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Reviewed by Tom Laranjo, managing director, Total Media

Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens- Davidowitz

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

In Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, the author delves into the depths of our psyches as exposed by our Google searches, to provide a fuller, more disturbing - and ultimately more accurate - picture of what people really think.

It would be an entertaining and enlightening read for anyone, but I would argue that for those in the business of persuasion – i.e. the entire advertising industry - it's a must read.

Stephens-Davidowitz contends that the power of Google search data is that people will happily tell the Google search bar truths about themselves that they wouldn’t tell their nearest and dearest. 

However Google is not the only entry point into understanding human truths. Stephens-Davidowitz also examines the data gleaned from Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, white supremacist site Stormfront, Pornhub and other sources of big data, both online and offline, with varying degrees of success.

As part of his adventures in big data, Stephens-Davidowitz has a word of warning which the advertising industry would do well to heed: big isn’t necessarily best - it's what you do with it (advice the men featured in chapter four, worrying about their penis size, would also do well to heed). Specifically, that to get the most out of big data you need to ask the right questions, which may not be those that you would ask in traditional surveys. To master big data Stephens-Davidowitz contends that "data science takes a natural and intuitive human process—spotting patterns and making sense of them—and injects it with steroids, potentially showing us that the world works in a completely different way from how we thought it did".

The title of the book comes to life in chapter four, where Stephens-Davidowitz discusses "social desirability" bias - the need to appear good - even in anonymous surveys. This is one of the reasons why marketers should be sceptical of self-reported data - whether that be surveys, or as Stephens-Davidowitz goes on to explain, Facebook, which is the ultimate arena where "everybody lies". One such example is lying about sexuality in a state or country that is less accepting, which Stephens-Davidowitz proves by comparing out and proud gay men on Facebook and corresponding Google and Pornhub searches for gay porn in the same areas.

What may be the most interesting element of the book comes in the sixth chapter, where Stephens-Davidowitz proves the impact of advertising by comparing the effect of a film ad shown during the Superbowl in areas where more or less people are watching the game. In the area where more people were watching the game and the ads, there was a resultant and proportionate increase in ticket sales. So if for no other reason, surely that’s cause enough to read.