- Stew Redwine
This is Ad Infinitum. Ad Infinitum is the award-winning podcast solely focused on audio ads, the creatives who make them, and or the latest thinking that informs them, how the space is evolving, and my favorite... part, a roundup of recent audio ads, a analysis by yours truly, Stu Redwine, and each episode's guest. This is season three, episode 15 of Ad Infinitum, titled Human Hacks. Today, we've got a returning guest, someone whose work has shaped not just how brands think, but how I think. A man who has done more to make behavioral science useful to marketers than anyone not named Kahneman or Cialdini. And speaking of Cialdini. the godfather of influence himself.
- Marlon Brando
I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
- Stew Redwine
He said of today's guest's new book, I couldn't put it down. That book is Hacking the Human Mind. I'm holding a copy in my hands right now. And our guest is Richard Schott. And welcome to the show, Richard.
- Richard Shotton
Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Cheers, Jay.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. Great to have you back for sure. We got going right away on a little side quest, so we'll lace that into the show here in a bit. But before we dig in. Let me give you, chief audio officers, ye mighty chief audio officers who are listening, a little context. Hack used to be an insult. A hack writer, a hack artist, someone who phoned it in, sold out, and mailed it home. Today, a hack is a shortcut, a clever trick, a smarter way to get from intention to action. Old hack, unoriginal, new hack, undeniable. And Richard's book is about hacking the human mind. How do we... access, how do we use behavioral science, secrets of behavioral science behind 17 of the world's best brands to persuade people to take action with the tremendous brands and services that we work on and want to be successful. It really struck me coming up with the title for this episode, Human Hacks, because so much of the conversation, especially as AI is in the game, owning the game, running the game is human mediocrity. That's just all I keep thinking of. And it comes from that. documentary the social dilemma where it was like this idea of our fascination and obsession with ai is this idea that ai as the terminator would overcome human strength and really you know the greater concern i mean that's a concern but of equal concern or another concern is ai overcoming human weakness and as a creative with ai here amongst us we're like you know ai rules everything around me. the human mediocrity, the hacks, myself being a hack, having been a hack, of trying to find the easy way. It's like, that is not an option. You've really got to dig in and do your best to make the absolute best work. And some of that's with the tools. And some of that is about knowing what works and how humans work. And that's where this book, like Richard's previous books, comes into play. So we're going to get into it here in just a bit. We're also going to grade some recent top spenders. Courtesy of Magellan AI. Get your free demo at Magellan.ai slash ad infinitum. So Richard, welcome back. The new book is out. It's exploding. Cialdini can't put it down. Rory Sutherland called it a book for the ages. For the chief audio officers listening, what's the hack behind hacking the human mind?
- Richard Shotton
The hack is always easier to work with human nature than against it. And behavioral science is just... 130 years of experiments into how you effectively harness human behavior to get people to change. And I would argue this is as relevant a topic for anyone working in marketing, chief audio officer, pricing specialist, chief marketer. If you're working in marketing, everything you're trying to do is about changing behavior. You want people to buy more of your brand. You want people to switch from a competitor. You want people to pay a premium. They are all questions of behavior change. So why wouldn't you draw on the study of what makes? for effective behavior change. Now, I feel like behavioral science is as relevant as you can get.
- Stew Redwine
It seems like it. And I just, oh, your opening line was power. Obviously, you practice what you preach. Working with human nature instead of against it. It's like acceptance. Like human nature works a certain way. Work with it. Don't try to think it works some other way.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah. And this, I should stress, doesn't mean the role of a martyr is just taking a behavioral science bias and plonk it down the communications. It's not that straightforward. All behavioral science does is give you these very robust insights into human nature, but they're essentially hypotheses and they're essentially, they're part of the task. You still need to use your creative nows to get the most out of them. So it's about helping marketers not replace them, definitely.
- Stew Redwine
I agree with that. You know, the more you know, and there was one that I liked him. in particular that kind of relates to what you and I were talking about earlier, but it's one I think about a lot, which is from the, let me see, this is page 96. Red Bull. Yeah, I mean, I just think Red Bull's bull gives you wings. Anyway, so the spin big to look believable, which you consider an extravagant display. You,
- Richard Shotton
dear listeners, let me read this to you.
- Stew Redwine
Also, I want to say what's great about this book is I really like, Richard, how you added the takeaways for each section. So that's very nice. So this is an example, listeners. So from the Red Bull chapter, which you need to listen to or read in total, I've got both the printed copy and the audio copy. Spin big to look believable. Consider an extravagant display of advertising to persuade a skeptical audience. People are far more likely to believe a message if they think the brand is spent heavily on its communications. After all, only a company with genuine faith in the product would invest for the long term. Tell me more about that, Richard.
- Richard Shotton
The key line is only a company with genuine faith in their product would invest for the long term. So this essentially talks about an idea called... Costly Signaling and the experiment that our co-author and I wrote the book with Michael Aaron Flicker. The experiment we discussed in that chapter is by Amna Kimani and late 80s study recruits a group of people and gives them what looks like a page from a magazine and it's a bit of editorial on a fake trainer brand that is supposedly about to launch in America and the editorial covers why these shoes are amazing and it mentions that Thanks. People like Nike or Reebok spend about $10 million when they launch a trainer. And then it states how much this fake trainer brand is going to spend on advertising. And that's the fact that varies. So some people hear the trainer brand is going to spend $2 million, some $10 million. Some hear that the trainer brand is going to spend $20 million. Some hear it's going to spend $40 million. Everyone is then asked to make a rating of how high quality these trainers are. Now. What people think they're judging is all the facts that are mentioned in the editorial. But of course, what the researcher looks at is the variance in quality rating dependent on the statement about how much the brand is spending on advertising. And what Kamani finds is that if people think the trainer brand is going to spend $20 million on advertising, so twice the normal amount a brand might spend, they rate those trainers at 14% higher quality scores than if they think the brand is just going to spend. $2 million. Because the argument from Kamani is these high spends acts as a screening mechanism. If you have a shoddy product and you know that extravagant advertising only pays back in the long term, you're not going to do it. You know that you've just got to have this, you've got this one-off chance to dupe people. But if you believe your product's amazing and people are going to come back again and again and again, you believe that you're going to generate word of mouth, then you would be prepared to spend extravagantly because you know you can recoup it over the next few years. So Kamani says this extravagant spend acts as a... a screening mechanism. Only someone who genuinely believes in their brand is going to do it. So in this era of procurement, where so many people are trying to drive out the cost of their advertising, they get the lowest possible CPT, buy small placements at the right time, it should just sound a note of caution. And if you look at Red Bull, what they have done through their 10 or 20 years of advertising is spend on some outrageously expensive extravagant stunts, things like the Space Jump. This has been a thing. this has been a theme through their advertising. So yeah, exactly the same details about a product. That's the setup, but you vary what people think it's going to be spending on advertising. You get this very different score in terms of how high quality people think the trainers are.
