11 Psychology Tricks From the World’s Best Brands - Richard Shotton

Quick Overview

Richard Shotton outlines 11 psychology tricks used by top brands, focusing on concepts like the goal dilution effect, price relativity, the illusion of effort, the pratfall effect, scarcity, and the messenger effect to explain how brands successfully influence consumer behavior and perception.

Key Points: Five Guys succeeded by focusing relentlessly on just burgers and chips, avoiding the 'goal dilution effect' where adding extra reasons to believe dilutes the core reason to buy, leading to a 12% lower score on the core reason in one experiment. Brands must be careful about adding extra reasons to believe because they undermine believability in the core reason to buy the product, as exemplified by Newtonic focusing only on 'productivity' rather than amorphous concepts like 'alertness' or 'energy'. The concept of price relativity dictates that consumers replace complex value judgments with simpler ones, such as comparing a new item's price to similar past purchases; Red Bull used this by launching in a smaller, tall, thin can to break comparison with cheaper, squat soft drinks, justifying a much higher price. The illusion of effort, demonstrated by Dyson referencing 5,127 prototypes, significantly increases perceived quality; conversely, labeling a product as AI-created leads to lower perceived artistic merit and a 61% drop in purchase intent due to the perception of low effort. The Pratfall Effect states that admitting a flaw makes a product more appealing, as seen in Guinness's 'Good things come to those who wait' campaign, where admitting the delay/irritation made the contestant/product seem 45% better than if the flaw was omitted. Scarcity is the most powerful bias, driving demand because people want what they cannot have, which Guinness potentially leveraged by having pubs sporadically limit supply during shortages, and Wordle achieved massive success by limiting users to one puzzle per day. The messenger effect shows who says something is as important as what is said; credibility (Oppenheimer) yields a 23% mind change compared to a low-credibility source (Pravda) at 7%, while relatability also boosts influence.