The Optimal Issue of Harvard Business Review

David Schatsky | May 17, 2005, 09:55 AM

Though it's already May, my recent travels to Europe to visit JupiterResearch clients gave me some plane time to read the April issue of the Harvard Business Review. It was one of my favorite issues, chock full of great items that I highly recommend including:

- Optimizing TV Ads. An item by John Kastenholz of Unilever explaining how the company can make the most of the $400,000 it spends to produce each 30-second TV spot by deconstructing the video into key frames, testing the individual frames on audiences and using consumer feedback to reedit already-shot material to have optimal impact.

- Optimizing sizes. Highlights of a study by Aradhna Kirshna that aimed to understand how consumers percieve "evocative labels like Super Size, Value Size, Double Gup and Whopper." Their studies found that in consumers' minds, "'petite' is smaller than 'short,' that 'single' falls between 'small' and 'medium,' and that 'tall' is larger than medium' or 'double'. Super Quencher and Jumbo tied in consumers' minds (statistically) for sheer--apparent--size." They also found that consumers tend to eat signficantly more of a portion labeled "medium" than they do of an equivalent portion labeled "large."

- Optimizing fonts. An item by Pamela W. Henderson that reported the results of focus groups responding to different type faces. Her study found that a group of fonts, that included Scheherezade and AncientScript, were perceived as "likable, warm, attractive, interesting, emotional, feminine, and delicate. But they are not esepcially strong or reassuring." Another group, which included Stonehenge and Paintbrush, were "interesting, emotional, exciting and innovative." But are also "unsettling and unfamiliar." The stalwart, comfortable fonts include the ones we are most familiar with, among them Verdana, Century Schoolbook and Times New Roman.

- Optimizing precision. A piece by Amy Salzhauer described the amazing properties of femtosecond lasers that emit pulses of light "that last just a millionth of a billionths of a second." Which is great if you are in a hurry. "The lasers enable surgery so precise that a single mitochondrion can be removed without harming the rest of the cell," she reported. "The lasers can remove material one atom at a time from substances as diverse as silicon, stell and heart tissue," she continued. Applications in chemical and drug manufacturing, optics and biology, among others, are expected to be numerous.

- Optimizing strategy. A great interview by Diane L. Coutu with world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Among my favorite quotes: "There is nothing cute or charming about chess; it is a violent sport, and when you confront your oponent you set out to crush his ego." And "Intution is the defining quality of a great chess player. That's because chess is a mathematically infinite game....I can think maybe 15 moves in advance, and that's about as far as any human has gone. Inevitably you reach a point when you've got to navigate by using your imangination and feelings rather tahn your intellect or logic. At that moment you are playing with your gut."