Interview: Matt Johnson, author of Blindsight, on the behavioral science lessons of Pret a Manger and Perrier

We talk with Matt about his favorite practical examples of behavioural science being applied by brands. We cover how Pret a Manger use uncertain rewards to excite customers, how Perrier harnessed the principle of essentialism to launch in the US and why more brands should think about marketing to groups rather than individuals.

Transcript

MAF: [00:00:00] Welcome back to behavioral science for brands, a podcast
where we bridge the gap between academics and practical marketing. Every
other week, we sit down and go deep behind the science of some of America's
most successful brands. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.
RS: And I'm Richard Shotton.
MAF: And today we're sitting with Matt Johnson, speaker, researcher, and
writer specializing in the application of neuroscience and psychology to
marketing. He's the author of Branding That Means Business that came out just
a little over a year and a half ago and coauthor of the bestselling consumer
psychology book, Blindsight, the mostly hidden ways marketing reshapes our
brains. Let's get into it.
MJ: Fantastic.
MAF: So Matt, welcome to Behavioral Science for Brands. Richard and I have
made a little mission for ourselves to find the best applications of behavioral
science, bring them to marketers and having [00:01:00] interesting, what we
think are very interesting conversations in the world of academics, practical
marketing, and just trying to make the unspoken spoken and really get
conversation started. So if I can just give you a little introduction and then add
to it and then we'll get into the conversation. Before the show, we were talking
about how you kind of went straight through schooling and you, your last bit of
schooling, you got your PhD in cognitive psychology at Princeton University.
And you really have spent a lot of time exploring the science behind brand
loyalty, experiential marketing, and consumer decision making. You're a
columnist for Psychology Today. You're a contributor at Forbes Business
Insider BBC. And I love this in your bio that you said you are really weighing
in on the [00:02:00] human side of business.
So we have a lot to talk about today, but maybe you could start at the beginning.
Our listeners love to hear stories. Maybe you could tell us a little bit how it all
started How did you get introduced to behavioral science? How did you come to
cognitive psychology? What's the story behind how you found this passion?

MJ: Yeah. So it's a pleasure to be with you both. And, yeah, so for me, being in
my younger days in a high school undergraduate, I mean, I was just really
driven by a sort of a fundamental curiosity about why we do what we do.
Really, everybody has these curiosities. They always sort of wonder why, you
know, you think a certain way in a certain social group and our feel a certain
way in a different social group or why you made this decision or that decision.
And I, I just perseverated on these, these curiosities. I couldn't, I couldn't get
past them. It couldn't just go on with my day. I had to, had to study them, had to
try and get to the bottom of these things. So ended up pursuing my
undergraduate degree in psychology and [00:03:00] neuroscience at UC San
Diego. And then, uh, went straight away into, uh, the PhD at Princeton where I
specialized in the neuroscience of perception and communication.
So how we sort of take in the raw sensory signals from the environment, how
we interpret these, how we build these rich inner experiences that really only we
can have. So consciousness is by definition, a private experience, but then we
can share these ideas that we can share these interpretations. We can share
ourselves in the social world.
And this is this general process called communication. So what is it at a
psychological and sometimes neuroscientific level that allows us to do this?
And so essentially I'd gone straight away, as we were talking before the, uh,
before we hit the record button, I was in essentially 26th grade at one point and
just kind of looked up and, and, you know, wanted to do something a little bit
different.
And so quite frankly, it was a total reaction move, uh, at the age of 27. After I
finished my PhD, I moved straight to Shanghai, China. [00:04:00] So moving.
From a town of 20, 000 people, very myopically focused, very academic town,
uh, to Shanghai, China, which is 22 million people and going from an academic
life where your pursuit is truth.
Doesn't matter how specialized, doesn't matter how myopic, doesn't matter how
niche, truth is the North star to a business environment where the North star isn't
truth. The North star is action. Truth can be in service of action, but really, we're
trying to figure out, you know, what's the best next step to do so totally different
city, totally different environment, totally different North Star, but it was this
incredibly refreshing period in my life.
And what I thought was going to be this very reaction move do the complete
opposite thing. This is what really led me to see this incredible intersection

