraine has led to an almost unprecedented moment of solidarity in Europe, waves of Western military equipment pouring into Ukraine and the mass expulsion of suspected Russian spies in European capitals. On Sunday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance was now planning a much larger, permanent military presence on its borders with Russia. And one of the lasting legacies of the Russian invasion may be how the war spurred NATO’s strengthening and expansion. Finland and Sweden, two Nordic countries with deep histories of nonalignment, now appear on the precipice of joining the bloc. A report Monday in the Times of London suggested that both nations could clinch NATO membership in a matter of months. Public opinion in both countries lurched dramatically in favor of joining NATO after the invasion began. For the first time, a majority of Swedes support entry to the bloc, while a poll this weekend found that 68 percent of Finns would back gaining membership.

Drugs running out, surgeries cancelled as Sri Lanka’s health system buckles (Reuters) Sri Lanka’s healthcare system is close to collapse under the weight of the island nation’s worst economic crisis. As well as shortages of vital drugs, some procedures and tests have been suspended. The lack of foreign exchange has left President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government unable to import essentials including medicines and fuel, causing crippling power cuts and bringing thousands of protesters on to the streets demanding his ouster. Reuters spoke to two government officials, six doctors and a healthcare union leader who said they had not seen Sri Lanka’s health system in such a bad way before.

Shanghai eases 2-week shutdown, letting some residents out (AP/Bloomberg) Some residents of Shanghai were allowed out of their homes Tuesday as the city of 25 million eased a two-week-old shutdown Tuesday after videos posted online showed what was said to be people who ran out of food breaking into a supermarket and shouting appeals for help. The number of people who were allowed out wasn’t immediately clear. The government said some markets and pharmacies also would reopen. The abrupt closure of most businesses and orders to stay home left the public fuming about a lack of access to food and medicine. People who test positive for the virus have been forced into sprawling temporary quarantine facilities criticized by some as crowded and unsanitary. Containment measures across China are an increasing drag on the world’s second-largest economy, with consequences for global growth, supply chains and. inflation. Nomura Holdings Inc. economists said the risk of recession is rising in China, estimating that about 373 million people in 45 cities are now under full or partial lockdown, making up 40% of China’s gross domestic product.

Taiwan issues first war survival handbook amid China threat (Reuters) Taiwan’s military released a handbook on civil defence for the first time on Tuesday, giving citizens survival guidance in a war scenario as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine focuses attention on how the island should respond to China’s pressure. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has stepped up military activities nearby in the past two years, to press it into accepting its sovereignty claims. Taiwan’s handbook details how to find bomb shelters via smartphone apps, water and food supplies, as well as tips for preparing emergency first aid kits.

Tropical storm Megi hits Philippines, leaving at least 25 dead (Reuters) Philippine authorities said on Monday at least 25 people had died in landslides and floods caused by tropical storm Megi as it hit the eastern and southern coasts of the Southeast Asian country. The storm made landfall on Sunday with sustained winds of up to 65 kilometres (40 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 80 kph (49 mph). Megi is the first storm to hit the archipelago this year, which sees around 20 such storms annually.

Somalia drought (BBC) As Somalia faces what experts call its worst drought in a decade, children are bearing the brunt. Parents are struggling to feed them, with nearly half of the country’s under-five population likely to suffer from acute malnutrition by June. “If nothing is done, it is projected that by the summer of this year, 350,000 of the 1.4 million severely malnourished children in the country, will perish,” warns Adam Abdelmoula from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). “Already in this country, 70% of school-age children are not attending school. In just one state in Juba land, the drought has led to closure of 40 schools and that is going to be the trend in many drought-affected areas,” he continues, adding that some girls are being married off early because their families cannot feed them.