- Stew Redwine
And what I infer from that is like, I like the David Ogilvie quote, the customer is not an idiot, she's your wife. So giving people credit that they're intelligent and also they're very intuitive. And so when I think of... the primary space I've been in, which is podcast, is like when you hear an advertiser on every show across every channel, like to the point that they make SNL skits about Blue Apron. I, to me, I guess I want to check my thinking with the expert, which you're the expert. Is that costly signaling that you can afford placements in all these different places? Or is it more like a Super Bowl ad is costly signaling? And what I'm talking about is something else.
- Richard Shotton
Well, Kamani, you know, what she does is tell people what the ad is going to be, the brand is going to be spending. Thank you. It could be the Super Bowl, you have one massive thing or the repeated frequency. Now, the crucial thing with Amin Khamani is you don't actually hear the ad multiple times. You're just told that this budget is going to be there. So it's this idea that you would only invest if you had this faith in your brand.
- Stew Redwine
Okay, well, then if I hear that, then I think what's more, then the most direct link you could make is someone hearing the news stories. You know, Super Bowl ads cost $3 million this year. That accomplishes in the most direct way.
- Richard Shotton
that's fair in a straight line from the studies yes the only reason I'm hesitating is there's something else going on with Blue Apron which is you actually hear the ad multiple times yes now there There you start moving into a different set of experiments. So there was a Polish-American psychologist in the 1950s called, I think it was Robert, Robert Zionch, I think he was at the University of Michigan. And he has this wonderful experiment where he gives people books. So they're like big kind of coffee table books. And on each page, there will be, for example, a picture of a face. And you turn a page and there's another picture of a face. And you flick, spend 10 minutes flicking through this book. At the end, Zion asks people... to rate the looks of all the photos that they saw. Now, he doesn't explicitly state it, but what he's done is a little experiment. Because some of the faces people see, they are only shown once. Some of those faces, they're shown twice, some five, some 10, some 15 times. And what Zion shows is that the more regularly people see a face, the more beautiful they think that face is. So he calls this the mere exposure effect. Because remember, no extra information is being given about those faces. People are just seeing them a few more times. But according to Zion, he says familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. He argues from an evolutionary perspective, if we repeatedly see a stimulus and it doesn't hurt us or cause us any pain, then we will grow warm to it. We don't need more information about it, but it's this regularity that breeds that warmth. So taking this back to Blue Apron, maybe there's two bits going on. People recognize that it's only reasonably high quality brands that can appear so often. But Zions would say, actually, also, it's this mere exposure effect. It's simply as people become more familiar with it, even if they learn nothing about it, even if the ad was just saying Blue Apron repeatedly, they would become warmer to it over time.
- Stew Redwine
Oh, man, this stuff is like, I need to listen to your book every day. It's incredible.
- Richard Shotton
And there are practical implications to it, especially in Britain. This is where I'm from, so pick me up if there are American differences. But in Britain, the chopping and changing that big brands do.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah,
- Richard Shotton
average marketing director lasts about 18 months. They're always changing direction and strapline and creative approach. Zinesh would say this is crazy. No, each time you change, you lose some of this familiarity and you have to start again. Now, maybe there are extreme circumstances where you need to do something different. Of course, we've got to be realistic. But you should only change creative direction in the most extreme of circumstances because you're losing all these. benefits of the mere exposure effect.
- Stew Redwine
I mean, think about this. The people you love the most.
- Richard Shotton
I love you. I love you. I love you. Yes.
- Stew Redwine
Their face doesn't change every six months. That would terrify you if your wife's face changed every six months. Think about that. I've never thought of that.
- Richard Shotton
There's a slightly surreal thought,
- Stew Redwine
but yeah. I love surreal. Here's the one I think of, Richard. Realistically is Disneyland here in the United States. since what, 1959, that castle hasn't changed, right? I don't want it to change. I've taken my kids there. I want to take my grandkids there. My parents took me there. Like I, that's the one that I think of a lot as something staying the same. Anyway, I want to keep this on the track. I could talk to you forever. I just have to say to the chief audio officers, and we got a bunch of these books at the office and are giving them to folks as well to read and look through. I'm just like, there's so much in here that's so valuable. You break down how 17 of the world's best brands from Five Guys to Liquid Death, who I also love, to Dyson, all tap specific behavioral biases, whether they realize it or not. You keep a real cool head every time I've taught you about this and I've read all your books. I do want to know, like, what of all of the ones is there one that has surprised you the most as you've continued to pull apart behavioral science?
- Richard Shotton
I think one of the experiments that's most surprising and I think is super relevant for audio is concreteness. And it's more because of the scale. scale of the results rather than the underlying point. So the original studies were done back in 1972 by Ian Beck. He was a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario. And really simple study. He reads out 22 word phrases.
- Stew Redwine
For those of us with copies of the book, sorry, Richard, sorry to interrupt.
- Richard Shotton
This is in the Apple chapter.
- Stew Redwine
Thank you. So for you listeners, it's in the Apple chapter, which is fantastic. I can't recommend it enough. And we're going to be talking about concreteness. I'm going to give you a page number as well, everybody. For those of you that want to read along, page 41 in Hacking the Human Mind by Richard Shotton and Michael Aaron Flicker. We need to make sure we, and they also do a podcast, which is very good. But anyway, you were saying, Richard.
- Richard Shotton
So Begg recruits this group of people, reads out 22 word phrases, and then he asks people later on to write down as many of the phrases as they can remember. Now, he doesn't tell people this explicitly, but half of the words he reads out. are what he calls concrete phrases. So these are crucially tangible things that you can visualize, like a white horse or a square door. That's a concrete phrase. The other half of the words are what he calls abstract phrases, intangible ideas like subtle fault or impossible amount. And when people come back with their memories later on, what Begg finds is that on average, people remember 9% of the abstractions, but they remember 36% of the concrete phrases. So you've got this massive fourfold difference in memorability. According to Begg, vision is the most powerful of our senses. So if you use language people can visualize, it lodges in the mind. If you use abstract language, it's very forgettable. Think now about audio. How many brands talk about being high quality or freebie, more trustworthy? They are talking about simple ideas that we all have the cognitive capability of understanding, but because they're abstract. People cannot remember. What the best brands do is they translate the objectives on the brief into language people can visualize. Now, we were talking about Red Bull earlier. Red Bull didn't say Red Bull gives you energy. That would have been abstract. What they say instead is Red Bull gives you wings. And because you can picture wings, you can picture someone flapping. That is a message that is far more likely to stick in someone's mind. So that was one of the most surprising findings because of the scale. A fourfold difference is huge. And I think it's surprising that it's still not applied universally across advertising. There's such an opportunity that's being missed out.
