🎯 All Moments (22)
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The Ostrich Effect: Why We Ignore Bad News
A look at why people avoid information that causes immediate pain, such as checking stock portfolios during a market decline or looking at anti-smoking ads.
The Messenger Effect: Why the Source Matters
A breakdown of a classic 1953 study showing that the credibility of a source can result in a three-and-a-half-fold difference in persuasiveness, even when the argument remains identical.
Why Limited Time Offers Prevent Brand Fatigue
How the 'habituation' effect explains why Starbucks only sells the Pumpkin Spice Latte seasonally to maximize long-term enjoyment.
Loss Aversion: The Power of Negative Framing
Richard Shotton explains why framing an offer as avoiding a loss is significantly more effective than framing it as achieving a gain.
Scarcity: The Psychological Key to Desire
A discussion on why scarcity is the most powerful bias in behavioral science and how perceived shortages can actually drive brand demand.
The Pennies-a-Day Effect: How to Frame Prices
An explanation of why breaking down large costs into smaller units of time or quantity significantly increases the perception of value and likelihood of purchase.
The Semmelweis Reflex: Why We Resist New Ideas
The tragic story of Ignaz Semmelweis illustrates 'conceptual inertia' and why even life-saving discoveries are often rejected by the establishment.
The Goal Dilution Effect: Why Five Guys Stays Simple
Explains why brands that focus on one core product are perceived as more credible and effective than those that diversify too much.
The Labor Illusion: Why Effort Equals Quality
Richard Shotton explains why consumers perceive higher quality in products when they believe more effort went into creating them, using Dyson as a prime example.
The Von Restorff Effect: Why Being Distinctive Wins
Richard Shotton explains the psychological principle behind Liquid Death's success: humans are hardwired to notice what is distinctive.
Why You Should Order Groceries a Week in Advance
Richard Shotton explains a 1998 study showing how our food choices drastically change when we select for immediate vs. future consumption, revealing our 'future self' bias.
The Pratfall Effect: Why Flaws Make Brands More Appealing
Explains the psychological principle that admitting a weakness can actually increase a brand's appeal and perceived quality.
The Rhyme-as-Reason Effect in Advertising
A look at the 'Keats Heuristic' where rhyming statements are perceived as significantly more believable than non-rhyming ones, using Pringles as a key example.
Stop Selling Health: The Secret to Marketing Better Food
Richard discusses a study where describing vegetables as 'indulgent' rather than 'healthy' increased sales by 41%, providing a masterclass in effective framing.
The Red Bull Can Shape: A Masterclass in Price Relativity
Insight into how changing physical product attributes can break negative price comparisons and increase consumer willingness to pay.
The AI Value Penalty: Why Speed Hurts Branding
Explores how the instant nature of AI undercuts the 'illusion of effort,' leading to a 61% drop in purchase intent compared to human-made products.
Why Wordle Succeeded: The Power of Anticipation
Richard Shotton explains how Wordle's success was driven by limiting gameplay to once per day, creating a sense of scarcity and anticipation that increased user engagement compared to unlimited play.
The Psychological Trap of Supermarket Layouts
Explains the concept of 'moral licensing' and why supermarkets strategically place healthy items at the entrance to make you feel virtuous before buying junk food.
The KFC Scarcity Trick: Why Limits Drive Sales
Richard Shotton reveals how KFC increased sales by placing a maximum limit on how many items a customer could buy, signaling high value through artificial restriction.
Why Consumers Don't Know What They Want
Richard Shotton explains why asking customers what they want often leads to failure due to 'post-rationalization' and the inability to identify true motivations.
Stop Using Abstract Language in Your Marketing
A breakdown of the 'Concreteness Effect' and why visualizing a product makes it four times more memorable than abstract data.
The Häagen-Dazs Lie: Inventing a Danish Identity
The surprising origin story of Häagen-Dazs, a brand from the Bronx that used a fake Danish name to create an aura of sophistication.