between psychology, which was my discipline academically and the business
world. And for me, this, this intersection was most fascinating and most
unexplored, [00:05:00] in the realm of marketing.
So now it's been really cracked open. This is also around the same time that
Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow. I had the opportunity to work
and interact a bit with, uh, with Danny in my graduate studies. And so for me,
behavioral science was really the way to kind of crack this field open and start
thinking about how these principles from psychology could be applied in, uh, in
a marketing context.
So, uh, Really ever since then, after coming back to the States, that was 2015.
So going on, you know, 10 years or so, my work and my research and my
writing and my speaking has really been about how do we understand the
human condition? How do we understand it psychologically? How do we
understand it neuroscientifically?
And that, how do we harness these insights and apply it to brands to help them
better understand consumers, better serve consumers with, with creativity and,
uh, yeah, and with all sorts of human phenomena. Yeah.
MAF: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And I think, you know, there's always
[00:06:00] that intrigue when you take something that's been very academic and
then you ask, “what's the application layer”?
How can I take all of this massive knowledge and start to apply it? And you did
that really in both of your books, right? I mean, this has been the effort to, Take
these academic principles and start to make them applicable for people to use.
What was that experience like?
MJ: That's the idea, yeah.
So there's this classic plight of any academic, and I still consider myself an
academic cause I'm still engaged in research, but you kind of reflect back and
you kind of zoom out bigger picture, and, you know, if you're fortunate enough
to get some, some papers published, some insights published, you know, maybe
somebody who's going to read them in, you know, a year or two, maybe five
years, maybe someone's going to try out the ideas, maybe 10 years, you know,
it's going to get adopted into, you know, a very small aspect of an organization.
So, you know, and that's a best case scenario. And so I [00:07:00] think, you
know, there's incredible base of knowledge in the corpus of academic research,

which isn't known to the general public and shouldn't just be, uh, you know, sort
of locked away behind the paywalls of academic journals. And that really has
rich application, both for people to think differently about their lives and how
they interact, and also for, for organizations that are looking to, to better
understand their consumers and better serve their consumers.
RS: Matt, why do you think more businesses don't access that information?
Because you would think the profit motive suggest should suggest that
businesses are clamoring for this work. Now, rather than having to employ a
team of researchers at your own expense, you've got academics generating
insights into what motivates people.
It's there sometimes behind a paywall, sometimes freely accessible. Why don't
more people, why don't more businesses naturally turn to academia to get these
insights?
MJ: I think there's a variety of reasons, but I think it's primarily two things. So
one, I think [00:08:00] at this point, whether in marketing or in H. R., people
realize that, uh, understanding human beings and understanding psychology is
crucial, right? So unless you're doing something that's very specialized in like
quantitative finance, and it's literally, you know, it's devoid of human beings -
you know, there's a recognition that the businesses require an understanding of
people.
I think when, when organizations look at their ability to do that, they already
have a model of how people behave. They already have this model of human
psychology. And whether or not, you know, that they're, you know, having this,
this, uh, sort of scientific, uh, they're availed of scientific insights or not, they
already have this model.
And so they just haven't gone the extra mile of, of having this to be tethered to
sort of our best understandings of the cumulative wisdom. So the recognition is
there, but I think a lot of times they, they stop and say, Oh, we need to
understand people. Oh, we understand people. I'm a person. You're a [00:09:00]
person.
My spouse is a person. I get it. And you know, maybe I've read some popular
science books from the 1990s. I read Malcolm Gladwell. I get people, right? So
I think they recognize the need, but they feel they check that box off. And then I
think the second reason is, of the people that do recognize the need to bring, you
know, more up to date, you know, science in, there really is this disconnect

between the academic insights, which aren't written for a general audience,
right?
If you look at, uh, even trying to read an abstract of a peer reviewed paper, You
know, it's written by by scientists for other scientists to help them be able to
understand these insights so we can, you know, build this this cumulative
corpus of scientific wisdom, and it can be built on it can be iterated on but it's
not written to be applied or even to be understood by the general public or the
organization. So there really is this gap between sort of the rich raw insights and
their ability to be applied much more broadly. [00:10:00]
MAF: Matt, I've heard you talk in the past about a third issue, which is the
matter of trust, meaning that there is a general distrust between consumers and
brands.
But also between, um, maybe, maybe this is a question amongst academics and
business leaders as well. I don't know if you have anything to share on that, but
I've heard you talk about this issue of trust.
MJ: That's interesting. That's interesting. I mean, there's definitely mistrust
between, you know, consumers and, and organizations, companies for sure, uh,
different sectors.
This is going to fluctuate slightly, but there's some general distrust there. Um,
but yeah, I'm trying to think if there's distrust between, you know, sort of
academics and corporations. I mean, I think there's, there's a general, just
cultural tension, right? And I experienced that firsthand myself as I was making
that transition.
I think there's this, you know, it's kind of this, you know, stereotype of, of sort
of a corporate juggernaut that you're [00:11:00] just out there as a captive
industry, trying to optimize profitability at the expense of everything else, and
just, you know, human capital. Converted into profits for shareholders. Um, and
that's what the stereotypical academic thinks of the stereotypical corporate
person, right?
But neither of those things are really true. In my experience, working in
academia, you're working with incredibly smart and curious people that are not
just curious about their discipline, but are curious about the world. In my
experience, working with corporate people. where people are some of the
smartest people that I've met anywhere, both in academia and in, in every walk
of life.