- Stew Redwine
That is a great one. And it makes me want to segue into what can be touchy territory for many of us on the planet right now, which is the phrase, make America great again.
- Richard Shotton
I mean, it's a bit of communication. It's brilliant. I mean, you separate it from the policies behind it, but there's a bit of communication. I think you've got to admire it.
- Stew Redwine
And I think it's concrete.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah. So I think there's a few things going on.
- Stew Redwine
I feel like it's walking the line a little, but I feel like it's more concrete than not concrete.
- Richard Shotton
Well, the classic example of Trump doing something concrete was around immigration policy. Now, I saw this wonderful presentation once where someone put up a couple of paragraphs of Hillary Clinton's first election, her thoughts on immigration. And it looked like a postgraduate dissertation. You know, I read it, couldn't really understand it. And thinking, oh gosh, I feel a bit stupid. Quickly trying to read it again, see if I can understand the second run. And then they put up Trump, build a wall. Now, that to me is one of the most extreme differences. And Clinton was so abstract in many of her areas that it just washed over people. But if you say build a wall, well, I've got a mental picture of it. And because I'm visualizing it, it sticks. Just because you get someone to remember something doesn't mean it's going to be a successful piece of persuasion. But what we can say is if they don't remember what you're saying, we know you've got a useless piece of communication. So, yeah, I certainly think he uses some of these tactics and like him or loathe him. Now, I think we should learn from him, whatever political persuasion we are. Just because I don't agree with Trump doesn't mean I can't see that he has many very powerful persuasive abilities. And you don't have to adopt his moral code to use some of those things. I think you're at
- Stew Redwine
absolutely absolutely right but i would fear doing it for people just coming at you yeah yeah no i mean it's just i think hit time will tell yeah and it's like the make america great again so spoke to an emotional need where it's like it's kind of like to me it's the bar as an advertiser you need to find the make america great again for the campaign you're working on yeah you need to find because that lit up tens of millions of Americans. We're like, yeah, yeah. And the iconography and just repeating it and being distinct.
- Richard Shotton
And funny.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. And funny. Yeah,
- Richard Shotton
you're right. Simple, concrete, repeated, taps into loss aversion. We're looking for this golden past. And also, yeah, I do believe funny. That's why I think Vance might not succeed in the same way. Because he's not got Trump's cruel humor. Or his greatest cruelty, but maybe he's not humor.
- Stew Redwine
Well, and he's trying. He's like trying to lean in on the joke, like for Halloween. But you can just see it. You can just see it. You know, you can see it. I mean, I'm a big fan of science fiction and growing up read the Foundation series and which is a retelling of the history of the Roman Empire. And the one character that, you know, Harry Seldon, who's able to predict human behavior, a lot of what you do, right? Being able to predict what people are going to do. He could predict large groups, but he couldn't predict individuals. And there was this individual, the mule that threw everything off. It's like so obviously President Trump is a one in a million, one in a billion. billion that just nobody can predict where this thing's gonna go yeah it's incredible anyway didn't mean to make this a political i just you know man it's good to hear you say what you said because i was at a conference a podcast conference and it was like it was literally in the wake of what you know many over here have called you know the podcast election where president trump goes on Joe Rogan and Kamala Harris does. Right. And. Nobody was talking about it at a podcast conference in like March or April. And you're just like, guys, at a certain point, your rage or your whatever it is, maybe it's a moral standard. You're blind to a massively successful advertising campaign, which is crazy.
- Richard Shotton
You take learnings from all political expressions, all products, good or bad. You don't have to use the learning to the same end. People who dismiss Trump just as bad and pantomime villain. Well, there are lots of pantomime villains and they haven't come from nowhere to president. He's obviously doing something alongside that. And it's the bits alongside, like you mentioned, simplicity, repetition, concreteness, humor. That's what we can learn from.
- Stew Redwine
For sure.
- Richard Shotton
Back in 2016, we had the vote to stay in or out of Europe. And there was two camps, Remain and Leave. And the Leave camp was one of the key stretches. It was a guy called Dominic Cummings. And the original line was going to be, take control. You know, we've supposedly lost sovereignty to the EU. Let's take that control. And Cummings' idea was inserting the word back, take back control, because he argued, and this is a principle in behavioral science, he said, it's much more powerful to position something as being lost and we're regaining it than just an upside. And there are studies going back to what... probably the mid-70s, into this idea of loss aversion. So exactly mathematically, the same number, if it's positioned as a loss, affects us more than it's positioned as a gain. I understand it sounds very abstract, so an example experiment may make it clear. 1988 study by Elliot Aronson, he was at Harvard, goes around to homes and tries to sell people loft insulation. And sometimes he says, take out the loft insulation, you'll save 75 cents a day. Other times he says, take out the loft insulation. or you'll be wasting 75 cents a day. Now, in both scenarios, we're talking about the same lump sum, 75 cents a day. But when he frames it as a loss, when he emphasizes what you could be missing out on, he gets 56% more people signing up for the loft insulation service. So I think make America great again. It's that again part that's so powerful. Returning to these supposed glory days is much more powerful than just making America great.
- Stew Redwine
No doubt. Richard, one last thing I want to mention to you before we get into grading the ads is I don't know if I'm going to do it this year. I'm toying with the idea. I want it possibly next year. It's so noncommittal. Nevertheless, you know, Dave Trott.
- Richard Shotton
Oh, yeah.
- Stew Redwine
So he talked about I read a post of his from a couple of years ago and like every year I go back to it about the origins of the Christmas Carol that that was a they came to Charles Dickens to write this like thing about the plight of the poor man's child. Yeah. And it's an even longer title than that. And then he came back with The Christmas Carol. And it's this idea of storytelling versus rational. So what I want to do is I want to do an advertising Christmas Carol. And the characters that I want to do is the ghost of advertising past is Coca-Cola. The ghost of advertising present is Red Bull. And the ghost of advertising yet to come is Liquid Death.
