Hired by the world’s leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends three hundred nights a year overseas, closely observing people in their homes. His goal: to uncover their hidden desires and turn them into breakthrough products for the world’s leading brands. In a world besotted by the power of Big Data, he works like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, accumulating small clues to help solve a stunningly diverse array of challenges. Lindstrom connects the dots in this globe-trotting narrative that will fascinate not only marketers and brand managers, but anyone interested in the infinite variations of human behavior.

Small Data combines armchair travel with forensic psychology into an interlocking series of international clue-gathering detective stories. It presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create global brands, and along the way, reveals surprising and counterintuitive truths about what connects us all as humans.