Lake Mary Jane (New Yorker) A lake in Florida is attempting to win a lawsuit, a first attempt at an innovative legal strategy that seeks to grant legal rights to natural elements. There’s some precedent here: Lots of animals have had their date in court, joined by co-plaintiffs that do most of the talking and the paying. But lakes, at least in the U.S., are new, and Florida’s Lake Mary Jane is suing to stop a development that would convert 1,900 acres of wetlands and forest into homes and offices. It’s the latest in a long-brewing fight over the rights of nature. In 2020, Florida’s Orange County had voters weigh in on an amendment asking if the county’s waterways should have the “right to exist, flow, to be protected against pollution and to maintain a healthy ecosystem,” a position which won with 89 percent of the vote. Seeking to head it off, the state government preempted it by prohibiting local governments from granting legal rights to the natural environment.

[plurdledgabbleblotchits]

“Gas rationing began nationwide on December 1, 1942 and ended on August 15, 1945. Speed limits were 35 MPH for the duration. For a short time in 1943, rations were reduced further and all pleasure driving was outlawed.” 

[jeramymobley]

Measuring Emotional Jobs To Be Done

The modern Mini Cooper—offered in a variety of eye-popping colors—burst onto the scene in 2001 as a chic version of an old British classic. It quickly became a fixture in trendy urban neighborhoods around the globe. Today, nearly twenty years later, the car still hasn’t lost its freshness: demand for Minis has remained robust with annual sales increasing at a steady pace of 5.2% per year.

On paper, the Mini doesn’t look like it should be such a break-out success. While its modest size makes it ideal for city living, other cars such as the Honda Fit or the Chevy Sonic are equally manageable in tight quarters. The Mini’s Comfort ratings in the Kelley Blue Book are tied with those of the VW Beetle and Toyota Yaris. Its gas mileage is no better than its competitors’, and sometimes it is worse. And with a sticker price that averages about $5,000 more than comparably sized rivals, the case for buying a Mini seems pretty weak.

The Mini’s surprising success comes from its unique, almost ineffable customer appeal. People just feel good about buying one. Its distinctive sporty shape, for example, allows owners to stand out from the pack. The option of a convertible top adds an extra element of cool. The Mini colors and add-ons are also atypical and can be used as an expression of personality. A shocking yellow Cooper with racing stripes tells the world that you are audacious and fun; a dark purple Roadster signals stylish sophistication; a chocolate brown Countryman is for those who like to travel the unbeaten path.

By recasting a car purchase as a bold act of individual expression, Mini has ensured that it will remain competitive in the small car market both now and well into the future.

Figuring Out Emotions

As the appeal of the Mini shows, people are not rational decision makers. Our feelings and emotions influence our choices more than our most logical justifications. We rarely articulate these emotions clearly, and even when we do, we may not openly acknowledge just how important they are. But these emotions are at the very center of our decisions. Digging deep to uncover both the emotional and practical factors behind a purchase decision allows us to more accurately predict whether a new proposition will succeed.

There is no doubt that emotions are notoriously tricky to pin down. Unlike variables such as cost, size, or ease of purchase, emotions are neither discrete nor concrete, making them difficult to compare. What “delights” one consumer may “thrill” another. The question is, what’s the difference? And does the difference matter?

So what’s the solution? We have found success understanding customer emotions using a Jobs to be Done framework which builds on the work of the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Rather than trying to measure specific emotional reactions, we focus on identifying the emotional jobs that consumers want to get done.

Unlike emotion, which is a sentimental response to an outside stimulus, an emotional job is a specific emotion-linked task that the customer is trying to accomplish by purchasing or using a product or service within a defined context. Emotional jobs are robust because they address root motivations and emerge as a result of clear attitudinal or circumstantial factors.

For example, understanding that a car makes a customer feel special can hardly be called an insight. “Feeling special” is too vague an emotion to be meaningful. Recognizing, however, that for one customer, “feeling special” means addressing his emotional job of “standing out from the crowd” within the context of a “being a hipster who recently moved to the suburbs” opens up whole new areas for action. The emotional job serves as a sort of compass; it lays out pathways for creating targeted, meaningful, and relevant innovations.

