richard shotton

Towards the end of his career Daniel Kahneman was asked what the most important finding from all his years of research was. His answer: make it easy. It might sound like a statement of the obvious. But Kahneman makes the point that, although people intuitively know if they make a behaviour easier it’ll happen more, they consistently and significantly underestimate the scale of impact of small bits of friction. As this brilliant cartoon by @marketoonist suggests, businesses are too willing to leave friction in the process. They think people will push through barriers to get to their amazing products. But in reality, the smallest pieces of friction tend to have an outsized effect on behaviour! The implication is simple - for every customer touchpoint, identify even the tiniest barriers along the way, and if possible, take them out. That can have a bigger effect on behaviour than giving more and more reasons for why people should use your service. *** If you'd like to learn more, I'm running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on December 10th. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

There’s more to social proof than a “bestseller” badge or a “loved by 1 million customers” message. In this episode of Behavioral Science for Brands, I sit down with MichaelAaron Flicker to discuss how some lesser-known nuances of social proof can be used for better marketing. We cover how the impact of social proof varies by context, culture and demographics, and how these findings can be harnessed. Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3d3… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=loYNenJi…

This Dutch ad brilliantly applies the principle of concreteness. Lower-sugar products often talk about sugar in terms of grams or percentages. But those terms are abstract (i.e. hard to visualise) so they're quickly forgotten. By showing actual sugar cubes, Yeehright! is a lot more memorable. That's because of the principle of concreteness - the repeated finding that messages people can visualise are far stickier than abstract ones.  In 2021, I ran my own experiment into concreteness with Mike Treharne, based on a 1972 study by the academic Ian Begg.  We gave 425 nationally representative participants a list of 10 two-word phrases, some abstract and some concrete. For example: -Cashew nut (concrete) -Central purpose (abstract) After 5 minutes, we asked people to recall as many phrases as they could.  Participants remembered 0.7% of the abstract phrases, but 6.7% of the concrete ones.  The massive x9 difference in memorability occurs because concrete words are easier to picture than the abstract phrases. Think of a cashew nut - you can see the image in your head... But 'central purpose'…it's much harder to visualise. So anytime you’re dealing with abstract terms or stats, think of how you can convert them into visualisable messages, either through language (e.g. "that's 20 sugar cubes less") or through a clear image (like the one below). It’s a criminally underused tactic! *** If you'd like to learn more, I'm running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on December 10th. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

Prices aren't judged entirely logically. People focus more on the headline number, than the unit of time. It's known as the pennies-a-day effect and it means that if you communicate your prices across smaller time units, you'll reduce your customer's price sensitivity.  That’s what hims did. Rather than leading with £16.50 a month, they advertise 55 pence a day. The same treatment now feels like a few loose coins from your back pocket, making it seem much more affordable. I tested the pennies-a-day effect in 2017 with 500 participants. I split them into 4 groups and showed the same car financing deal. However, each group saw the price displayed as either a daily, weekly, monthly or annual amount.  Here’s how many people thought the deal was good value in each group:  Annual price: 11%  Monthly price: 40%  Weekly price: 43%  Daily price: 51%  People who were shown the daily price were almost 5x more likely to rate it as good value than people who saw the annual price. So if you’re looking to tackle customers’ price sensitivity, cutting prices or offering discounts isn’t the only option. If possible, keep the price as is, but reframe it across the smallest possible time frame (e.g. a day). The same offering will feel better value. This is just one tactic for making the same price more appealing. If you’d like to learn others, I‘m running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on Thursday 10th December. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

