Marketing & Psychological Biases Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo In marketing, understanding the intricacies of consumer behavior is key to crafting strategies that resonate with consumers. Psychological biases, those ingrained tendencies that influence our decision-making processes, play a profound role in shaping our perceptions and responses to marketing efforts. In this post, we'll delve into the fascinating intersection of psychology biases and marketing strategy, exploring how each of the listed biases can be harnessed to create effective and compelling marketing campaigns. Con ..read more

  Neural Coupling and MarketingPhoto by Dima Pechurin, Unsplash Imagine you’ve just had the best french toast of your life. It was so delicious - so perfect - that you want your best friend to be able to understand just how wonderful it was.  Trouble is, they weren’t with you to experience this extraordinary meal. And you didn’t have your phone on you to take a picture either. So it's up to you—you must communicate from scratch just how amazing it was.   This is a familiar scenario for us humans - we have to communicate if we want to share our experiences. It’s also a cruc ..read more

  Consumer Psychology, Branding, and WarmthPhoto by congy yuan, Unsplash Have you ever given your car a name? Or maybe, given polite words of encouragement to your computer when it breaks down, in the hope that it’ll start working again?  If so, you’re not alone. As social creatures, humans can’t help but see inanimate objects as having human-like traits. And this is especially true for how people see brands.  In this lesson, I’ll introduce you to the science of brand psychology, and a key framework for how to think through your loyalty strategy.  Personality traits are co ..read more

  Consumer Psychology and AttentionPhoto by Markus Spiske, Unsplash Throughout history, many great minds have remarked on the crucial importance of attention. The Stoics famously proclaimed that “you are what you pay attention to”. The Poet Mary Oliver remarked that “Attention is the beginning of devotion”. However you cut it, attention is one of the most precious assets.  So what determines what consumers pay attention to?  While a variety of factors are at play, there's a clear science of attention. We can see this most clearly in the realm of consumer behavior, where markete ..read more

  Experiential Marketing and SchemasPhoto by DJ Johnson, Unsplash The American playwright Tennessee Williams once remarked that “There are only three great cities in the United States: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. All the rest are Cleveland” Ouch. Clevelanders will no doubt feel aggrieved by this sentiment, as are the city-dwelling Americans from anywhere outside those allegedly elite three. No love for Chicago’s skyline, Boston’s Bay, or LA’s Hollywood scene?  One could argue that Williams’s elitism may be a bit extreme. But it illustrates something crucial about how w ..read more

  Essentialism Applied to MarketingPhoto by Jessica Furtney, Unsplash In 2004, a piece of chewing gum sold for $14,000 on eBay. The gum didn't confer any special qualities. It didn't promise to endow the new owner with immortality. Heck, it didn't even taste good. So why the exorbitant price?  Brittany Spears inadvertently spat it out. One "lucky" concert attendee caught the gum, listed it on eBay, and was handsomely rewarded.  If you're prone to think that dropping $14k on a piece of used chewing gum is a little crazy, you're in good company. But for the right person, there ..read more

  Hans Berger and History of Neuroscience and EEGPhoto by Abishek, Unsplash In intense periods of mortal danger, strange things happen that feel eery and inexplicable. Sometimes you can shrug these off and dismiss them. But other times, they haunt you. And one time in particular, a strange occurrence like this forever changed the field of neuroscience. This is how electroencephalography (EEG) was born. In 1892, Hans Berger, a mathematics student at The University of Jena in Germany, enrolled for a year in the cavalry. During a military exercise, he was suddenly thrown off his horse right ..read more

  Consumer Behavior and IncentivesPhoto by Austin Neill, Unsplash Few things can ruin your daily commute faster than a chance encounter with a venomous cobra. And if you lived in New Delhi during the early 1900s, this might happen to you on a regular basis. The streets were rife with cobras during colonial rule, posing a major public safety threat to New Delhians.  The situation became so untenable that the Colonial Government sprang into action with what they thought was the perfect solution: Instead of the government going in and trying to regulate these pesky serpents, let’s make ..read more

  Marketing Tips Using Memory EncodingPhoto by Lee Blanchflower on Unsplash Everything you know about memory is wrong. Memory is a funny thing, you think you know what it is but diving into it neuroscientifically, it is dynamic and dense. After reading this article, you'll be able to understand the neuroscience of memory and set the foundation for marketing that leaves an impression. So, what is memory? Intuitively, memory feels like a single thing. But what you think of as memory is actually a group of distinct neuroscientific phenomena.  When you go to a museum, the region of the ..read more

  Marketing Tactics via Two Drivers of MotivationsPhoto by Dim Hou on Unsplash Take a minute and think of all the physical objects you own. What if I were to ask you to count them all, what would the number be? What if I asked you to destroy them all, how would you feel? A pretty aggressive request, no? This is exactly what an artist named Michael Landy did in 2001. And his story perfectly illustrates the focal point of this lesson - motivations. This article will cover what the two consumer behavior motivations that marketers must know. Back to Michael Landy. He spent months cataloging ..read more