The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy

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The problem of more data was investigated by Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. He ran an experiment with professional horseracing handicap setters in which they were given a list of 88 variables that were useful in predicting a horse’s performance. The participants then had to predict the outcome of the race and their confidence in their prediction. They repeated these tasks with access to different levels of data: either 5, 10, 20, 30 or 40 of the variables. Dave Trott - creative director, author of Predatory Thinking and founder of three creative agencies For example, cinema ads, perhaps the medium that gets the highest attention, trades at a five times the cost of TV. By targeting distraction you benefit twice. First, you’re more likely to overturn misconceptions and second you pay less for the pleasure.

Our understanding of cognitive and behavioural biases originated in the field of psychology. Since then, their frequencies have grown steadily more encompassing, like broadcasts from a tumbledown radio tower. Solomon Asch. Baddeley and Hitch. And what ever happened to good old Starsky? These biases are what the seventies marketing executives would have told you, from behind the cigar haze of a Fleet Street pub, that they’d always known… People copy one another. They are the blind automata of their habits and contexts. And oh, first impressions count, do they? Whatever next, they sneer. However, as Richard Shotton claims, we should be wary of claimed data. We know of these biases, sure… but do we know when, where, and to what extent they apply? Sometimes people copy and yet at other times they value what is distinctive. Grey-suited investment bankers probably look quite attractive on Tinder but then so too do flannel-shirted, lip-studded musicians. A guide to your own mind, a roadmap of your blind spots, a toolkit for better advertising. The Choice Factory employs robust behavioral science in an approachable manner to demonstrate how you make and influence decisions. Synthesizing a vast body of research, live experiments and numerous examples, he shows that there is a bias for every occasion and how to use them as tools to craft better communications.Richard delivers a wealth of cases proving the efficacy of working with, rather than against, the grain of human nature. This is catnip for the industry. Consider green goods. Rebecca Strong and I conducted an experiment to quantify the impact of labelling washing-machine tablets as ‘ecologically friendly’. Peace Adzo Medie is Senior Lecturer in Gender and International Politics at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2020). His Only Wife is her debut novel. Qualitative Research Please select from one of the following on the left. 1. Qualitative research, 2. Quantitative research. 3. Advanced research. 4. B2B research

One of the most significant discoveries I’ve made over that time is the variety of biases that are covered in the field. There’s no single, grand theory underpinning behavioural science. Instead, there’s a broad collection of biases. After interrogating the existing evidence I’ll cover my own experiments in the field. This is important as they bridge the gap between academia and practice. My experiments prove that behavioural science is relevant today and that it applies to commercial situations as much as non-commercial ones. The scores were significantly influenced by the magazine. Headlines in the most respected magazine scored on average 1.9, compared to 5.5 in the least regarded magazine. The experiments prove that it’s hard to overturn negative opinions. Rejecters of your brand are difficult to convince because they interpret your message through a lens of negativity. Helen Macdonald is a nature essayist with a semiregular column in the New York Times Magazine. Her latest novel, Vesper Flights, is a collection of her best-loved essays, and her debut book, H Is for Hawk, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction.While many of the details of the article were later challenged, the story sparked the interest of two psychologists, Bibb Latané and John Darley. They wondered if the commentators had interpreted the problem the wrong way around. It wasn’t that no one intervened despite the volume of witnesses; no one intervened because there were so many bystanders. Prioritise attentive audiences. Avoid communicating when people are in a rush to avoid 'narrowing of the cognitive map'. Aim to have your ad seen for at least a second. Use mediums that permit longer view times. Use 'time spent' as a metric over CPT. Overall, unlike a lot of marketing books, there's very little anecdotal BS, pointless fluff, and self-serving aggrandisement. The points are concise, and each point is supported with the evidence from which the idea was anchored, any supporting marketing-based evidence, clear examples and practical advice. Every business book should be written like this. Convince me why I should believe it to be valid, generalisable and applicable to the field first and then tell me how I can use it. Consumers do not give full attention to ads, nor attention for more than milliseconds; keep them simple. Change the context of evaluation to ensure you're in 'listener mode' not 'maker mode'. Consider 'method planning'. The book I'm most thankful for? Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. My mother and father would read me poems from it before bed — I'm convinced it infused me not only with a sense of poetic cadence, but also a wry sense of humor.”