And so I think in some ways they're not as dissimilar as maybe they would, they
would think that they are. And they're kind of, they're kind of ships passing in
the night, effectively. The other thing I might add to that is I do think there is
this kind of interesting tension between academics. Like myself that kind of
have a foot in industry where there's sort of this almost, it's almost like a
cultural taboo, where if you go and you [00:12:00] consult and you go and you
apply some of these insights, you're kind of selling out, right?
You're not doing it for this noble pursuit of truth, which is an axiom I believe in
and I subscribe to, but now you're doing it for, you know, some instrumental
value for, for some corporations. So I do think there's some cultural taboos and
sort of bridging this gap a bit as well.
MAF: And I think this is a red thread through a lot that Richard and I have
explored over the past few years is breaking down that taboo and trying to say,
look, we can all learn from one another.
And sometimes there's a direct financial instrument that's helping academia and
corporations benefit. And sometimes it's just for the sake of greater knowledge.
And what we can do in corporate America is we can test in ways that academic,
uh, academics would, you know, would, would have longer lead times might
have a limited amount of ability to test in so many different ways.
So there's really a great connection between [00:13:00] having academics and
having corporate leaders partner together to come up with refining insights and
better applications.
MJ: Absolutely. And I think especially in the, in the realm of, of marketing, I
mean, the North stars there are really so closely aligned.
I mean, as, as an academic, as a psychologist, as a neuroscientist, I'm
fundamentally curious about why we do the things that we do, right? As a
marketer, that's that's keeps you up at night. Why do my consumers behave as
they behave? Do we have a looming recession? What's that going to mean for
consumer behavior?
We have, uh, you know, we have, uh, you know, substitute ability now in, in
certain types of products. What's that going to mean for my brand loyalty? How
are consumers, how are people going to behave? One of the mistakes marketers
sometimes make is they do use this word consumers, right? And as soon as you
label this, these, these people as consumers, then they become something a little
bit different and they become a little more alien.

But if we can [00:14:00] start a little less human, absolutely. But of course,
consumers are human beings. They do much more. as we all do than just
consume. They're much more than, than lifetime customer value. Uh, and so I
think if we can think about our consumers in, in air quotes, as human beings
that have incredibly vast portfolio of interest, one of which is to consume and
support themselves and gather the products and services that are in line with
their values.
But if we can broaden that scope and understand this broader portfolio, we're
able to. Really tap into their, their lives and their values and deeper and more
enduring ways.
RS: We've talked a bit so far about the kind of principle of applying behavioral
science to marketing. If we move from principles to practicalities, are there any
concrete examples you think of brands that have taken a behavioral insight and
applied it brilliantly?
MJ: Yeah. So one phenomenon I really like to [00:15:00] see in the marketing
world is this idea of, uh, unpredictable rewards. So it's this very sort of general
phenomena that, uh, that's been observed where what we would enjoy, we
would enjoy actually a bit more if it's came as a surprise. So there's some very
classic, uh, pieces of research done by Greg Burns at Emory university, where
he had people lie awake in the fMRI scanner. So I think most listeners will
know, but fMRI, this is functional magnetic resonance imaging, allows us to
eavesdrop on the brain as certain processes are happening. And so in this
particular experiment, uh, Greg Burns and his team had them lie awake in the
fMRI scanner while they're just sipping juice.
So you got these like tasty bursts of juice. You had two groups, you had group
number one, and the intervals of juice came regularly and predictably. So you
had like a span of two minutes, maybe 20 bursts. And they always happened
every whatever that is 15 seconds. And the other condition you had the same
overall amount of juice, so that the total volume of juice [00:16:00] was
controlled for, but now it came at this random, unpredictable interview. And
then they asked people afterwards, you know, how much did you enjoy it? How
much would you want to do this again? And it was no contest - condition
number two, far and away was the preferred. And then they looked at the neural
data and they get a really telling signal, which is that you get increased
activation in a region called the nucleus accumbens, which as most behavioral
science listeners will know, is essentially tantamount to our brains pleasure
center.

