In the early 1970s an ambitious young director released his film THX 1138.
The concept went against many of the typical Hollywood storylines at the time.
Set in a dystopian future where sex is outlawed and drug-taking is mandatory, the film was wildly different from what audiences were used to.
The film was also a massive flop.
Despite the a-list cast and big marketing budget, few watched it. The young director was discouraged and almost gave up until he read The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Joseph Campbell's book reveals how different cultures share remarkably similar hero stories.
He suggests that the innate human experience leads all of us to prefer surprisingly similar tales. For example:
Goodies vs baddies
Coming of age
David vs goliath
Campbell encourages writers to develop new concepts on familiar and safe themes.
It's now termed the new and safe effect, or NaS effect.
The young director took this advice onboard and created a film you've probably heard of.
George Lucas isn't the first director to successfully apply NaS. In fact, marketers regularly do the same.
In 2013, researchers Shapiro and Nielsen asked dozens of participants to review hundreds of ads¹.
One group was shown the same jam ad for Druk every 50 ads.
The other group was shown almost the same ad, but with the logo moved to different corners.
All the participants preferred the jam if they'd seen it before (we prefer familiar things).
But those participants who saw slightly different versions liked it even more (we prefer new things that are familiar).
We see this in food trends.
NaS = chicken tikka, avocado on toast, matcha latte, and kombucha. No NaS = matcha milk tofu
Matcha lattes became insanely popular because they combined a new ingredient (matcha) with something safe and familiar (a latte).
Matcha milk tofu will never catch on, because both ingredients (tofu and matcha) are too new and unfamiliar.
But how can you apply this effect?
You're not developing food trends or producing Hollywood movies.
But you're probably writing headlines. Email subject lines, blog headers, and presentation titles.
In 2013² three researchers studied what made a good title.
Over several months, they posted the same meme on Reddit dozens of times but tweaked the title.
This allowed them to pinpoint which titles drove the highest engagement.
Their takeaway proved how important the NaS effect is.
A good headline is “not overly familiar, but rather familiar enough; a welcome surprise expressed in the vernacular of its intended audience.”
The takeaway is simple.
The best products, movies, headlines, and even ads combine two elements.
They're novel and new. But also familiar and safe.
Do you agree?
P.S. This newsletter is a trimmed-down version of the talk I gave at Creator Day last week. The next one is the 6th of May 2027.
It's a wonderful event and is part of a brilliant community run by my mate Mark Masters. (This isn't a paid ad; I just like the community! In fact, it's the only community I'm part of.)
NaS is a combination of two of the 85 principles you'll find in the Nudge Vaults. If you're keen to apply NaS, you should search for this distinctiveness effect and mere exposure effect in the Vaults.
In fact, Nudge Vaults subscribers can use VaultsGPT to apply these principles like this to their work:
¹Shapiro, S. A., & Nielsen, J. H. (2013). What the blind eye sees: Incidental change detection as a source of perceptual fluency. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(6), 1202–1218. ²Lakkaraju, H., McAuley, J., & Leskovec, J. (2013). What's in a name? Understanding the interplay between titles, content, and communities in social media. Proceedings of the Seventh International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 311–320.
As a behavioural science practitioner, I believe in the peak-end rule.
The Halo Effect Read online The World Cup is here, and England's kit looks a bit naff. Cole Palmer wearing a shirt that looks 2x too big. The kit seems ill-fitting; it looks far too baggy around the shoulders, and the neck is too wide. If Nike surveyed my opinion for their market research, I'd give it a 1/5. But my opinion could change very soon. Success shifts perception. In 2019, researcher Gerd Nufer¹ asked 3,178 football fans to rank the quality of their club's kits. For the study, six...
Specific Number Bias Read online I stumbled across this Reddit post a few weeks back. Everest surveyors added two feet to their measurement to appear accurate. Rather than listing the exact measurement of 29,000, the British Royal Geographical Society declared Mount Everest's elevation at 29,002. Clearly, the surveyors thought that rounded numbers seem less believable. Something that numerous studies have since proven. Can You Spare 17 Cents? In 1994, Santos, Leve and Pratkanis asked three...
The AI Contradiction Read online I just generated an image in the style of Monet using AI. Have a look, and think about what makes this inferior to a real Monet painting. Made with AI* A few weeks back, X user "SHLOMS" did the same. SHLOM's post on X. 1,300 people responded. Most said this AI art was pure crap.They said it lacked "coherent composition". The colours were an "incoherent muddle". Some said it was "trying too hard". Others called it "obvious AI slop". Replies to "SHLOMS" included...