As a young teenager, I wish I'd known about the spotlight effect. It's the idea that we radically overestimate how much our mistakes are noticed. It's easy to think others are paying attention to our cock-ups but most people are far more fixated on their own concerns. The original study was run by Thomas Gilovich (Cornell University) in 2000. He requested that participants arrive at his lab at a set time. Then he put them in a small room to fill out a questionnaire.  But Gilovich intentionally gave one participant the wrong start time. When that participant arrived 10 minutes after the others, Gilovich chided him for his tardiness and said he needed to wear a Barry Manilow T-shirt for the experiment (a singer specifically chosen to be deeply embarrassing).  Then Gilovich brought the "late" participant into the room where the others were completing the questionnaire. Just as he was sitting down, in another twist, Gilovich asked the participant to step back out... "I'm sorry", Gilovich said, "on second thoughts I think you're too late to take part". After these bizarre meanderings, Gilovich asked the participant to estimate how many people in the room had noticed his Manilow T-shirt.  The average estimate was 46%. Then Gilovich questioned everyone in the room as to whether they could remember what the "late" student was wearing. Only 23% had noticed it. The "late" participant thought they were the centre of attention, "in the spotlight". But most people are focused on themselves, rather than on others.  This means that if you make a faux pas, there's less reason to worry than we suspect - most people won't even notice it. To me, that's a pretty cheering lesson for teenagers and beyond. But there's a less happy implication for marketers. After all, the main point of the study is that even bizarre incidents playing out right in front of people are barely noticed. Too many marketers assume customers will pay attention to their latest campaign. But that's not the case. We need to go to remarkable lengths simply to be noticed. Luckily, behavioural science offers many simple ways to do this. If you’d like to learn these, I‘m running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on Thursday 10th December. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr… (The drawing, by the way, is by the wonderful @sketchplanator).

If your debut book was labelled "the lurid literary equivalent of a video nasty" by a national newspaper would you run that on the back cover? It seems a perverse decision but that's what Iain Banks did. In 1984, Banks had persuaded Macmillan to publish his shocking new book, The Wasp Factory. It was a huge achievement for him - his previous four attempts to write a book had all failed. He had been rejected by everyone that he offered the manuscripts to. But The Wasp Factory was different. It had real potential. The initial reviews ranged from glowing (FT: "outstandingly good") to damning (The Scotsman: "there's nothing to force you, having been warned, to read it; nor do I recommend it"). But to the publisher's dismay, Banks was adamant that reviews, both good and bad, featured equally on the back cover. He threatened to walk away if they didn't. The Wasp Factory was a phenomenon. It went on to sell more than a million copies. But did those negative reviews help or hinder? Well, the stolen thunder effect suggests that if you admit to negative information, it makes your other claims more believable. And the pratfall effect suggests that if you exhibit your flaws, you become more appealing. So Banks was possibly onto something. But what interests me is that he didn't just admit any old negative review. He showcased those that emphasised how disgusting and lurid the book was. These negatives helped amplify the genuine strengths - that it was a unique and shocking book that broke literary conventions. Admitting a related flaw is crucial for getting the most out of any admission. Gerd Bohner (Bielefeld University) proved as much in a 2003 study. He showed people one of three ads for the same restaurant: Ad 1: only described a strength (e.g. cosy atmosphere) Ad 2: described a strength (e.g. cosy atmosphere) + an unrelated weakness (e.g. no dedicated parking spaces) Ad 3: described a strength (e.g. cosy atmosphere) + a related weakness (e.g. inability to host parties of 6 or more) It was that final ad that performed best - scoring 31% higher than the wholly positive ad and 25% better than the one that admitted an unrelated problem. Too many brands miss this nuance when harnessing the pratfall effect. It's not enough to admit any old flaw. You need to pick one that relates to your strength. Think about Guinness and the classic "Good things come to those who wait" line. They admit the flaw of slowness because most people assume if it takes time to make a product, it'll be higher quality. So, yes, use the pratfall effect, but do it with care. If you'd like to learn more, I'm running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on December 10th. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

The origin of the 10,000 a day step target doesn’t come from clinical research. But from an ad campaign In 1964 to celebrate the launch of the Tokyo Olympics a pedometer brand suggested 10,000 steps as a target The reason? In Japanese script 10,000 looks a bit like a man walking Via The Economist

Open ChatGPT and ask it for a number between 1-10. You'll likely get 7. Now ask for another number...you probably got 3. It's not a bug. AI just tends to give you the most common responses: 7 is many people's favourite number, followed by 3. This example from Greg Hahn on Uncensored CMO highlights the problem with using AI for new ideas. An LLM will give you the average answer - the polar opposite of distinctiveness marketers strive for. But that doesn't mean AI can't help in the creative process. My new @MarketingWeekEd article looks at how to get more original ideas from LLMs with the "chain-of-thought" prompting technique. You can have a read here: marketingweek.com/ai-beige-t… Let me know your thoughts!