Quantifying Emotional Jobs

Measuring emotions with a quantitative survey is difficult, but there is a way to do it. Our research into emotional jobs is guided by three key principles:

Principle 1: Quality Before Quantity

It’s tempting to try to explore all possible jobs when fielding a survey. No one wants to risk missing an important insight because they forgot to ask. But while stuffing a survey full of questions is a bad idea in general, it’s exponentially terrible when emotions are involved. Asking about too many emotional jobs at once will fatigue the respondent and decrease the reliability of their responses.

What to do? We’ve found that the best way to narrow down your questions to a more realistic list is two-fold:

Conduct qualitative research before you design the survey. This way, you can push respondents to generate their own lists of high-priority jobs instead of giving them a list of possibilities based only on your initial assumptions

Ask about emotional factors in an open-ended way. If customers use nebulous terms like “gratifying” or “trust,” ask them to define what they mean. This way, you can drill down this feedback into a concise list of factors that can be tested and measured

Principle 2: Seek A Hierarchy Of Emotions

Functional jobs to be done are often relatively obvious and easy to arrange into a clear hierarchy. Not so with emotional jobs. Emotional jobs are often related in complex ways, and they can heavily influenced by contextual factors, making it difficult to understand how to sort and compare them. If emotional jobs and their relative priority become jumbled, you risk targeting the wrong emotion.

For example, the Mini is cool and stylish, but those factors are less important than its uniqueness – its target customer prizes uniqueness first, rather than those who might wish for a stylish but more conformist vehicle. Style supports uniqueness in this case, but it does not supersede it. Fiat owners, by contrast, may have the reverse set of priorities.

To get these insights via a survey, ask respondents to weigh their priorities against each other, rather than having them simply assign numerical ratings of importance. Is it more important, for example, to be unique or stylish? This is a more realistic question than one that would force people to put a number on, say, the value of uniqueness. Then, you can pit prioritized emotions against functional benefits. Is it more important to be unique or to have great gas mileage? In this way you get to useable data which is both accurate and tractable.

Principle 3: Context Is Key

Emotions are highly context-dependent. The desire for uniqueness, for instance, can manifest differently to a new parent who feels forced into routines, or for a middle-aged professional yearning to rebel. Sometimes an emotion will not be present at all until it is triggered by an event or other contextual change. If survey-takers respond based on different imagined contexts, their answers can be highly divergent.

Control for this variability by describing in detail the contexts in which you’re asking them to imagine themselves. You can also ask about a specific instance when they used or purchased your product or service type. Think about it: do you remember more clearly why you bought your last cup of coffee, or why you purchase coffee on average? When answering about a recent, concrete instance, respondents are more likely to remember their choices and feelings accurately. Of course, make sure to capture what that context is either through providing it or supplying a handful of choices.

Emotions can sometimes be best understood in relation to the choices they motivate. If you were assessing what leads people to chose one doctor over another, for instance, you could describe two hypothetical physicians succinctly, ask respondents to choose one, and then have them rate the importance of various emotions in that decision. In this way, you can normalize answers to a clear context and enable respondents to compare emotional jobs that may be in tension with each other, such as a having rapport with a physician or feeling assured about medical expertise. Then you can change the contexts and see how the roles of these factors differ.

Putting It Together

Following these principles generates many benefits:

Emotions are framed in ways that resonate with customers

Emotions are disaggregated into more manageable components that can be targeted through product, service, and marketing

You get an accurate sense of how important emotions are relative to functional jobs, and therefore how much to invest in achieving each type of benefit

You can link together complex emotions in simple ways, anchoring your value proposition in a way that is simultaneously evocative and straightforward

Emotions need not be opaque, and quantitative analysis of them need not be imprecise. When you approach emotional jobs with intention, you can discern their importance clearly, just as BMW did when it first introduced its hip, customizable little car.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Steve Wunker and Jennifer Law. You can find much more on these concepts in their new book Costovation.

