How Five Guys uses the illusion of effort to make their burgers taste even better

In this episode, we look at the story of Five Guys and how they used behavioral science to become one of the most successful brands in the ‘better burger’ category. We identify some of the secrets to their success such as ending the experience on a high, harnessing the illusion of effort by letting dinners see into the kitchen and - perhaps most importantly of all – harnessing the power of simplicity!

Transcript

MAF: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, a podcast

where we bridge academics and practical marketing. Every 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 diving deep on the behavioral science Powering Five

Guys, one of America's fastest growing, most successful restaurant chains.

Let's get into it. So Richard Five Guys is a hamburger and fries restaurant. I

noticed in our prep you all on the other side of the pond, don't call it hamburger

and fries, you call it.

RS: Oh, you say hamburger fries. I mean we also say chips as much, but I think

especially when it comes to like a McDonald's or a five Guys, you don't have to

talk about fries.

So

MAF: you would say fries? Yeah. Yeah. Got it. So a burger and fries restaurant.

Five guys is really an [00:01:00] impressive business accomplishment. Uh, to

give you a sense of the scale of this, uh, restaurant, 1700 locations globally

doing $2.3 billion a year in sales by comparison. In an out burger, a beloved

burger chain here in the US 378 locations or internationally, well-known Johnny

Rockets 350 if that wasn't enough, 1700 locations, five guys currently operating.

They have another 1500 underdevelopment, so they will easily cross 3000 in the

next few years. Um. So, as we said in the opening in the last 30 years, five guys

has really become one of the fastest growing successful restaurant chains, uh, in

the us. But we always like to talk a little bit about the history and the start.

Uh, the founders in [00:02:00] 1986, husband and wife combo, Jerry and Janie

Murrell. They create the concept of five guys with their four sons, Jerry and thefour boys. And as the story goes, eventually they have a fifth son. Those now

are the five guys that run this burger chain. Uh, and uh, it's a story of one store.

That does one thing incredibly well, that then grows and franchises early, and,

uh, really, uh, is a great business success. And as I was doing research for the

episode, just one fun fact, like Chipotle five guys has no freezers, uh, in any

location, uh, to prove the freshness of the quality of their ingredients.

Everything is stored only in refrigerators or uh, at room temperature. Uh, really,

again, talking about the quality and ingredients and the freshness of the

[00:03:00] food, but as you and I started to look at the behavioral science that

we can learn from because of five guys, you and I did not focus on their

advertising and marketing.

We focused on the experience that you have in the restaurant. If you've never

walked into a five guys, uh, you might be able to picture their red and white

checkered uh, uh, facade. You know, everything is a no frills, uh, experience,

but some really unique things are happening when you walk in. First off, they

advertise that there is unlimited free refills of their fountain sodas.

Another perk is that. All 15 of their burger toppings all are free of charge. And

there's bins of peanuts un uh, uns shelled peanuts that while you wait for your

burger to be [00:04:00] made, you can crack and eat as you go. But there's one

thing that's really interesting that they do, which is that they train all of their

staff to do what they call an extra topper.

It's an extra topping of fries. When you get a ba your bag, you open the bag of

five guys. You will always find extra fries strewn at the bottom of the bag. This

is actually a trained on and measured at five guys to make sure that every bag

has a large portion of fries with an extra scoop or topper within the bottom of

the bag.

It's designed to give the impression of a generous serving, and this reminded

you and I of the 11 Madison Park episode, episode 56, where there's a surprise

and delight as part of the experience. So [00:05:00] a lot going on here designed

to make a great experience, and especially this training, to make sure there's

extra fries in every order.

What's going on here, Richard?

RS: Yeah, so the, the fries and the extra part is fascinating 'cause I think that

taps into an idea called the peak end rule. So this is the idea that rather thandoing everything quite well, you try and find one opportunity in the customer

experience to a standout moment that's doing the A, that's creating a peak

moment.

And then ideally you put that at the end of the experience. So you know, as

they're pulling together your fries and burgers, the last thing they should do.

Should be to, to chuck that extra scuba rising. Now, we've talked about this a

couple of times. We talked about it in the Disney Parks episode. We talked

about an 11 Madison Park episode, but the evidence that we gave has

sometimes been criticized.

So I took us through last time, a study from [00:06:00] early nineties by Daniel

Carne Andrad, and what they showed is memory. Of the pain level of a

colonoscopy was not the average level of pain from that operation. It was how

people felt at the very end of the operation and the single peak moment. So the

single worst moment, those two moments peak in them, disproportional

importance.

