Social Proof Read online Incredible marketing can be incredibly simple. In 2007, two Chinese researchers ran an experiment at 13 Beijing restaurants¹. Some diners were sat on tables with a plaque listing the most popular dishes. Others were sat at tables with no plaque. Did the plaque change what people choose? Diners who saw the most popular dish plaques were 18% more likely to order one of those dishes, even at a higher price. That's not all. Customers who ate a "most popular dish" rated it...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Labour Looks Smarter Read online Last week I shared one of my unhinged theories with you Many of you rightly pointed out that one study from 2011 is hardly enough to draw lofty conclusions. Fair enough, I've gathered some more evidence. Starting with an imaginary story from my barbers. A good barber is a slow barber Imagine you go to your local barbershop. Your normal barber is on holiday, so you're assigned to someone new. Typically your barber spends 45 minutes cutting your hair. He's not...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Labour Illusion Read online I have a slightly unhinged theory that most websites lie to me. I know you're reaching for the unsubscribe button, wondering how many tin foil hats I can fit on my massive hat, but wait. I have some evidence. In 2025, most of the major LLM models made an almost identical update. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and many others started to show what they were thinking. What Claude told me when I asked it if websites were lying to me. According to Claude, Anthropic does this...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Prove Your Dedication Read online Imagine your hometown football club booked Swedish legend Ibrahimovic to host a 2-hour training session with local children. That’s what 113 participants at the Stockholm School of Economics were asked to imagine in 2017¹. But there was a catch. Half were told the club spent almost no time persuading Ibrahimovic, with the manager saying: "It's fantastic that it was so easy to persuade you to come." The others were told booking Ibrahimovic took extreme...
29 days ago • 1 min read
Framing Your Food Read online Which of these would you rather eat: One Shepherd's Pie is described as: Beef shepherd's pie, tomato and pesto sauce The other is described as: Beef subtly seasoned with Espelette pepper under a rich velvety potato puree, topped with crisp parmesan cheese crumbs Two researchers ran a small study at a French cafeteria to test if these descriptions changed the perception of the food.¹ Diners were invited to eat a prix fixe lunch. A real photo of the cafeteria from...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Concrete Phrases Read online Could writing "𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐈𝐙𝐄" on a Whopper ad make it sell for 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆? In 2022, 465 participants saw ads for a fictional Lay's multipack.¹ Both groups knew the multipack was 392g in size, but each saw a different headline. One saw: 𝘓𝘢𝘺'𝘴 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴, 14 𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘣𝘢𝘨𝘴The other saw:𝘓𝘢𝘺'𝘴 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴, 392𝘨. Those who saw "14 snack bags" were willing to pay 10% 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 than the other group.This is due to the concrete phrases effect. We can picture 14 snack bags in our mind. 392g doesn't...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Variable Rewards Read online This video of a smart gas station owner went viral a couple of months back. Here's the original. The video shows dozens of customers failing to balance 25 cents on a lemon. A chance to win $100 is a carrot large enough to make customers bet. It shows something that many marketers have known for decades. We love a gamble. People prefer a gamble In 2025, researchers Gaertig and Simmons offered either a gamble or a certain reward to hundreds of participants¹. Some...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Adobe Summit London 2026 Read online Last week, I had great fun attending the Adobe Summit London 2026. Partly great hearing about the latest innovations in AI and partly great catching up with the friendliest man in marketing, Joe Glover. Two stats from the opening keynote that stuck with me. 1: Organic web search traffic is down 20% 2: Conversion rate for AI search is 42% higher then before It’s a reminder that so many of the norms of marketing have fundamentally changed. I remember my old...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Transparency Read online For his book Influence, Robert Cialdini went undercover as a waiter at a high-end restaurant. He spent his time shadowing Vincent, who consistently received the largest tips. Turns out, Vincent had a counterintuitive tactic. When it was time for the first person, normally a woman, to order, he went into his act. No matter what she picked, Vincent reacted identically: his brow furrowed, his hand hovered above his order pad, and after looking quickly over his shoulder...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read