So when we're having an experience merely by coming as a surprise, we get a
sort of boost to how much we enjoy that. And we see this really play out in a
number of different domains by clever marketers. So one of my favorite
examples of this is a brand you're no doubt familiar with Richard, which is Pret
a Manger, which is everywhere, at every corner store in every intersection in
London has one of these. And what they've done is they've created this
incredible system called Random Acts of Kindness, right? And so what random
acts of kindness [00:17:00] does is it takes what is ordinarily goo, so free coffee
is good, but free coffee by surprise is great.
So that's the basic insight for the Greg Burns experiment. So juice is good, but
juice by surprise is great. So they applied this to coffee, right? So free coffee is
great. And so you imagine a scenario where you've got your lunch, you got your
loyalty card, you got your punch card, you know that you're going to go up to
the barista, you're going to hand this over, and you're going to get your free
coffee.
So that's good. Free coffee is good, but how can you deliver the same
experience by surprise? And so what they do is they have, as I mentioned, this
random acts of kindness fund. So you go into a Pret a Manger, and you go up
there, maybe even expecting to pay for this coffee, as you ordinarily would, But
now the barista just, it's their own discretion decides, Hey, you know what?
This one's on me. And so every barista is encouraged to do this. They have a
certain amount of funds they have for this. And so from the standpoint of the
consumer, they had no idea this was coming. And so when they get this, this,
you know, this compensated drink for [00:18:00] free, it comes as a pleasurable
surprise. And so they rolled this out as a very small campaign in the U. S. and
the U. K. It became so successful that they now rolled it out and it's the standard
in all of their locations.
RS: So it's a brilliant example, I think a bit like the fMRI experiment, because
essentially it's cost neutral.
If you compare it with a Starbucks or a Caffe Nero, who do the loyalty cards,
you know, you buy 10 coffees, you get the next one free, you know, all those
brands are giving away free coffee. You might as well use behavioral science to
make that gift as powerful as possible. And not only, as the evidence and the
experimental evidence shows, it will make the consumer, sorry, the drinker
happier.

I also think there's a lovely benefit for the staff, you know. They are being
empowered to have that degree of control. So it works on so many levels. That's
a lovely example.
MJ: Oh yeah, no, totally. It's a great example of applying this. Because one
might think, alright, so [00:19:00] you want to provide you know, unpredictable
reward, but if you apply this reward consistently, does it then cease to become
unpredictable?
And so it's about developing these broad systems such that you can
continuously, you build this contingency when you know, you might get the
surprise. Sometimes, you don't know when it's going to come. You don't know
how it's going to come. You don't know who's going to be surprised by it. And
it's that, that element of, of sort of anticipation and inconsistency that actually
keeps us kind of coming back again and again.
It's worth noting, of course, this is the classic reward system, which is employed
in every social media feed. It gets sort of hypercharged and sort of keeps us
coming back again and again and again when we don't want to. So it can't be
misapplied.
Um, but I think in, in scenarios like we spoke about with Pret a Manger, there's
other direct to consumer companies that do this very well. Uh, where they are,
you know, taking stock of what consumers naturally enjoys. You take like a
BarkBox, for example, which has a direct to consumer sort of monthly
subscription.
We give you a monthly box full of goodies for your [00:20:00] dog. And they
take a survey at the very beginning where it's like, okay, what kind of dog you
have? What are their gender preferences? What are their allergies? And then
they're like, And then each month you get a kind of random surprising
assortment of things that are going to be in your sort of pleasure zone.
Um, but you don't know exactly what you're going to get. So it's another way of
applying, creating a broad system where you're, you're delivering consistently
surprising pleasures.
RS: Oh, brilliant. Uh, so you mentioned Pret. The other one that I love in this
area, uh, it's, it's a bit smaller than Pret, but there's a chain of Indian restaurants
in Britain.

Probably only 15 or 20 of them called Dishoom. And within quite strict
parameters, like it's not the popular evenings, it's times you normally wouldn't
want to go and have a curry, um, they will bring out a brass dice at the end of
the meal and you roll the dice, I think it's called a matka, and if it comes up six,
Everything you've had is free.
Now, [00:21:00] to the accountants, it's just like giving a 16. 666 discount. But
to the recipient, wow, I mean, you should see the place if someone wins, you
know, there's an eruption of excitement. They'll be posting about it for ages. It's
almost like alchemy. You have turned exactly the same amount of discount or
freebies into something more powerful.
Um, I think, I think uncertain rewards and this variability is a lovely, lovely
idea.
MJ: I love that example. I think, I think I may have heard it from, from you,
Richard, maybe in a previous conversation, because I give this example all the
time when I teach psychology of pricing. That, of course, from a strict, you
know, economic standpoint, as, as marketers, pricing is very important.
We should, you know, obviously optimize for willingness to pay. And that
means sort of meeting our making our price commensurate with the demand,
etc. But then there's these wonderful examples where you have, you know, You
know, moves that would make no sense from just a sheer economic standpoint.
[00:22:00] Like how, how much sense does it make from a sheer accounting
standpoint to give away a meal, you know, every sixth time, et cetera, with the,
with the dice roll, but it's an absolute genius move when we zoom out and sort
of examine the broad impact that we're, we're having on our consumers.
And we're really, you know, is the glue that, that brings it together is of course,
the unpredictability of it. Right? So if you just. Come to a table and say, Hey,
you know what? At the beginning of this meal, you're going to get it for free.
That's great. You know, free food is great, but remember free food, something,
you know, good plus surprise equals great.
So something we would ordinarily enjoy, which is free food by surprise is a
way to sort of galvanize that pleasure response. Yeah.
MAF: And I don't know if there's behavioral science behind what I'll say next,
but there is also when you get. Unprompted social proof, eruptions of cheers at
Dishoom, or, you know, there's a Pret downstairs in our office building.

