Tag: psychology

  • All The Cognitive Biases [infographic]

    All The Cognitive Biases [infographic]

    When I’m helping companies get their heads around behavioural economics and the psychological thinking that underpins great marketing communications, we often refer to cognitive biases to help explain the curious ways humans beings sometimes act. There’s a great list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia, but, you know, it’s Wikipedia… That’s why I was very excited…

  • Book List – Behavioural Economics and Persuasion Skills

    I’m often asked for some recommendations of good books on behavioural economics and persuasion skills, so here’s a quick list of some of my favourite reads. Click on the books to view each title on Amazon. Enjoy!  Fun to read, a great starting point in bite-sized chunks. Frankly anything by Dan Ariely is guaranteed to…

  • The Blemish Effect and Why Bad Reviews Are Good

    Let’s imagine you are looking to buy a book online. You are trying to choose between two books, neither of which you know much about, other than the information provided on the Amazon site where you are browsing. To help decide which book is best you scroll down to the review section. Based on these…

  • Why Pizzerias Love You To Go Small

    Friday night is pizza night! Or at least it is in my head right now! Everyone seems to love pizza these days. Economic recession or no recession, pizzerias have never been busier. Domino’s, the world’s largest pizza chain recently opened its 777th shop in the UK, and now operates in more than 70 countries. It…

  • Delightful Creativity from Putpockets

    There’s a very common mental state we  experience every day of our lives that makes us greatly underestimate the likelihood of something bad happening to us. Psychologists call it the ‘normalcy bias’, and it’s a pretty helpful thing. Without it, we would be less able to relax and enjoy our lives. Instead, we’d live in…

  • The Science of Persuasion Video by Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin

    I often speak at conferences on the fascinating topic of behavioural economics, much of which is rooted in understanding the psychological triggers that our simple human brains find irresistible. Dr Robert Cialdini is one of the world’s leading experts in this field and has recently teamed up with Steve Martin (no, not that Steve Martin)…

  • Reading List: Neuromarketing

    The phrase ‘neuromarketing’ is only around ten years old so it’s no surprise that most marketers have yet to study it extensively. It’s a fascinating topic, blending the latest findings from behavioural economics with breakthroughs in neuroscience. Today’s digital communication platforms give us the perfect test site for putting some of the new theory into…

  • Marketing Essentials: The Psychology of Sharing

    In case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a sharing economy. Thanks to innovations on the social web and advances in our internet-connected mobile devices, we think nothing today of sharing the content and information we discover. Of course, we’ve always shared information, that’s not new. But the speed and ease with which sharing now…