When you talk on data-based insights, you can surely expect an interesting take from our Wizard with Words. Like today. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the January 19 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

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Q. Choice Factory author Richard Shotten writes that research indicates consumers make changes when landmark birthdays approach. Like 29, 39, 49 etc. Good idea to target the nine-enders?

A. Who am I too question or doubt Choice Factory author Richard Shotten’s postulations that are based on large set of cross-cultural datasets. Having said that, I wonder whether in today’s day and age, where consumer behaviour has come down to N=1, is it possible to generalise on only 9-enders? Imagine the post Covid market dynamics, where suddenly the market has moved to an employers’ market and I wonder if employees are always in a position to plan a number-based pivoting decision for their career, let alone being a victim of rightsizing by corporations. Besides, predicting behaviour on a set of past data, whatever be the size of the data lake, might not lead to a future-backwards behaviour where many environmental imponderables might make a definitive theorisation an exercise in futility. My humble observation isn’t purported to belittle the gravitas of Choice Factory’s research-based conclusions.