Now a few people have said, okay, well that's amazing, and if I was running a

surgery, it would be a super useful experiment. But colonoscopies and marking

are pretty. Far away from each other. So some people have been a little bit

skeptical about the evidence you've provided in the past, but Kahneman's study

was just the first study into the P and rule.

Lots of other people have looked at it in more commercial settings. So one of

my favorite studies in this area comes from Amy Doe, who's at Dartmouth, and

in 2008, [00:07:00] she tests peak enl. She sets up a raffle. And she tells a

hundred people who take part that they're for won and she gives them a A, A-A-

D-V-D that they can watch showing it's a slightly DVD, um, and half the people

are given a great DVD or they pick from a list of great DVDs, half picked from

a list of mediocre DVDs.

Once they've watched the film, she can then contacts them, say, oh, you've got,

you've got a, a bonus, uh, DVD you can have as well. And this time, if people

have previously picked from the great list, they now pick from the mediocre list.

If people have previously picked from the mediocre list, they now pick from the

great list.

So what she's now doing is people have got the same experience, one great

DVD and one media DVD. All that's changing is. [00:08:00] Some great thing

first. Some people get the mediocre thing first and what she finds is the, the

ratings of their happiness from taking part in the, in the raffle vary significantly.So people who end with the high quality DVD, they rate their experience 16%

better and those who end with the medioc DVD, that is a far more, I think,

commercial setting about films and brands and, and.

That shows that yes, the peak end rule works in medical settings, but finishing

on a high is just as important in the, in these kind of more, um, business-like

settings.

MAF: What, strike that. That's so helpful to hear you walk through and what

strikes me about our case study here with Five Guys is. It can be very enjoyable

to have peanuts while you wait.

And if you happen to dine in, it could be really nice to have extra [00:09:00]

Coca-Cola, but everyone, 100% of the people that get the bag of food will open

and have the peak end the end be really satisfying that there's extra fries at the

bottom of the bag. So it's, it's, it's making sure whether you dine in or dine out.

Whether you, whether you are in a rush or not. Every product delivery has the

peak end rule built into it. Much like what, uh, dough is explaining in the DVD

example, it's a, it's a really nice application of what dough is studied here.

RS: Yeah. And it's, uh, I think it's one that shows again, like in the 11 Madison

Park, uh, episode that these peak moments don't have to be expensive

necessarily.

This is an. About giving away, you know, on level 10 pounds worth of value. It

is an extra scoop of fries. But it's the difference between what people expect and

what they get. That's enough to make it a peak moment. [00:10:00]

MAF: It's a great point because, uh, if you look at, uh, some of the interviews

with, uh, the founder of, uh, of Five Guys, Jerry Murrell.

He says that the cost of those extra fries are already baked into the cost of the

order. So in this instance, they're only giving away the perception of something

extra. Really? You've already paid for that extra scoop of fries in your meal

anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So what other biases, uh, would five guys be harnessing

here?

The,

RS: the other, uh, bias, I think they're really good at harnessing is the fact that

the way that the restaurant is laid out is you can always see into the kitchen.That's one of the things they've, they've set up, and that I think, taps into an idea

called the illusion of effort. So this is the argument that exactly the same

product, like Burger will be rated [00:11:00] differently dependent.

On whether people think lots of effort has gone into its creation or a minimal

amount of effort. So one study in the area, um, comes from Kruger, who's at the

University of Illinois 2004 study. He recruits 138 people and he gets them to

read poem. That's called Order. Half the people are told that that poem took four

hours to write.

Half the people are told it took 18 hours to write. Remember, everyone just sees

exactly the same poem, but the people who think it was knocked out quickly,

they rate it at 5.8 on from an 11 point scale, whereas those who think a bit more

effort went into it, they rate it at 6.4 on the 11 point scale, so the same artistic

product is rated 10% higher.

If people told this story of effort going into. Just judge products on their

inherent [00:12:00] qualities, uh, you know, artistic merit in the case of a poem

past, in the case of a burger. A lot of what drives our perception is whether or

not we think the chef or the poet put effort into that, into that product.

MAF: To me, this is a critical point, and it brings up, uh, episode 13 when we

did it, when we talked about Dyson vacuums.