- Richard Shotton
Oh, nice.
- Stew Redwine
And then I saw like all of those. I mean, two of those are in here. I don't think you got Coca-Cola in here.
- Richard Shotton
No, no, no, no, we don't.
- Stew Redwine
Which is understandable. But it's a great ghost of advertising. past because I feel like Coca-Cola and modern advertising, at least in the United States of America for the first, you know, hundred years is almost synonymous. And then we've got Red Bull. I think they do cool stuff. And then, I mean, Liquid Death is a skeleton and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is always a skeleton. So what do you think of those three choices?
- Richard Shotton
I think that could be very nice. That's very nice. Yeah. Love it.
- Stew Redwine
And you could play Charles Dickens.
- Richard Shotton
Yes. I've got the sideburns.
- Stew Redwine
oh yeah but i love that i remember i read that from dave try and i think it makes it i don't know if there's something from your i can't keep it all in my mind it staggers me how you keep it all in your mind is there something in all the behavioral science stuff about storytelling versus hitting people with facts versus telling stories sorry
- Richard Shotton
the one that there's a great book i think this is tarzan economics by will page i think it's from this but how he talks about how art is affected by money. And he has all these examples. I think he's mainly focused on music. So he says, look, when the 1940s, 50s jukeboxes were essentially controlled by the mafia, there was strong pressure put onto people to do very short songs because the mafia who controlled the jukeboxes wanted to get as much money per hour as possible. He talks about how with Spotify you get paid after 30 seconds. So if someone stops listening before 30 seconds, the artist gets nothing. Hence the shortening of songs and the death of the classic rock long intro. Stairway to Heaven would not come out today. And when you were talking about Charles Dickens, the only thing I could think was he's quite famous for his verbosity. And I think he was essentially paid by the word. So all of his novels were serious.
- Stew Redwine
so you know he's paid every thousand words so he is a very long-winded man he's like i'm gonna pull this out yeah this is gonna have nine adjectives when one could do what i was wondering about was i was wondering if you would go here but i'm gonna lead you is on your podcast you recently had will store the author of the science of storytelling yes tell
- Richard Shotton
me more about that because that was very fascinating to me so will store is absolutely fantastic if people haven't read it get The Science of Storytelling. So it's a brilliant book for any copywriter because rather than just give people suggestions and rules for better writing, he looks at many of the kind of psychological underpinnings of what makes for good writing. So I think that I'm trying to think. Okay. So one of the areas we talked about was the power of simplicity. And if anyone is listening who works for a finance brand or a B2B company, they definitely need to apply this idea. So there's a psychologist, it's Daniel Oppenheimer. So he's at Princeton. I think it was 2006. He does this amazing experiment. Well, actually, this experiment is quite good. The title of the experiment is amazing. So the paper is called Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity. And then there's a colon and it says problems with using long words needlessly. And what Oppenheimer does is recruit a group of people. And he gets them to read short bits of text. So they're taken from academic journals. Sometimes people are shown the original text and it always has some unnecessary complications in there. Some really verbose, jargony words. And then that.
- Stew Redwine
group of readers rate the intelligence of the author. Oppenheimer then gets a new group of people, shows them basically the same text, but he replaces some of those really complex words with simpler alternatives. Now, when that group rate the intelligence of the author, that second group, they rate the author as 13% more intelligent than the original group. Oppenheimer says this clashes with most people's expectations. Most writers think, or certainly most B2B writers, they think the way to impress the audience is to use lots of complexity. But actually, that tends to irritate the reader. They get confused. And the reader doesn't blame themselves for that confusion. They blame the author. So his argument would be, wherever possible, you want to be using simple tools like Hemingway or other reading grade tools and getting that reading age down as low as possible, because actually it will reflect well on you as a brand not to track through your image. And especially... But sectors that are important, you know, things like finance or pharma or B2B, I think many of those marketers think because they're selling such important products, they need to speak in a very serious, formal, verbose way. But all the evidence suggests that's a mistake. They're actually making themselves come across as worse.
- Richard Shotton
And it just, it rings true. like a lot of this stuff I've found there's been very few from across all your books and then most recently the Hack of the Human Mind where I don't where I have a If I'm honest, I'm like, oh, yeah, that feels right. That sounds right. It's very rare that there's one of these that I go, oh, I don't know. Like, you're trying to make me check my brain at the door and believe something that isn't true, which a lot of times, sometimes I feel like that is stuff that I hear bandied about. It's sort of like this may seem counterintuitive. I mean, the classic is from Mad Men where the guy is pitching the death instinct. You know, that's the whole setup. In the very first episode of Mad Men, there's this 20-year-old guy that's into psychology. He's like, the reason people smoke is because they're suicidal. They want to die. They're the death instinct. And Don Draper gets up. He's like, dude, they smoke because they want to be happy. You know? And your stuff, which I like, is it's an embrace of human nature. You know?
- Stew Redwine
Also, that Mad Men story is an interesting one. Because that kind of death instinct, or maybe some kind of Freudian explanation for smoking. It was often intellectuals just... putting together a plausible story. There was nice logic behind it, but very little proof. With all these behavioral science experiments, they're never based on logic alone. And people have to put them to a test. And that's what's the judge of whether they work or not. So I think, yeah, I think there's a difference between some of that kind of cod psychology of the 1950s and then the more experimentally tested work of today.
- Richard Shotton
Yes, you just said very well what I was using too many words to say.
- Stew Redwine
And there are simply too many notes.
- Richard Shotton
Behavioral science gives you the proof that you need to go. This isn't just opinion. So with that said, talking about the real thing, I love the real thing. That is like the backbone of ad infinitum is talking about real phenomenon that happened in the real world. Let's listen to some ads from some top spinners. I know I'm asking you to listen to stuff in the United States of America. But if I had a dollar for... every time somebody talked about the Effie Awards and the IPA and all the studies from England that we base our strategies on over here. I think it's okay. I think we can understand each other. Hey, I got to tell you, I did an episode with two expats that live over here now, but they were from England. And we struck out, what was the name of the episode? Put a little English on it. And we, in that episode, struck upon this idea that it's very interesting when you look at the history of broadcasting and advertising in England, the United Kingdom. that it was more tightly controlled. There was less inventory. It was more narrowly focused. Like you had the channel that switched between the week and the weekdays. Radio advertising was not nearly what it was. So it's like the idea that planning came out of the UK made so much more sense to me because I feel like in the UK, let's say circa 1930 to 2000, maybe a little earlier than 2000, you had to be a lot more thoughtful about how your ad was going to work. where the United States, you could just freaking blast it, man. Broad media, millions of people, all the money in the world, post-World War II, we're on top of the world. Nobody's, you know, only superpower with nukes. Like so many wins were in the sales of average. So these guys, the madmen in the United States of America that are given all this credit, I'm kind of like, could they have screwed it up? I don't even know if you could have screwed it up. Advertising to Americans. While in the United Kingdom, you have to be planful because... You've got a limited opportunity. What do you think of that?