They come [00:23:00] up and whoever got the free coffee or the free pastry is
telling the whole office that, like how lucky they feel. That unprompted, uh,
Unscripted social proof to me is a real additional benefit. It's additional benefit,
but it also, as a marketer, a practical marketer tells me I'm onto something.
Like if you can elicit that, you just have this genuine sense that it's adding value
for your brand.
MJ: Yeah. Oh, totally. Like I would imagine maybe, maybe Richard could
speak to this, but everybody that, that wins, I mean, the amount of just organic
social media that, that comes out of that, uh, you know, again, unprompted
unsolicited, but you get a free meal and it came as a surprise and you're there
with all your friends and the restaurant cheers for you and you're rolling this,
you know, these, these bronze dice.
I mean, that's just, you know, it's gorgeous. And I imagine you get this just
eruption of, of, you know, again, sort of unsolicited social proof, which I think
is the most powerful because it's seen as the most organic and most authentic.
RS: Well, there's plenty, I think [00:24:00] other brands can take from that. So
that's a great example.
Are there, are there any other times where you've seen brands apply a
behavioral insight brilliantly?
MJ: Uh, so there's this one phenomenon that I'm a huge fan of, especially when
I'm, I'm doing research now on a sort of AI, Uh, human interactions. And this is
this idea of the psychology of essentialism. So it's this observation from
perceptual psychology that, that as human beings, we're not primarily sensory
creatures.
So we're not merely sensory creatures. Then when it comes to the appreciation
or the value that we ascribe to an object, We tend to see it’s sort of deeper
essence, its soul essentially. Um, so there's a great experiment called the
significant objects experiment, which was done back in 2017. And what they
did is they, they bought a bunch of objects on eBay and these were just ordinary
objects, like the most bland anodyne object you could imagine, like a Pez
dispenser, like a little yellow ducky, like a [00:25:00] little charm bracelet.
Because they bought them all, they noted the prices. It was, you know,
anywhere between a dollar and five dollars, so relatively inexpensive. And what

they did is they hired a team of writers. And they tasked the writers with giving
each of them an origin story. So they could just make up an origin story.
This is how this specific duck came into being. These are the designs that went
into it. This was the specific, you know, production that created it. The hands
that made this duck. And they gave each of these a story. And then what they
did is they put that story in the caption. For the product and put it back up on
eBay.
And they noted how much these prices would go in this online auction. and the
prices increased about 70%. So what was, you know, previously, uh, you know,
a little yellow ducky that went for 5 now went for like 35 or 40 and nothing
changed. So the product was identical, but now it has a story. Now it has an
essence.
And so this is this, uh, yeah, this incredible observation from perpetual
[00:26:00] psychology that, you know, when we see an ordinary object, we
don't merely see it's sensory properties. We are our ideas and our beliefs about
the origins of that product really strongly enhance our perception, our valuation
of it. So this is helping explain, for example, why we value so much more the
original piece of art, as opposed to a, you know, a pixel by pixel forgery.
Right. So if you had a Mona Lisa right here. The original Mona Lisa and you
have an identical forgery like nobody can tell unless you are a, you know, an art
aficionado, like you can't tell pixel for pixel. It's identical. And yet one is
priceless. And the other would go for 50 bucks if you're lucky. And really, the
difference that makes the difference is the deeper essence that the original has.
And because it's the soul, because it's the essence, it can't be replicated because
it's not within sort of the physical constituents of the art itself. And the, uh, the
[00:27:00] applications that I love for this are, are really primarily in the F& B
industry. So this is what, uh, Perrier utilized when they brought their sparkling
water to the U.S
This is back in the 1970s. Nobody really had an appetite for sparkling water yet.
It really wasn't a thing. And they first brought, you know, Perrier and they tried
the French thing. Oh, it's French water and French extravagance and this and
that. And, you know, American consumer wasn't buying it. What they ended up
doing is launching this very intense marketing campaign where they actually
flew journalists to the geysers where this is harnessed from the earth in France.

