Proof that people prefer “Masturbating” over “Meetings that could’ve been an email”
A few years ago at Publicis, I was chatting about archetypes with a strategist.
“Check this out,” he said, pulling up a slide with 12 archetypes, each paired with a brand.
“There are Creators, like Apple, and Magicians, like Disney.”
It felt like reading a horoscope: everything made sense, but there was zero data to support it.
The issue wasn't its pseudoscientific vibe.
It was the lack of insight.
Strategists need spiffy frameworks, but we can do better than sorting brands into predictable categories. So this week, I created a model based on data from 300 shoppers. It’s got a stronger quantitative spine, but that’s not the important part.
The Model
You can see the basic concept in the graph below.
The axes are “Like-Dislike” and “Fulfilling-Not Fulling.” The top right quadrant is 'Like-Fulfilling' for rewarding activities, like going for a run, while the bottom left quadrant is 'Dislike-Unfulfilling' for stuff that’s draining, like cleaning up dog vomit.
I don’t have a scientific reason for these axes.
I picked them because I wanted to create an intuitive interface for both measuring behaviors and presenting results.
You can embed the graph in a survey and ask participants to plot things such as "cooking dinner" or "using a ride-share app to get somewhere."
The analysis is straightforward: a heatmap or scatter plot showing the distribution of responses.
You can get the graph without the data here.
The Data: 300 people plot their life, from “Cleaning up dog vomit” to “Reading before bed.”
The insightful part is a layer of data you can use to make comparisons.
In the survey, 300 U.S. shoppers aged 18-65 randomly plotted 11 behaviors from a list of 22.
"Meetings that could have been an email" ranked among the most disliked and unfulfilling activities, comparable to "cleaning up dog vomit.”
“Learning” was among the most liked and fulfilling activity, on par with “Having sex with someone I love.”
You can download this chart with the data here.
It’s editable. You can turn the labels on and off, or remove items entirely — whatever you need to tell your story.
(By the way, I thought “Eating ice cream at night,” “Masturbating,” and “Scrolling social media for 20 minutes” would end up in the "Like-Unfulfilling" quadrant. I guess acknowledging that you enjoy unfulfilling things is harder than I thought.)
Get the chart and get creative
Last thing.
As you can see below, I took the same graph, removed the data, and labeled nine squares based on the axes.
There’s nothing scientific about how I picked the adjectives in each square.
But unlike the brand archetype slide, this graph lets you to build a story around behaviors — whether that's "brushing your teeth" or "changing a dirty diaper” — so you can base your brand positioning insights around how people feel and experience the category.
For example, "sitting in traffic" falls between tedious and draining, yet car brands never talk about it.
I’d put "Eating chocolate" in the "guilty" category, though that's not the first things that comes to mind for brands like Godiva or Snickers.
You can download this chart here.
One last insight
• In the first chart, the link between frequency of an activity and enjoyment and fulfillment is clear: the more often you do something, the more you tend to enjoy and find value in it.
Another way to look at the same trend is to visualize the individual respondents. Click here to see how 152 respondents plotted "Having kids," color-coded by those who have kids and those who do not.
• Link to the survey I used to collect the data. It’s still live.
Next Steps
If you’re considering creating a survey, but you’re unsure about your approach, then consider getting a Survey Roast.
Send me your survey draft, and for $145, I’ll make a 10-15 minute Loom video with copy-and-paste edits and suggestions.
I’d love to help.