- Stew Redwine
I certainly think one of the differences was the dominance of the BBC, especially in the 50s and 60s. Now, you've got one commercial channel, ITV.
- Richard Shotton
Exactly.
- Stew Redwine
And they always have this worry that if they play too many ads, the ads aren't very good, well, then people can just turn off ITV and watch BBC where there's no advertising at all. So I think there was always this need for the commercial channels to keep on raising their game. People aren't familiar with the BBC, and this sounds like the most socialist thing ever, will be. americans like choking the cornflakes we are taxed you have no choice about it 200 pounds a year whatever it is just goes to the bbc and therefore they survive without advertising i think in the 50s and
- Richard Shotton
60s that was a huge amount of money it is some very good content that the commercial channels had to keep on raising their games keep up with well the big thought there and you're confirming it was i was like oh because i was like why did planning come out of the uk and i know there's like martial history to it that you know the martial tradition in the united kingdom is redundancy it's actually a strategic imperative to have like if you need one 15 pound cannon to have two 15 pound cannons and the american imperative has always been we have a plan of attack attack so it's like a different approach right and i was like okay i'm saying all this to say les bonnet all that work your work frankly you know cross applying it across a pond i I... Sometimes I resist it. And then at other times I'm like, you know, human nature is human nature. But do consumers in, like I have friends in Lagos, Nigeria, do consumers in Lagos, Nigeria behave different than you in London town and me in Los Angeles?
- Stew Redwine
So of course there are variances, but I think there is more than, more that unites us and divides us. Like a lot of the behavioral science principles, take probably one of the most well-known social principles. the idea that we are a herd species as humans, that we are deeply influenced by what others do. So if you as a marketer make your product look popular, it will become more appealing and more people are likely to buy it. Now, the argument for that is an evolutionary one. For hundreds of thousands of years, when we were living on the African savannah, it was absolutely imperative to our survival that we kept friends, that we were within the grace and favour of our tribe. If we fell out with the tribe and we were expelled, that was a death sentence. So I think we have evolved to be very, very deeply attuned to what others think and feel. Now, if you buy that evolutionary explanation for social proof, well, then the argument would be this kind of froth of technology change in culture is, you know, that's just a recent blink of the eye. Now, all of us have got those common ancestors. All of us have had that same evolutionary experience, and therefore you'd expect this bias to be reasonably similar. And I think that's what you see when you compare experiments across countries. It's not that it has exactly the same effect, but we're talking about kind of minimal variation of social proof across the world. It may be a collectivist culture is more affected than an individualistic one, but all groups are affected.
- Richard Shotton
I tend to agree. And I think it's like, you know, you see two pools of water and at one pool of water, there's some dead bodies. And at the other pool of water, there's 50 humans cupping water into their mouth. Which one are you going to drink water from?
- Stew Redwine
Or a restaurant that has, you know, you go away or abroad or you visit a state you've never been to before. And one restaurant has 100 people queuing up and one doesn't. If you were ever asked what's going to have the best food, you'd say the one with the queue.
- Richard Shotton
You're going to go with the one with the more people.
- Stew Redwine
It is a sensible rule of thumb. What's interesting, though, is we apply it even when it's perhaps not justified. So if you were to give someone exactly the same product and sometimes say, you know, this has got 100 million users and this one, don't mention any reference to scale, people would tell you the one with 100 million users was, they'd rate it better, even though they were exactly the same thing. So it's often these rules are generally applicable and generally useful. The thing is, we apply them even in situations where perhaps it's inappropriate. And I think that's the opportunity for the marketer.
- Richard Shotton
No question. And I think when all else fails, it's like be as honest and forthright and real as you can, because there's nothing like what's like, well, just slap that we have a million reviews on it. Like, whatever, you know, you get into that territory. And I think there's behavioral science. So I haven't seen much about this in your work, but you could probably do one on the seven deadly sins. Like, if you're dishonest, it blows up in your face.
- Stew Redwine
so sorry I take that one as a given you can't make up a fact you'll get away with it for a little while but sooner or later you get caught and you know That's going to take a long, long time to get that trust back. So it has to be truthful. Real. That's a gift. But there will often be a situation where a brand has these social proof stories, but it never conveys them. That's where the opportunity lies.
- Richard Shotton
You know, it's amazing to me. So I live in Santa Clarita, California, and the largest, well, the largest grocer in California is Walmart. The reason I know. This is when you, this blows me away, man. You walk into Walmart, okay? So you've already made the decision. I am inside Walmart and they have a massive banner over the produce section that says number one grocer in California. And I talk about this one a lot for our advertisers because one of the biggest gaps I see in audio, people will go long in the tooth on entertainment and then we need to get into grading some real ads here. So people will go long in the tooth on trying to be emotionally engaging and tell a story. And I get the reasons for that. or to create an image in their mind. Often where they go soft is on social proof. We call it substantiation and audiolytics. But to me, the fact that Walmart, who you know has the money and has the people and isn't, I believe Walmart is doing things for a reason. When you walk into their house, they're still going to go, we're the number one grocer. And you're already there.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. So I think that is a lovely, clear, explicit use of social proof. But if a creative's listening to this and thinking, oh gosh there's you know there's no role for me where's my opportunity for creativity well you can still use the same principle but with a bit more flair so the lovely old example i think it might be 1988 and it was back from the days when ford escort was the world's best-selling car now what most brands would have done is just buy big posters and said world's best-selling car but what ford did was buy those same giant posters but in tiny tiny font on the poster they wrote out every single make a model of competitor car. And then over the top, they said, if your car's on the list, Ford Escort outsells it. That is exactly the same principle as Walmart saying number one grocer in California. But by adding a dash of flair and wit, I think Ford get even more out of that principle. And what's true for social proof is true for every bias we've talked about. The experiments give you an insight into human nature. But when you add your creativity as an advertiser into the mix, that's when you get the biggest impact.