The Blake Project Can Help You Grow: The Brand Growth Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[oldnewyorkpictures]

ONE OF NYC's HIGHWAYS TO HELL. The West Side Highway in 1943. Black cars, gas rationing stickers in the windshields. 74 years later, the West Side Highway makes my list of NYC's Highways To Hell. (Photo via karage.tv.)

[god-sent-gender-bent]

SO I FOUND A LIST OF WHAT EACH STATE BUYS THE MOST OF AND I REALLY WANT SOMEONE TO DRAW CHARACTERS REPRESENTING EACH STATE

ALABAMA: adult diapers / Curry 2 Low / Paula Deen Air Fryer / CPAP mask / roller skates ALASKA: Connect Four / ugly Christmas sweater / drone / webcam / M-16 rifle ARIZONA: milk frother / marijuana seeds for sale / money belt / beret hat / Kangol hat / Juicy Couture tracksuit ARKANSAS: tablet computer / night vision goggles / tattoo sleeves / Paula Deen furniture / tutu / costume jewelry CALIFORNIA: Little Tikes Easy Score Basketball Set / Baywatch swimsuit / avocado slicer / Roach Motel / Pomade / Stadium Buddy / Onion Goggles / Guy Fieri knives / Bob Marley poster / Bacon Soap / baby on board sticker / baby on board sign / wallet chain / purple leather jacket / Armani jeans / Louis Vuitton money clip / bulk glitter / raccoon trap / Pikachu dog costume COLORADO: Handerpants / Trump toilet paper / Borat mankini / swim briefs / tube socks CONNECTICUT: insect trap / Ivanka Trump jewelry / pet rock / Pilates Pro Chair DELAWARE: Genealogical DNA test / umbrella / Crocs DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: shutter shades / bowling shirt FLORIDA: boyfriend arm pillow / Guy Fieri cookware / rollerblades Walmart / car bra / 9mm suppressor / men’s cargo shorts / paintball sniper rifle GEORGIA: plaid pants / zombie apocalypse survival kit / Ed Hardy shirt / camo wedding dress HAWAII: GoPro Hero / Flowbee / speargun / aloha shirt / fanny pack / Spam / Louis Vuitton bag IDAHO: Shamwow / NERF Blaster / Fez / metal detector / glass pipe / smoked turkey / trucker hat / surfboard ILLINOIS: electric wine bottle opener / giant wine glass / gun silencer / patterned tights / Solo cups / floating beer pong table / Golden Girls mug INDIANA: shark costume / Tiddy Bear / Eggstractor / blow-up doll / cloche hat IOWA: temporary tattoo / lava lamp KANSAS: plus size lingerie wholesale KENTUCKY: adult big wheel / Confederate flag shirt / syringes / air mattress / ferrets for sale / Starter jacket 90s / comics LOUISIANA: microwave oven / Uroclub / Flex Seal / rat poison / big wheel / Fundies / portable diesel generator / hair extensions / crawfish pot MAINE: chicken coop / marijuana seeds / canoe / cat food / Mason jar / snowmobile MARYLAND: Comfort Wipe / Bacon Soda / cargo pants / cargo pants for women MASSACHUSETTS: Potty Putter / Samurai Umbrella / velour tracksuit MICHIGAN: car emergency kit / no-tie shoelaces / hunting clothes / beer pong table / Prince memorabilia / white truffle / white truffle oil MINNESOTA: mustache wax / iCare vape / parachute pants / hunting pack / electric surfboard MISSISSIPPI: mink coat / Apple Watch / Shake Weight / hoverboard / Bible / Uggs / Uggs for men / spy camera / overall / bell-bottoms / leg warmers / deer feeder / coffin / caskets MISSOURI: gun rack / garden gnome / potato gun MONTANA: M16 rifle / mudflaps / nunchucks / composting toilet / slingshot / bear trap / Beano / Birkenstocks / leather jacket / sewing machine NEBRASKA: UNO / fireworks / scented candles / personal massager / jorts / adjustable dumbbell set NEVADA: wine fridge / electric skateboard / Tao Te Ching / ugly holiday sweater / magic tricks / leisure suit NEW HAMPSHIRE: immersion blender / Ivanka Trump shoes / Edible Arrangement / rowing machine / dog