And they did this sort of like excavation where they go to it and they have this,
this incredibly well done commercial where they have Orson Welles narrating it
and talking about how it's from the belly of the earth and it's from the earth
itself that it really was talking about the origins of it and sort of the foundational
story of it.
And then they put that as sort of front and center of their marketing for this
product and sales [00:28:00] absolutely took off because you felt as if you were
drinking this kind of like mythological, geological beverage. It really, you
know, our, our appreciation of it was really informed exquisitely by our
understanding of its, of its origins.
RS: That's a fascinating example. I mean, it is the, um, the insights are really
interesting. I think the other thing that brands could learn from is the technique.
The, you know, if you go back, there's a straw man sometimes of psychology,
behavioral science that critics use and over exaggerate. But if you go back to the
1950s, often the experiment might be done with 25 undergraduates.
And there's a problem of representativeness. There's a problem of do people
behave differently if they know they're an experiment. But thinking of eBay as a
laboratory that, and that, you know, not just in this idea of essentialism, but you
could test social proof or scarcity, uh, listing one item one way, another item
another way, [00:29:00] and zero recruitment cost.
You've got an amazing insight into what people do. So I really love this idea of
eBay as the kind of modern behavioral scientists laboratory.
MJ: That's a great, that's a great point. Yeah. I hadn't thought about that. I
mean, going back to, we're talking about pricing earlier, like, you know, the, the
second place options are a fantastic way to test pricing because you have, I
mean, that's, that's what eBay really specializes on, like how much, you know, I
want to sell some old golf clubs, how much should I price them?
What's my market going to pay for them? What's their willingness to pay? I
have no idea. The market decides I put this up here and that it's, it's, it's price
discovery mechanism, like the stock market and how much is it worth? It's it's
worth whatever the market is willing to pay for it. And so you're absolutely
right.
If you could sort of test different items, you know, different times of day,
different variables, different captions, uh, and sort of iterate on that with, with
these different variables. Uh, yeah, I think that's a great way to test, uh, how

much, how much a product is valued and how these variables influence that,
you know,
MAF: [00:30:00] Yeah, the other the other build on this concept is that so often
will meet marketers in the real world that will say, well, the problem is the
product problem isn't my brilliant marketing.
The problem is the product. And if only the brand, if only the company would
fix their product, then my marketing would work. And this is a really great
example of, you know, There's a lot more to it. Of course, a product that doesn't
meet the needs of the user. Of course, there's those issues, but what you, what
you were talking about, which is the sensory properties and the idea of the
origin story behind it and what your connection to it is, is all.
In the domain of the marketer. And, uh, and so, you know, we may not be able
to fix the repurchase, but we certainly can control the trial of something using
this insight.
RS: I think it's an insight that could be used so much more. Um, there's a
restaurant that MichaelAaron and I have been to, [00:31:00] uh, called Bob
Ricard, and it's famous for its champagne button.
You press a button, then the waiter comes with a glass of champagne. I think
the other thing that they did was. And I might be mixing up restaurants in my
mind here, but they had one of the wines, uh, dessert wine. This is something I
do not like, a dessert wine, not particularly a fan, but it was described as
Napoleon's favorite wine.
It was the stuff, this kind of Constantinian wine or something that he had when
he was on Helena it was the only thing he would drink. And I'm like, once I
read that, I've got to drink this stuff, even though it's very 5, 10 beyond my
budget. I had to drink it. And it's exactly what you're saying. I mean, the liquid
didn't taste any different.
What does it matter if Napoleon liked it? But I had to have it and it, you know,
the idea to cost absolutely nothing to try and dig a little. Uh, nugget like that out
of a brand's history, uh, add it to your menu and reap the benefits.
MJ: Oh, totally. No, I think it it's especially ripe in, uh, in the restaurant
industry [00:32:00] because as both, you know, our, our sense of taste in terms
of our, you know, the accuracy of the sensory signals is, is the most
impressionable, right?

So as human beings, we're strongly visual creatures. We're not gustatory
creatures. And so our, our ultimate perception of what we're eating is, is really
shaped emphatically by our beliefs about what we're eating, right? So you
imagine that, you know, you're sitting down and you're enjoying a steak and
then the, uh, the waitress comes up and like, Oh, I'm so sorry, Richard, that one
fell on the floor.
And you've been enjoying it this whole time. You were having these tastes that
you thought you were enjoying. And now this knowledge, which again, didn't
taste the, you know, it's the same steak you're eating before, but now you have
this belief and this belief is going to shape, very significantly your perception of
the next bite. If you are to take the next bite.
And so this is what's, what's done. I do see it sometimes in restaurants. I don't
think they do it as they don't sort of optimize for it, but really providing this
incredible story. Like you said, with your Napoleon example, I mean, I was at a
[00:33:00] restaurant a couple of years ago, back in the Bay area.
I don't know if either you follow the NBA, but we have this incredible superstar
from the Bay area. One of my favorite players, Steph Curry. And his wife is, uh,
really this fantastic.
RS: Very lucky you said his name because there's about three basketballers I
could name and that's, that's one. There we go.
There we go. Yeah, I know all about this basketball stuff. Yeah, yeah.
MJ: So his, his wife, Ayesha Curry, is this, uh, this great restauranteur and she
has this, uh, restaurant in the Bay Area called Ayesha's Smokehouse. And, you
know, it's, it's fine that the food is, is good. It's decent. It's, it's, you know,
there's nothing to write home about, but she does this incredible storytelling
where like on the menu, like each item is like, you know, Steph's layups, right?
And it's like, has this little story about how Steph practice. Cause they, they
were like childhood sweethearts, like Steph would practice his layups and then
his dad would call him in and he would eat these, you know, specific meatballs
or whatever it is. And so you feel like you're eating Steph Curry's childhood,
you know?
Yeah. Who knows? Ordinarily, maybe they're just, you know, store bought
microwaved meatballs, but like, you feel as if you are in the story. [00:34:00]
And, you know, I would guarantee you, if you were to, like, Pepsi challenge