- Richard Shotton
That is fantastic. Yeah, I had a thought in here of, you know, using these human hacks so you won't be a human hack.
- Stew Redwine
I like that. I like that.
- Richard Shotton
And I think you just, you just spoke to it. Like, that's the thing. It's like, yeah, look, you can't, just the facts, ma'am. Like, you could. And you know, the truth is, that still chucks the box. It's letter of the law. But spirit of the law is like, man, we're alive. Have some fun with it. And to your point, I think the Ford Escort example, that's more distinct.
- Stew Redwine
Yes. Yeah.
- Richard Shotton
That's more interesting. And that. I know there's behavior, you know, I can't quote them all like you can. I mean, I don't, nobody can quote them like you can, but being distinct has a power just in and of itself.
- Stew Redwine
Absolutely. You know, one of the oldest studies in behavioral science is a 1933 study from Hedwig von Restorff, this German psychologist. And the effect is named after it. It's called the von Restorff effect. And it's essentially this argument that we are hardwired to notice what's distinct. One of the best things you can do if you want to be noticed is identify your category conventions and then smash the box. And I think Ford did that beautifully. Everyone else would have just said world's biggest. They gave it that little twist. And as you say, it's distinctive and therefore lodges in the mind.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah, you remember it. And, you know, yeah. OK, let's get into the real deal. Here we go. Enough, enough, enough is enough. Well, what's kind of nice is this isn't theory. This is practice. And I like that you're making that distinction. And it's worthy of pointing out yet again that with behavioral science, we have the, you know, it isn't just theory. These are real studies. So let's get into the real thing. Let's take a look at the brands making moves in podcasting. These are recent top movers and shakers. According to Magellan AI, you can get a free demo at Magellan.ai slash ad infinitum. We're going to jump right in, Richard. The first one's from Procter & Gamble, Tide's pods on laugh lines with Kim and Pin Holderness. Here we go.
- Tide Ad
Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean in cold water? Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it. Even in cold. Butter? Yep. Chocolate ice cream? Sure thing. Barbecue sauce? Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide Pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new cold-zyme technology. Just remember. If it's got to be clean, it's got to be Tide.
- Richard Shotton
All right, Richard, there we go. That's the first one for Tide Pods. What do you think?
- Stew Redwine
I'm a bit underwhelmed, frankly. I don't think I'm going to remember that by the time we finish the podcast.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah, there's not. It feels just interchangeable with a hundred other ads. I do wonder if the biggest problem with advertising is this belief. If we say something, then that message is internalized by the audience. but But just because you've said it doesn't mean people believe it. And I feel like the premise of that ad was based on the fact, well, if we just tell people we're brilliant in cold water, then everyone's going to believe us. Well, why? Why would I believe you? Every advertiser has a vested interest to spin the truth. So there's this skepticism towards any commercial message. And I don't feel the ad did much to overcome that. It sounds like they're spending a lot of money on advertising, so they might get an uplift in sales by sheer weight of numbers. I think we'd give that a five out of 10.
- Richard Shotton
Okay. Five out of 10. And you bring up a good point on the spend. You know, there is, I made this point on the, yeah, on the last episode and I'll say it again. It's like, I think that there are wins in your favor for human persuasion in that the audio puts the mind, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that audio puts a mind into this sort of passive receptive state, almost like you could say you could brainwash easier when someone's listening to an audio show that they want. And so... you actually can get away with being a hack, so to speak. But to your point, I feel like raise the bar, bro. If you raise the bar, let's say this Tide ad is performing a goal. You know what? Let's say it's 1.3% to goal. They're getting 30 cents on every dollar. Maybe they're even getting a dot. Maybe it's 2X to goal. Can you imagine if they actually showed up and made a distinct awesome ad? It might be 3 or 4X to goal.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. And you're absolutely right. There is a real power in podcast and audio. So there is a psychologist, probably peak of their career, 50s and 60s, Leon Festinger, and he came up with this idea of confirmation bias. So essentially, it's the argument that we don't interpret messages from a communicator neutrally. We interpret what they say through a lens of our feelings for that communicator. So if Donald Trump says something and it's attributed to Donald Trump, a Democrat will scoff and a Republican and will agree. The same statement is then... supposedly coming from Joe Biden, and you'll get a reverse. The Republican will disagree with it, the Democrat will like it. Now, we are awfully influenced by who a message comes from. Everything's interpreted through a lens of our feelings to the communicator. That was Festinger's original work. But he does this amazing experiment. He recruits members of a college fraternity. So, you know, these slightly contentious organizations where some people are pro them, some people against. But everyone in the experiment is a member of a college fraternity. it. That's crucial. Festinger then plays them an audio argument. about why the college fraternities are morally wrong. And then he asks people at the end what their view is on college fraternities. Essentially, they have changed their opinion. He then gets another group of people, all members of college fraternities. He plays them exactly the same audio argument, but this time they listen to the audio argument whilst they're watching an unrelated silent film. Now, when that group say whether they've changed their opinion, they are statistically significantly more likely to have changed their deep-seated opinion than the first group. Fasting's argument is the The brain is amazing at generating arguments to maintain its existing point of view. But if the brain has to do something else, like watching that silent film, some of that ability is taken up and it becomes a little bit more persuadable. That's the initial experiment. You now jump forward to 2025 and podcasts and audio. And podcasts are almost always consumed while someone is doing something else. They're walking, they're traveling, they're driving the car, they're doing their housework. That is normally positioned as a negative. but actually if you want to change someone's opinion, it is a massive positive. So I think you're absolutely right in that idea that you've got this opportunity with audio. It's got this opportunity to overturn some of those entrenched opinions, but don't take it for granted. Of course, you can, by driving up the power of creative, get even more from that opportunity.
- Richard Shotton
For sure. That's incredible. And it just, you know, it's amazing to me. Like, why are so many, you know, we've been doing now like 40 some episodes of Ad Infinitum and the average audiolytics score is always at like 60 65 right in there i'll go ahead and tell you this one scored a 78 in audiolytics which is our goal is 90 and it's on a curve so it gets harder and harder to get to a 90 as you get closer to it as you approach the speed of light so the point is that like a 5 and a 78 kind of feel in the same land to me because like rarely do you get an ad that's less than 50 because there's some transfer of information and audiolytics is more predisposed of the transfer of information, all this to say. Why is there so much mediocre stuff on audio? In my mind, my answer that I'm getting to is like, it doesn't have to be any better. It doesn't have to be any better to work. Like that's where the bar is. Because it works. Because of what you're saying, the brain is malleable.