And one of their ad campaigns is how many tests they ran to get to the perfect

vacuum. Another example of the illusion of effort. But this one that's, that's,

that's almost proving in Dyson's case, the illusion of effort to how sophisticated

the, the, the invention is. This illusion of effort is very, is much more relatable

to me in most business cases, which is you can see the work going in and

therefore the, uh, you can see why it should be worth more.

RS: Yes, and I'm very conscious, the hys and bergs are quite [00:13:00]

different things again, but all these studies, the thing to focus on is the inherent

or the core insight, not the peripheral detail. Because you see exactly the same

factor happening in a, in a restaurant setting. Uh, Ryan Bowell is a researcher at

Harvard and he has tested the impact being able to see the chefs at work, so gets

299 people, uh, to go to a restaurant, and some of them can see into the

kitchens, others can't, and then he gets those people to rate quality of their meal.

And he finds if you can't see into the kitchen, the average rate is 4.6. You can,

it's 5.5 again, exactly the same product is rated this time 22% higher if people

see, can see the work going on. Now, I think that's fascinating because everyonepresumably in a restaurant knows that a chef has had something with your food,

of course.

But by seeing into the, [00:14:00] into the kitchen, it's just made more salient

and it's more front of mind. Subtle tweak. Allowing people, allowing diners to

see you, the chefs at work, that will create greater appreciation for your product.

MAF: So that's really helpful to hear back in the Kruger study. Not just did they

have a greater appreciation or uh, or sort of more value, they also believed there

was willing to pay more for it.

There was an actual increase in the perception of value. To me, that's almost

the, the thing that penetrates the business insight. It's nice that they have more

appreciation. But it's much more important that they have an actual, uh, increase

in the perception of value. Yeah, that, that's

RS: a, that's a very good point.

So, yeah, I forgot about that element. There was a, there was another question

that, that Kruger asked where he said, imagine this poem is being sold to

magazine. what.you think a fair [00:15:00] price would be for it? And if people

thought the poem was knocked out in four hours. Average, uh, estimate was

$50. If it was 18 hours, it was $95.

So that is an almost doubling, I think it's a 90% improvement in, in value

perception. So yes, we think the quality of the perm is better when we know

effort got in, but we're also prepared a more as well. So yeah, these are

commercially a, a applicable findings.

MAF: Richard, it strikes me that this illusion of effort.

Really can be applied to almost every industry in almost every setting because

showing the effort that goes into something is, is often something that we try to

erase from the experience. Fast food is about getting it done quickly, fast

fashion is about moving quickly through trends, but actually this behavioral

science bias would teach us a little bit The opposite.

RS: Yeah, yeah, [00:16:00] absolutely. There's, uh, I was speaking to someone

who worked at a big. Pub chain in in Britain and they were saying they would

get told off by management if they didn't take out the meals within five minutes.

Actually, the delusion of effort said suggest actually the management are

mistake in there.If I'm in a pub and I've ordered a roast dinner, even if you can reheat in five

minutes, I'm not sure that's the necessarily the best thing to do. Maybe feel like

there's work and effort going on there. Maybe, you know, 10 minutes would be

the I ideal, uh, amount of. What's so interesting about behavioral science is it

suggests that you should put a question mark at the end of this drive for, for

speed and think, well, maybe we could boost our appreciation if we, on certain

occasions, added a little time to the, to the process or we were transparent and

let people see into the kitchen so they could, they could, they could see all those

activities going on.

MAF: In your example of the pub, if not making it hike more time at [00:17:00]

four minutes, having the waitress stop by and say, you know, we, we really

pride ourself on moving fast here. We're just finished roasting the next fresh

chicken and yours will be out. And a minute later it comes out. Gives that you,

you're making the effort obvious.

You're making sure even if you decide to deliver fast, that you make the effort

visible.

RS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Lot, lots of, lots of different ways. The

other one I really like is there's a fast food, I think the Japanese chain, they do a

lot of sushi. Probably just in Britain at the moment. I think I, uh, called isu, not

in America yet, that I'm aware of.

Yeah. Yeah. I think found a moic have been ex prep. But anyway, they have a

problem. Loads of these stores are at train stations. And if you've got an

audience at a train station, they do not wanna be waiting long for the food. So

they will bring out food very, very quickly like the, the meso [00:18:00] soup.

Uh, so they have this danger of, well, I'm serving people very quickly.

And because it's so quick, they might, they, they, the dyna might assume that it's

poor quality. So what they often have is an aboard outside the shop that will

emphasize not the slowness of the delivery of the food. The amount of effort

that went into its, uh, creation, the experience of the, the meso. So there's

something like one of the aboard says, we've heard that it takes 10,000 hours to

learn a skill properly.