this, like, it would taste differently to you, just based on the belief itself, because
that's how impressionable our gustatory domain is.
RS: Fantastic. Now, I know we're quite up against time here, But I'm loving
these examples. So do you think we could squeeze one more example? And
could you tell us like a final example maybe of another practical application of
behavioral science?
MJ: Yeah. So I think one, uh, one thing we tend not to do is as behavioral
scientists sometimes is, is sort of zoom out and look at sort of the social group.
So all of these, these phenomena kind of focus on the individual, but I think it's
also worth kind of zooming out and looking at us as social creatures. And so
there's a great number of phenomena, which has been noted around this idea of
countervailing influences. So this general idea in sociology that when you are
expressing a belief for engaging in a behavior, which is counter to your group
and counter to the norms of your group, you're basically going to get a lot of
shtick [00:35:00] for it.
Your, your friends are going to, you know, are going to tell you that that's not
right. Your friends are going to, you know, point out all the flaws in this, and
that's really going to impede whatever behavioral change would have taken
place. So, you know, if, for example, you, uh, you were a strict Thatcher and
Reaganomics person, and you, you've stumbled into a, a seminar on, uh, on
UBI, universal basic income, you know, that might, you know, tilt your view
somewhat, but then guess what?
You're going to leave that summit. Are you going to go back to your group of
friends who are also Reaganomics guys and Thatcher people and like, Oh, that
will never work. You're a communist. You're a social, you're, you know, you're
a socialist, et cetera. And guess where those, those burgeoning UBI beliefs are
going to go.
They're going to go right out the window. And so this is something that, that
marketers, I think, you know, could harness a bit more when they are
encouraging consumers to adopt products that similarly sort of go against the,
uh, the social grain. And so there was a fantastic example of this again, in the
Bay area.
This was Mickey Agrawal. She had this, uh, it's still around [00:36:00] this
brand called Thinks. And what Thinks is, is she's trying to re envision panties
for women. And so these panties are period proof, so you can wear them all the

time. You can wear them any time of month and you don't have to wear any
other, uh, feminine hygiene products.
You can just wear the panties and that's it. So this is a, an unorthodox product.
And her strategy was to really try and, and she did advertisements, which were,
you know, based on, on individuals. She did sort of classic advertisements, but
really what set her apart is she recruited at a group level. So she didn't try to
convert individual people.
Cause when you convert to individual people, just like that, you know, that
Reaganomics guy going back to his, his Thatcher friends after the UBI seminar,
you're going to get a bunch of stick for that. And that's going to, you know, you
go back and you go back to your girlfriends and say, Hey, guess what?
They're these, you know, these period proof panties. Your friends will be like,
period proof panties. That's a crazy idea. And they're like, oh yeah, it is a crazy
idea. But what she did is she recruited groups of people, groups of [00:37:00]
friends. So she had, you know, five or six people. She would host these meetups
and she would say, hey, bring five friends, bring your entire friend group.
If you bring five people, you know, you get a free something. She incentivized
it. And then she was able to engage the entire social group and recruit at a group
level. And when you're created a group level, everybody has the same
conversion experience and you then don't get importantly, these countervailing
influences, which can impede behavior change.
RS: That's fantastic. Um, reminds me a bit of, uh, there's a wonderful podcast,
um, Diary of a CEO that, uh, Whitney, Whitney Wolf, I think the founder of
Bumble appears on, and she talks about doing something very similar. So for
her, the problem wasn't that they were doing something radically different.
Well, I guess you could argue Bumble's quite different from some of the other,
uh, brands, but it was the fact, if you want to launch a network and you, you
have a small advertising budget and you spread it thinly across San Francisco.
Well, it's never gonna [00:38:00] work. So she recruited in groups. She would
go to a single dorm on a single university campus and throw all her efforts at
bringing that group together and then moving one by one by one until she had a
large spread scale.
So I love this idea of, um, thinking about groups rather than individuals when
you're trying to launch a business or change your behavior.

