Trending
Remember the old days when you had to learn analogies. Things like shoe:foot::glove: _______. Of course the answer is hand. That’s a simple one.
How about this one: Pope Francis:PayPal::Merck: _______. Of course, the answer is Bitcoin. No, we haven’t lost our minds.
In the Koski Research Engagement IQ, we compared PayPal and Bitcoin to the people and companies we studied previously.
And guess what? In terms of Engagement IQ scores, Pope Francis is at 25.0 and PayPal is at 25.3. On the other hand Merck is at 0.0 and Bitcoin is at 1.2.
One big reason for the big discrepancies is awareness. Awareness of Pope Francis (88%) and PayPal (95%) is much higher than Merck (57%) and Bitcoin (48%). And, as we all know, you can’t judge what you don’t know – though this axiom is being tested on Facebook these days.
But to dig in more deeply, let’s level the playing field and only look at those who are aware of PayPal and Bitcoin. It’s clear that PayPal has created important positives (smart, thoughtful). Bitcoin has not – and, in fact, has some negatives to overcome (secretive, dishonest). Take a look:
And these issues extend into behaviors. Again, looking at those aware of each company, PayPal beats the socks off Bitcoin in terms of the public’s desire to have lunch with the CEO (lunchability) and willingness to read an article about the company (readability). But willingness to post something favorable on Facebook (word of mouth) is low for both companies.
The next few years undoubtedly will bring about many changes in electronic commerce and how money is exchanged. What will not change is people’s desire for more money to live on and to retire with. As Henny Youngman said, “I've got all the money I'll ever need - if I die by four o'clock.”