Concrete Phrases Read online Which electric bus would stick in your mind? It's not even a competition. Copy that's easy to visualise is easy to memorise. In 2021, Richard Shottonยน showed participants a number of vague phrases, like 'innovative quality', and then some concrete phrases, e.g., 'money in your pocket'. Shottonโs concrete phrases were 8.6x more likely to be remembered. Richard Shotton's Concrete Phrases Study Heโd proved the concrete phrases' effect, a phenomenon first discovered...
9 days agoย โขย 1 min read
Psychology of Pricing Read online 1) Charm Pricing for High-Quality Products Imagine youโre buying a shatterproof iPhone case Does it matter if it is priced at ยฃ49.99 or ยฃ49.95? Well, yes. Apple uses charm pricing but usually ends prices with a 5. Gendall, Fox, and Wilton (1998)ยน ran an experiment with fast-moving consumer goods (fly spray, cheese) and durables (electric kettles). They found that prices with endings in 99 cents are more attractive for low-priced, fast-moving consumer goods...
16 days agoย โขย 1 min read
Unit Asking Read online Which of these articles encouraged Brits to donate more? It's the one on the right. Research by Christopher Hseeยน found that donors gave nearly twice as much when first asked to consider the needs of a single person before being asked to donate to a larger cause. This โunit askingโ strategy made contributions feel more reasonable and personal. And it explains thisยฒ rather bizarre study: The study looked at the success rate of donation requests on the...
23 days agoย โขย 1 min read
Hyperbolic Discounting Read online One of these ads looks 108% better value. Can you guess which? In 2025, Shotton and Flickerยน tested ads like this in their book. 282 consumers were shown Sierra Nevada Pale Ale priced at $18.99 for 12 bottles. Half were told this equated to $1.58 per bottle. Among those shown the per-bottle price, 28.6% said it was good or very good value (more than double the 13.7% who only saw the total price). Framing the cost at the per-unit level made the purchase feel...
30 days agoย โขย 1 min read
Specific Number Bias Read online Which coaster makes Guinness seem like the โ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ฆ๐ค๐ต ๐ฑ๐ช๐ฏ๐ตโ? Thatโs what Schindlerยน (Rutgers University) and Yalch (University of Washington) studied in 2006. They showed participants ads that used specific numbers, for example: โIt takes 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint.โ Vs. rounded numbers: โIt takes 2 minutes to pour the perfect pint.โ Turns out, claims made using ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ข๐๐ข๐ ๐ง๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ are perceived to be 10% ๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ฏ๐๐๐ฅ๐. By pointing out that it takes...
about 1 month agoย โขย 1 min read
The Framing Effect Read online Your perception is shaped by framing. Reference how lean a steak is, and you'll boost perceptions of quality.ยน Politicians know this. Pollster Frank Luntzยฒ reports that 68% of people oppose inheritance tax if it's labelled "estate tax," but the figure jumps to 78% when it's called a "death tax." And yet most marketers forget this. We talk about our products and services in unimaginative ways. At bookshops, marketers promote the top "picks this summer". This...
about 1 month agoย โขย 1 min read
Do new managers give teams a "bounce"? Read online In sports, it's common to hear about the "new manager bounce". It's an immediate improvement in performance following a change of manager. Like most sporting clichรฉs, it's made its way into the working world. An old boss of mine justified a managerial replacement. by citing the need to quickly hit that quarter's KPIs. But is the new manager bounce real? One detailed studyยน on Polish football managers found that players initially ran faster...
about 2 months agoย โขย 1 min read
The Framing Effect Read online "Does your kid have a ten-dollar head?" That's what Bell Helmets asked parents in this newspaper ad. It seems like a strange question until we understand the power of framing. Let's look at a study on beer to explain. In a study led by Donald Lichtensteinยน from Colorado University, bar menus with descending price order increased average beer sales by 4%. Framing the menu with high-priced options first made the mid-range prices seem like a better deal. Sales for...
about 2 months agoย โขย 1 min read
The Mere Exposure Effect Read online Loyal fans of Nudge will have heard me talk about the mere exposure effect. In 1969, psychologist Robert Zajoncยน found that students rated unfamiliar Turkish words more favourably when they had seen them more often. It's not a revolutionary finding. We prefer things we're familiar with. And many great inventors knew this instinctively. Edison and the electric light bulb Thomas Edison understood that while the lightbulb was revolutionary, new inventions...
2 months agoย โขย 1 min read