coat / cargo shorts NEW JERSEY: Amazon Echo / Starter jacket / Gucci fanny pack / Prada perfume NEW MEXICO: PlayStation VR / digital camera / Bluetooth headphones / instant camera / jackalope / Baseboard Buddy / Chia Pet / dreamcatcher / brass knuckles / prayer flag / food dehydrator / cowboy hat / cosmetics / snow cone machine NEW YORK: fur clothing / Wearable Towel / Showtime Rotisserie / coyote urine / Payless boots that look like Uggs / tracksuit / women’s tracksuits / plaid golf pants / snakeskin shoes / platform sneakers / hemp necklace / hemp bracelet / men’s capri pants / Prada heels / mini wine bottles bulk NORTH CAROLINA: padded underwear / pet snakes / THC vape juice / laser tag set / dog Halloween costume NORTH DAKOTA: noise-cancelling headphones / George Foreman Grill / Total Gym / nickname / Jet Ski / Wii / capri pants / cat costume OHIO: Donald Trump tie / beard trimmer / nose hair trimmer / zombie garden gnome / Kate Spade fitness tracker / indoor putting green / denim vest / camo lingerie OKLAHOMA: sidewalk chalk / Kevin Durant jersey / ExtenZe / gas mask bong / throwing knives / Neodymium magnet toys / smoked ham / zombie survival kit / participation trophy / dog life jacket / 50 cal sniper rifle OREGON: homebrew supplies / clip-on ties / anti-snore pillow / hunting apparel PENNSYLVANIA: Amazon Fire Stick with Alexa / trigger lock / head massager / soap on a rope / mesh shirt / pinky rings / camo stethoscope RHODE ISLAND: rat trap / Speedos / bodysuit SOUTH CAROLINA: Amazon Fire TV / samurai sword / adult Underoos SOUTH DAKOTA: Exploding Kittens / Play-Doh / Cards Against Humanity / Catan / kegerator / slow cooker / Spanx / Ivanka Trump clothes / catheter / Lite-Brite / catapult / tube top / rod holders TENNESSEE: colostomy bags / adult coloring book / Dapper Dan Pomade / crack pipe / toupee / two-way radio / women’s overalls / bulk dog food / gator meat / Gucci mink coat TEXAS: Confederate flag bumper sticker / Igloo mini fridge / Hillary toilet paper / urinary catheter / truck gun rack / motorized kayak (the Rascal of kayaks) / cowboy hat rack / boot-cut jeans / five-toe shoes / 90s overalls / Daisy Duke shorts / leather cuffs / concealed carry corset / Nazi memorabilia / casket sprays / waterless urinal UTAH: Legos / mermaid tails / unicycle / Tanakh / Nintendo 3DS / belt buckle VERMONT: Selfie stick / Battleship / Slim Jim / Quran / Magic 8-Ball VIRGINIA: Thighmaster/ Bacon of the Month / hip flask / choose your own adventure books / puka shell necklace / bulk supplements / legal steroid / pet clothes WASHINGTON: temporary tattoo paper / emergency kit / emergency rations / earthquake kit / Canadian tuxedo / squid jig / crab pot / clam gun / shrimp pot WEST VIRGINIA: PlayStation 4 / Slip ‘N Slide / laptop / tablet computer / rebel flag / Flags of the Confederate States of America / mini fridge / Red Copper Square Pan / duct tape / Confederate flag bikini / futon / bong / handgun / shotgun / electronic cigarette / lingerie / plus size lingerie / Etch A Sketch / FitBit / moonshine still / Beanie Babies / bikini / pogo stick / Xbox One / NES Classic Edition / concealed carry purse / vape juice / creatine / anabolic steroid / butter churn WISCONSIN: truck nuts / Bacon Salt / Stihl chainsaw parts / The Sopranos Season 6 / Big Mouth Billy Bass / healing crystals WYOMING: Kindle Fire / Rubik’s Cube / ammunition / bulk ammo / P90X / Snuggie / Proactive / Bowflex / first aid kit / grenade / Fabletics (Kate Hudson’s workout clothing brand) / gas mask / gun safe / Turducken / Rumba / inline skates / bolo tie / long underwear / dog food / bagpipes / fishing pole / paintball / AK-47 / Colt AR-15 / bulletproof vest / body armor