- Stew Redwine
And also, why is most stuff average? Because that's the law of statistics.
- Richard Shotton
That's the average.
- Stew Redwine
You're a sci-fi fan. Didn't you say sci-fi fan? Yeah, oh yeah. And I'm sure, and I don't know much about sci-fi, so I might get this slightly wrong, but I think there was a writer called Sturgeon, and someone said to him, why, you know, some kind of academic type being dismissive as a genre, and the dismissive interviewer said, well, 90% of sci-fi is rubbish. And Sturgeon said, yeah, it's rubbish. But then 90% of everything is rubbish. You know, that's the point. Creating something brilliant is bloody hard. Getting a 7 or 8 out of 10 is an amazing achievement on the parts of the creative. It's much easier to end up through a committee-like process somewhere slap bang in the middle. So I think that we should judge it in that context.
- Richard Shotton
For sure. Okay. So we've got a baseline. Let's see how IBM showed up on the favorites sports betting podcast. and Here we go.
- IBM Ad
If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business. IBM.
- Richard Shotton
Speaking of rubbish, what do you think, Richard? Are you going to save IBM's ad? Are you going to make a case for their life?
- Stew Redwine
I mean, the only thing that I would, and I think we are grasping at straws slightly here. The only thing that I would go for positively is this emphasis on ease. There have been two Nobel Prize winners who've got a behavioral science background in the last 25 years. So you've got... Daniel Kahneman, 2002, Richard Thaler, 2017. And both have been asked a very similar question in an interview, which is, what is the single biggest thing you've learned from all your research? And both of them have said the same thing, make it easy. And that's not just a statement of the obvious. They're not just saying, if you make a behavior easier, it happens more. What they argue is that most people have the wrong model of human behavior in their minds. Most people think the way to change behavior is to motivate people to want to change. Whereas we tend to overestimate the impact of motivation. The argument from Thaler and Kahneman is the other way to change behavior is to make it easier. And again, and again, and again, experts, people in general, underestimate the importance of making something easier. You remove small barriers, you remove tiny bits of friction, and it tends to have this unexpectedly large impact. So maybe the one positive about that IBM is trying to remove the fear factor from businesses, It's stressing that using AI is easy. But I think that's maybe... being a little generous.
- Richard Shotton
I think it is too. Richard, I think you might be right, but you're saying great stuff all along the way. So the chief audio officers listening are benefiting. Let's go ahead and just do the next two and then we can talk about them as a group. Okay. Oh, but first, what would you give IBM on a scale of one to 10 on the Richard shot and scale of one to 10?
- Stew Redwine
I'm going to give it six out of 10, I think, because at least there's that reference to all these. So yeah, six out of 10.
- Richard Shotton
Okay. All right. So let's do the next two. We're going to go back to back. Here's American Beverage Association on Locked On Jayhawks. Rock Chalk Jayhawks, go KU. Here we go.
- America Beverage Companies Ad
When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at goodtoknowfacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts. straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit goodtoknowfacts.org.
- Richard Shotton
Okay, so that is American Beverage Association. And let's listen to the next one real quick, and then we'll talk about them as a group. This is McAfee on Sounds Like a Cult.
- McAfee Ad
And now a message from McAfee. I'm not a real kid. And I'm not a real grandpa. We're deep fakes. And we're making it harder to tell what's real online. The good news? McAfee can help. McAfee's scam detector automatically identifies text and email scams and even deep fakes. So if you whippersnappers meet one of us, you'll know. If they're faking it, they're not making it past us. Get award-winning scam detection today. McAfee.com slash keep it real.
- Richard Shotton
Okay. I don't normally do this, but obviously that's the winner. Is it for you as well, of the four?
- Stew Redwine
I think for the four. You know, at least there's an element of, I think, slight surprise. It's more distinct than the others. They've actually created a deep fake. I think the kid was the more impressive deep fake than the grandpa. Maybe my English ear isn't attuned to accents, but the kid sounded realistic.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah, he did. I mean, I liked that. What I felt like it did well is it tied right into, like, what's up right now. I feel like every real world conversation I'm having is somebody going, have you seen the latest Sora video? I'm talking about all ages. Everybody's going, I don't know what's real and what's not real online. So that's why I'm giving that one just for me, like Stu Redwine points going like, okay, that's a real thing in society right now.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. And if we go for that principle of concreteness versus abstraction, actually creating a deep fake and letting people experience it themselves and how realistic it is. You know, that's far, far closer than slightly abstract discussion of the point.
- Richard Shotton
Okay. So what would you give that one out of 10 first? Let's do that.
- Stew Redwine
Let's give that one eight out of 10.
- Richard Shotton
Okay. Eight out of 10. All right. And then American beverage, what do you give that one?
- Stew Redwine
I'm a bit cynical about that because I'm imagining this is, is this a kind of trade body for some beverages that probably aren't very good for you and they're going to tell you the information. I mean, I don't believe information is going to change whether people make healthy choices. There's some amazing studies by people like Bradley Turmore. I think he's at Stanford, where he works at a cafeteria for 10, 11 weeks, alternates the labels for the vegetable dishes. So sometimes it'll be something like low and light beetroots. Other times it'll be zingy beetroots in a citrus sauce. So what he does is some weeks he has a label emphasizing the healthiness. Other times he has a label emphasizing the tastiness. And what he shows is each week... When you vary the label, you see this swing of popularity. You get far more people picking those dishes when they focus on taste. I think it's of the order of 41% more sales when you focus on taste over health. And I think the problem here is we think the way to get people to do healthy behaviors is just to give them more information, tell them about the amazing benefits in their body. But actually, just like a lager or a bag of chips or fries, whatever you call them, it's thinking something's going to taste amazing. That's what... pushes us to actually buy it. Yeah. To actually try it. So I just don't think that American Beverage Association is going to have any impacts at all. So I reckon, yeah, of the four, let's definitely go for the McAfee.
- Richard Shotton
So Ambev, you give it...
- Stew Redwine
4.99. I think I went a bit hard on the first, but I feel I've been a bit mean, so I'm feeling quite guilty now.
- Richard Shotton
Well, you can revise the Tide Pods one. Do you want to revise your score?
- Stew Redwine
No, I'm not that guilty.
- Richard Shotton
Here's the question. Is it better than IBM?