Well, our meso master, actually hero, has 744,264 uh, hours of experience in

creating miso soup. So they're switching the attention from speed of delivery of

food. To length of time to get to the state where you can, uh, create these

amazing recipes.MAF: So much creative opportunity. Once you understand the science behind it

to say, how are we going to use this illusion of effort in a way that meets our

business [00:19:00] needs?

We still have to put turn miso soup quickly. We still need to delo deliver roast

chicken fast, but get the benefit of this behavioral science insight. So there was

one more area of. Five guys that we wanted to narrow in on, and this is that Five

guys has in the past tested other menu items. They've thought about doing, uh,

chicken sandwiches and they got rid of it.

They've tried other food and they've, they've struck it and they are known as a

burger and fry place. They have a hotdog on the menu, but that's about it. And

so they're known for doing one thing really well. There's some behavioral

science behind this as well.

RS: Yeah. The idea here around simplicity and focus is, is the key part.

So there's a series of experiments called the the gold dilution effect, which is

people are suspicious if you [00:20:00] claim to be able to, a wide variety of of

tasks. So the experiment I want to discuss was a 2007 study. Comes from two

University of psychologists, university of Chicago psychologists, uh, Zang, and

I yell at fish bank and they recruit a group of people and they tell half of the

people that jogging is good for your heart health.

And they give some reasons about why goggles good for heart health. Next

group of people, they give them exactly the same paragraph on Jogging's

cardiovascular benefits. They also say jogging is brilliant for your bone density.

Both groups are then asked about how much they believe jogging is great for

heart, how health, and what you see is it's the first group who rate jogging

benefits and heart health better by the [00:21:00] order of about 7%.

So argument from Z is.

That brands or behaviors can work for multiple varied reasons. Now there's a

phrase, certainly in British, you know, uh uh, jack of all trades, more of none.

We kind of assume that there's trade offs. If you're brilliant in one area, you're

gonna be less good in another. So bring all this back to, um, five guys.

The argument here is if you specialize and do one thing, people will believe that

product is better than if you offer really broad range of of services. Even if the

un blind taste test conditions, the beef burger is just as good, whether you're justbeef burgers or also adding in chicken burgers, we don't just eat in those

blowing conditions.

[00:22:00] Our preconceptions affect the actual taste. If we think you're offering

too many services, we will rate your core service as worse.

MAF: It's fascinating, and we actually had iel at Fishbach on the show, episode

66 or thereabouts. Check, check it out. But really hearing this helps us think

about how we can be more single-minded in our brand's focus, or if that's not an

opportunity for your brand, how we can be very single-minded in our

communications.

Like if we happen to have a wide range of products, even just focusing our

communications one at a time so that we can make the case that that is, uh,

that's our focus. I think even that might help.

RS: Yeah, a absolutely. But people need to recognize if you keep on in an ad

telling people more and more reasons to believe there is a potential negative

implication.

Now there's this phrase that extra reasons become averaging rather than

[00:23:00] additive. So if, uh, in the case of, um, uh, this kind of jogging

scenario, now heart health is an eight out of 10 power reason, and bone health is

a four out of 10 power reason. Combining the two does not create an impact of

12. It creates an impact of, of, of six.

So we've got to recognize that there are costs to adding on additional reasons to.

Knowing that knowing the experimental body of evidence should be really

useful for marketers because if you are in a bureaucracy, lots of different

moving parts, lots of different people, lots of different opinions, the easy thing

to do is just say, well, ev let everyone add in their their favorite reach.

Yeah. What Zang of Fishback says, no, no, no. If you do that, recognize you are

removing some of the persuasive power.

MAF: The other thing that comes to mind to me is when we had Les Burnett on

the show, he talked about how important emotional branding is [00:24:00] and

making an emotional connection with your consumer.

It comes to mind here because it's very hard to make an emotional connection

with multiple things. It not only might it scientifically have an averaging not

additive effect. Am I thinking about how it's helping with heart disease or am Ihelping with bone density or is it a third thing? All of a sudden, my emotional

connection that I get from seeing a jogger thinking about preventing heart

disease gets interrupted when there's too many rational benefits or there's too

many benefits.

Laid on top. So there I don't, I don't, I don't think I'm specifically talking about

cognitive load, but just the sense that a simpler message, a more clean message,

has the better chance to be more emotionally connective has lots of scientific

benefits that that less bonnet talks about. And then here we can see through

Zang and Phish back's work that it can also be [00:25:00] more believable if it's

more singular in focus.