[glenmenlow]

Measuring Emotional Jobs To Be Done

The modern Mini Cooper—offered in a variety of eye-popping colors—burst onto the scene in 2001 as a chic version of an old British classic. It quickly became a fixture in trendy urban neighborhoods around the globe. Today, nearly twenty years later, the car still hasn’t lost its freshness: demand for Minis has remained robust with annual sales increasing at a steady pace of 5.2% per year.

On paper, the Mini doesn’t look like it should be such a break-out success. While its modest size makes it ideal for city living, other cars such as the Honda Fit or the Chevy Sonic are equally manageable in tight quarters. The Mini’s Comfort ratings in the Kelley Blue Book are tied with those of the VW Beetle and Toyota Yaris. Its gas mileage is no better than its competitors’, and sometimes it is worse. And with a sticker price that averages about $5,000 more than comparably sized rivals, the case for buying a Mini seems pretty weak.

The Mini’s surprising success comes from its unique, almost ineffable customer appeal. People just feel good about buying one. Its distinctive sporty shape, for example, allows owners to stand out from the pack. The option of a convertible top adds an extra element of cool. The Mini colors and add-ons are also atypical and can be used as an expression of personality. A shocking yellow Cooper with racing stripes tells the world that you are audacious and fun; a dark purple Roadster signals stylish sophistication; a chocolate brown Countryman is for those who like to travel the unbeaten path.

By recasting a car purchase as a bold act of individual expression, Mini has ensured that it will remain competitive in the small car market both now and well into the future.

Figuring Out Emotions

As the appeal of the Mini shows, people are not rational decision makers. Our feelings and emotions influence our choices more than our most logical justifications. We rarely articulate these emotions clearly, and even when we do, we may not openly acknowledge just how important they are. But these emotions are at the very center of our decisions. Digging deep to uncover both the emotional and practical factors behind a purchase decision allows us to more accurately predict whether a new proposition will succeed.

There is no doubt that emotions are notoriously tricky to pin down. Unlike variables such as cost, size, or ease of purchase, emotions are neither discrete nor concrete, making them difficult to compare. What “delights” one consumer may “thrill” another. The question is, what’s the difference? And does the difference matter?

So what’s the solution? We have found success understanding customer emotions using a Jobs to be Done framework which builds on the work of the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Rather than trying to measure specific emotional reactions, we focus on identifying the emotional jobs that consumers want to get done.

Unlike emotion, which is a sentimental response to an outside stimulus, an emotional job is a specific emotion-linked task that the customer is trying to accomplish by purchasing or using a product or service within a defined context. Emotional jobs are robust because they address root motivations and emerge as a result of clear attitudinal or circumstantial factors.

For example, understanding that a car makes a customer feel special can hardly be called an insight. “Feeling special” is too vague an emotion to be meaningful. Recognizing, however, that for one customer, “feeling special” means addressing his emotional job of “standing out from the crowd” within the context of a “being a hipster who recently moved to the suburbs” opens up whole new areas for action. The emotional job serves as a sort of compass; it lays out pathways for creating targeted, meaningful, and relevant innovations.