MJ: Yeah. No, I think it's huge. I think that the Bumble example is, is crucial. I
mean, it's so, so, so, so hard to create a social community. Um, you look at
Google, you know, 2 trillion dollar company, when they shut down, uh, Google
Hangouts, that was the fourth failed attempt at creating a social media network.
And people ask, well, why did, you know, Bumble IPO pop so incredibly when
you have Match group, you have Tinder, you have Hinge, you have all these
things is because she created a social community from scratch. That's
incredibly, incredibly difficult to do. Even the biggest. Tech groups in the
[00:39:00] world, you know, can't do it.
So yeah, she, she deserves incredible kudos. I think, you know, sort of these
types of social marketing, which doesn't approach individuals, but, but really
brings in these, these strong ties and does, does marketing as a group can, I
think, be really, really effective there.
MAF: So cool. So cool. Well, listen, we've had a really, uh, wide ranging,
interesting discussion.
As we come to a close, Matt, we always like to ask our guests one final
question. Um, And it doesn't have to be related to behavioral science or, um, or
your area of study. But what's a favorite thing right now that you're reading, that
you're watching, that's got you thinking? We're always on the lookout for new,
new things that are stimulating.
What's got, uh, Matt Johnson's attention, right?
MJ: Ooh, it's a good question. Yeah. Right now, I mean, it's, it's about this kind
of new wave of, uh, [00:40:00] of generative AI. I mean, it's, uh, it is
overhyped, but it's, it's not overhyped in the same way. Uh, so I feel like we had
our hype cycles and we had it at, you know, that the hype label was properly
applied when it came to NFTs and blockchain and crypto and, all of that.
And now we see now in, uh, you know, in 2024, these incredible technologies,
these incredible LLMs of, you know, we're talking in the case of GPT 4. 0, you
know, 1. 7 trillion parameters. Um, and it's just incredible demos. I think the
jury's still out in terms of exactly how this will innovate the, uh, the business
world.
But I do think it's, it's probably the biggest. Technology that we've seen since
the iPhone and maybe even the internet. So, yeah, that's, that's what I'm trying
to keep my, uh, sort of the fingers on the pulse of it. It's, it's hard of course,

cause it's, it's moving very, very quickly, but, uh, yeah, just trying to, uh, to stay
up to date as much as possible on the, uh, the newest technology.
But then of course, you know, my research at the moment is really trying to
[00:41:00] understand, you know, the insights about how we can as human
beings, interact with these AI agents. Cause we are. There's a lot of evidence for
this, we talked about essentialism earlier, but there's a lot of evidence now that
we do in a very real way exhibit a kind of anti-AI bias.
So if you have, for example, you know, a picture and you say, how beautiful is
this picture? Oh, it's a beautiful it's 9 out of 10. And then you're saying, Oh, by
the way, it was created by AI. How beautiful do you think it is now? Ah, it's a
two. It's a three, right? So you do have kind of a, uh, you know, an
intellectualization of aesthetic experience.
And I think it's a really interesting intersection and we're just sort of at the
beginning of it now. So that's, uh, yeah, that's the new, the new thing that I'm,
I'm very interested in these days.
MAF: So interesting, especially when you think about how many companies
are trying to use AI for operational efficiency, like customer service chatbots.
But when you know it's not a human on the other side, you know it's AI, your
experience would go down [00:42:00] based on your example. Just interesting
to think about how, um, you know, how, how that will affect the
implementation of AI in all sorts of areas.
MJ: Oh, totally. Yeah. No, we swap, swap, uh, you know, paintings for
customer emails and we get an identical pattern where you have people rate,
you know, how efficient is this email?
How articulate is it? How warm is it? How competent is it? How intelligent do
you think the person is who wrote it? And people are like, Oh, this is a great
email. It's fantastic. I would love to get this email. And then you say, Oh, by the
way, it's created by AI. Like, Oh, Now it's a terrible email. Now I don't trust it.
Now I don't like this organization. Now I don't think it's efficient or, or any of
these positive traits. And so, yeah, the email, of course, to stay the same, of
course, but it's this, this belief about its origins again, tying back into
essentialism that, uh, you know, really fundamentally shifts how we perceive it
and how much we want to have these kinds of interactions,

MAF: fascinating, fascinating.
Thank you, Matt, for [00:43:00] joining us today. We will make sure in the
show notes to put links to both your books and, uh, I knew you have a really
great blog, so we'll make sure to share all that with our listeners and, to the
community that's listening, as always, please share questions that you have,
comments that you have, and until next time.
I'm Michael Aaron Flicker.
RS: And I'm Richard Shelton.
MAF: Matt, thanks for being with us.
MJ: Thanks so much for having me. A lot of fun.
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