- Stew Redwine
The only thing I would say is I think creating a really good ad is a phenomenally hard thing. And what ends up being produced is often not what the copywriters have originally intended. It is something that has to go through many, many layers of committee process. So sometimes those interesting edges that make it distinctive. are hard to defend when everyone is behaving in this ultra logical, critical way. And then they get slowly diluted by the time they come to air. So, you know, they are all reasonable achievements, but I think, yeah, I would go for that McAvee as being the one that has a bit of something around it.
- Richard Shotton
Yeah, exactly. And that's not saying much, you know, but I think that's okay. That's why we do this. You know, something I want to point out is podcasting is quickly becoming what commercial radio became. And you're seeing more and more ads in the ad breaks. For instance, all these that you and I just listened to, not a single one of them was a host that we knew because they didn't self-identify. These are just produced spots that, to your point, are kind of mediocre. Audiolytics lined them up just about the same from a persuasive standpoint. McAfee had a 77%. You gave that an 8 out of 10. IBM had a 69%. You gave it a 6 out of 10. And then they switched Tide Pods and Ambev. They were right near each other. ambev actually also had a 69 and then tide pods had a 73 so you guys kind of alternated the point is you know they're down at the bottom i think that yeah there's a lot of information that was still communicated but like we said nobody's this isn't anything anybody's gonna play anybody i doubt anybody that worked on these goes home and goes let me play for you what i made today maybe the mcafee one yeah and then my one with the ambev it's not the
- Stew Redwine
creative. It's the underlying assumption probably on the brief, which is, you know, if we give people information, it will change their behavior.
- Richard Shotton
Good point.
- Stew Redwine
Well, we've had information about smoking being bad for us for 60 years, that alcohol ruins our livers, that obesity reduces our life expectancy. We haven't got a shortage of information, but what we have is a shortage of behavior change. And I think if you want to encourage healthy behaviors, the things you need to do are more focused on taste, make the same people want. rather than trying to lead them down the information route?
- Richard Shotton
I think you have to. You know, I was going to mention this earlier, but I'll go ahead and mention it now. I think about 100 years ago, the idea was think, feel, do, the hierarchy of effects. We're going to get people to think a certain way so they feel and then they take action. And then I feel like it switched in the 1960s. We touched on this. We're going to get them to feel really good, open happiness. They're going to feel and then they'll think different and then they'll do different. I'm increasingly convinced if I can get somebody to do something, anything, and get them to do it over and over, They will gradually that. and it feels good, gradually it'll become a working part of their mind. They may change the way they think. But man, the key to me is behavior, which to your point, using behavioral science, how can you entice them to take that behavior, do that thing you want them to do? Then you'll get to the thinking part. But changing the way people think out the gate, like that, I just don't think that's the way people work.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah, I mean, I'm fixated on health food now, but there's a study by Paul Rosen, I think it's University of Pennsylvania, and he runs a study in a cafeteria again, trying to encourage people to eat more vegetables. And one of the things he does is randomize on days whether the vegetables are going to be served with a, you know, you're walking past in the cafeteria, there's a big bowl of sweet corn or courgettes. And some days there's a giant ladle for you to put stuff on your plate. Other times there's a pair of tongs. And what he shows is that. just making that little bit easier for people to get food onto their plate significantly increases the volume of vegetables people buy it's not that the vegetables are more or less appealing but because it's easier to spoon out vegetables in a ladle people end up buying more that isn't changing feelings towards the vegetables it's not changing information about vegetables but it's removing the friction making it easier for people to get a portion or two of veg on their plate so i think start with ease first of all and then think about those other two two areas
- Richard Shotton
The other two areas would be what?
- Stew Redwine
Oh, sorry. You know, motivation and information.
- Richard Shotton
Motivation. And then if you were to rank order motivation and information, which order would you go in?
- Stew Redwine
I would say motivation before information. We've been talking about certainly in the food aspect.
- Richard Shotton
We're basically saying do, feel, think. Start with ease. Ease is do. Motivation is feel. Information is think, so to speak.
- Stew Redwine
Yeah. And of course, there'll be variance by whatever your challenge is. And often you can, the great thing is with ease. and motivation, you can do the two together. They're not contradictory, so it's not a problem to approach it from both angles. But I would start with whatever I want to encourage. What are the small barriers that are stopping people behaving the way they want and put more efforts into resolving them? And then when it came to that motivation angle, I'd be thinking, how do I make this behavior appear like it's commonplace? How do I make it appear like lots of like-minded other people are already doing it?
- Richard Shotton
I'm like furiously writing all this down. It's hilarious. Because like one, this is being recorded to I like have your book and your audio book. But I'm like, this is so good. I'm kind of ready to start. OK, well, and just how easy and how good I feel about the fact we actually did take up like our entire scheduled time, which is insane. So thank you so much for joining. And if I have to sum up here for the chief audio officers that are listening, the main things I took away. I mean, Richard just said it is start with ease, then motivation. Talk about how it's commonplace. Then we give information. And I think a really critical piece, particularly in audio, is use that concrete imagery like we talked about. And once again, we hear from just taking a little sample of what's out there, the way is wide open to do incredible work in audio. It is wide open. There's so much opportunity. Take that opportunity. Richard, if there's anything that you had to add for the chief audio officers that listen, what would that be? And where can they find out more about you and what you do?
- Stew Redwine
I think the main thing I would say... is for any chief audio officer out there, immerse yourself in behavioral science. I mean, this stuff is so practical. You can take an experiment and an insight, test it on your brands, and see if it works yourself. And because you're basing the insight on peer-reviewed or observed experiments, these things tend to be far more influential than other sources. So that would be my plea. And then in terms of getting in contact, people can contact me on LinkedIn. I strongly recommend. trying any of the books, Hacking the Human Mind, Choice Factor, Illusion of Choice. And I think if people read those and then they like them, I also do a behavioral science podcast with Michael Aaron Flickr called Behavioral Science for Brands.
- Richard Shotton
You sure made it easy and enjoyable to learn more about behavioral science.
- Stew Redwine
Thank you very much.
- Richard Shotton
Thank you, Richard, for coming on the show again. Thank you.
- Stew Redwine
Thank you.
- Richard Shotton
And that's a wrap on another episode of Ad Infinitum. For all you chief audio officers out there, remember, the mind is hackable, but only if you stop trying to convince people and start working with their wiring, accepting human nature for what it is. You can find this episode and all past analysis wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to check out Magellan AI at Magellan.ai slash ad infinitum to get your free demo. I'm Stu Redwine. Thanks for listening. And remember to have fun making the ads work.