Quantifying Emotional Jobs

Measuring emotions with a quantitative survey is difficult, but there is a way to do it. Our research into emotional jobs is guided by three key principles:

Principle 1: Quality Before Quantity

It’s tempting to try to explore all possible jobs when fielding a survey. No one wants to risk missing an important insight because they forgot to ask. But while stuffing a survey full of questions is a bad idea in general, it’s exponentially terrible when emotions are involved. Asking about too many emotional jobs at once will fatigue the respondent and decrease the reliability of their responses.

What to do? We’ve found that the best way to narrow down your questions to a more realistic list is two-fold:

Conduct qualitative research before you design the survey. This way, you can push respondents to generate their own lists of high-priority jobs instead of giving them a list of possibilities based only on your initial assumptions

Ask about emotional factors in an open-ended way. If customers use nebulous terms like “gratifying” or “trust,” ask them to define what they mean. This way, you can drill down this feedback into a concise list of factors that can be tested and measured

Principle 2: Seek A Hierarchy Of Emotions

Functional jobs to be done are often relatively obvious and easy to arrange into a clear hierarchy. Not so with emotional jobs. Emotional jobs are often related in complex ways, and they can heavily influenced by contextual factors, making it difficult to understand how to sort and compare them. If emotional jobs and their relative priority become jumbled, you risk targeting the wrong emotion.

For example, the Mini is cool and stylish, but those factors are less important than its uniqueness – its target customer prizes uniqueness first, rather than those who might wish for a stylish but more conformist vehicle. Style supports uniqueness in this case, but it does not supersede it. Fiat owners, by contrast, may have the reverse set of priorities.

To get these insights via a survey, ask respondents to weigh their priorities against each other, rather than having them simply assign numerical ratings of importance. Is it more important, for example, to be unique or stylish? This is a more realistic question than one that would force people to put a number on, say, the value of uniqueness. Then, you can pit prioritized emotions against functional benefits. Is it more important to be unique or to have great gas mileage? In this way you get to useable data which is both accurate and tractable.

Principle 3: Context Is Key

Emotions are highly context-dependent. The desire for uniqueness, for instance, can manifest differently to a new parent who feels forced into routines, or for a middle-aged professional yearning to rebel. Sometimes an emotion will not be present at all until it is triggered by an event or other contextual change. If survey-takers respond based on different imagined contexts, their answers can be highly divergent.

Control for this variability by describing in detail the contexts in which you’re asking them to imagine themselves. You can also ask about a specific instance when they used or purchased your product or service type. Think about it: do you remember more clearly why you bought your last cup of coffee, or why you purchase coffee on average? When answering about a recent, concrete instance, respondents are more likely to remember their choices and feelings accurately. Of course, make sure to capture what that context is either through providing it or supplying a handful of choices.

Emotions can sometimes be best understood in relation to the choices they motivate. If you were assessing what leads people to chose one doctor over another, for instance, you could describe two hypothetical physicians succinctly, ask respondents to choose one, and then have them rate the importance of various emotions in that decision. In this way, you can normalize answers to a clear context and enable respondents to compare emotional jobs that may be in tension with each other, such as a having rapport with a physician or feeling assured about medical expertise. Then you can change the contexts and see how the roles of these factors differ.

Putting It Together

Following these principles generates many benefits:

Emotions are framed in ways that resonate with customers

Emotions are disaggregated into more manageable components that can be targeted through product, service, and marketing

You get an accurate sense of how important emotions are relative to functional jobs, and therefore how much to invest in achieving each type of benefit

You can link together complex emotions in simple ways, anchoring your value proposition in a way that is simultaneously evocative and straightforward

Emotions need not be opaque, and quantitative analysis of them need not be imprecise. When you approach emotional jobs with intention, you can discern their importance clearly, just as BMW did when it first introduced its hip, customizable little car.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Steve Wunker and Jennifer Law. You can find much more on these concepts in their new book Costovation.

The Blake Project Can Help You Grow: The Brand Growth Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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