RS: Absolutely, and I think this is a strength of five guys that we are not post

rationalizing. Um, there's a lovely story about founders of five guys going to

Ocean City and visiting a really popular fry shop called Thrashers French fries,

where not only did that shop sell nothing else other than fries, they only had one

condiment.

Now it was french fries with side of vinegar. And supposedly the founders were

so impressed with the quality of this. They believed that that simplicity and

focus was something that they should emulate when they rolled out their own

restaurant. So I, I think this is, uh, a case. Both of the desire isn't just something

that's coming from a past post-rationalization.

It was there in the founder's mind. And secondly, it's a really nice story of.

Having an openness to the experience of [00:26:00] others, you know, taking

simplicity from, uh, Thrashers, maybe looking at other companies to get the

peak en rule, maybe other companies did, to copy the, um, the open kitchens

and we can learn from, from other brands, especially if we lay over layer over

this, um, uh, set of experiments from behavioral sorts.

MAF: That last point, I just want to double underscore for everybody listening,

which is. There's so much ability to learn from others. The question almost

becomes, what do you take from others? How do I choose? Is it an open

concept? Is it a open kitchen concept? Is it speed and delivery? Is it customer

service training?

How do I know what to replicate? What were the things that drove the greatest

outcomes for some of the best brands in the world? And. Our consistent

argument for years you and I have had is let behavioral science let academics

[00:27:00] guide you because you can have confidence in the findings and then

choose the applications that most fit your business, need most fit your brandneed, but, but you can have more confidence in what you're choosing because

there's peer reviewed academic studies behind them.

All right. As we come to a close, Richard, would you give us a little bit of a

recap of our conversation today? Yep. So

RS: we've covered a few different areas here. I think there's three key points.

The first is the peak end rule. The when people are remembering the experience

you have had at your restaurant or your brand, they do not remember almost

equally.

What really shapes their memory is how you close the experience and the single

highlight of the, the time they've spent with you. So this is the idea of the peak

end rule. Some moments matter more than others. We then talked about five

[00:28:00] guys and the open kitchens, and that taps into this idea called the

illusion of effort.

We do not judge the quality of a burger or, or how much we're prepared to pay

just on its inherent qualities. It. We are also deeply influenced by the stories that

go around it. And if a communicator or a brand draws attention to the amount of

effort that went into creating that product, we will value it more highly.

Exactly the same thing will be valued more highly if we know looks of coming

into it. And then finally, we talked about the gold dilution effect. The key

believe that there are trade offs, that you as a brand cannot be all things to all

people. So don't tell people that you do. Lots and lots of, oh, there's lots of

amazing reasons to pick your brand.

Every additional reason. Weaken the belief in your core message. So be single-

minded. Pick one thing to communicate, two things to communicate that you do

brilliantly. Don't keep on adding [00:29:00] a long list of mediocre reasons to

believe.

MAF: Thank you for the summary. So as we come to a close today, Richard,

we're talking hamburger and fries.

What's the way? That you ha order your burger and fries? Is there toppings that

you prefer? What's your favorite order? At a, at a five guys or, uh, any burger

chain?RS: I, I, I've not been to, I have been to five guys I think once or, or, or twice.

But I'm probably more likely it's been a, a McDonald's and I would say keep it

simple.

Don't, you know, get a plain burger and I absolutely love the, would you call

them kins? We, we call them pickles. Oh, okay. The girl, well, I love the kins,

so Yeah, or your, your pickles that, that's the highlight. Ideally, I'm going with

someone who doesn't like pickles and I can have theirs as well.

MAF: For me, that would be, uh, a hamburger, not a [00:30:00] cheeseburger.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm my good one. Same for you. Lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup.

A one sauce. That's a, that's a perfect burger. What, what, what? A one sauce.

Oh, A one sauce is apparently American. Then it would be, um, known as a

steak sauce, uh, uh, with, to, uh, I guess tomato and worre sauce in it. Uh, but

it's you found in every steakhouse and in every supermarket in America.

I'll bring you a bottle the next time I come to London. Yeah. And there you have

it everybody. If today's episode sparked a new idea for you, please do us a

favor, follow us, leave a review, or just share this episode with someone who

you think loves Marky as much as we all do. And if you have a favorite

behavioral science principle or an example of work you see doing well in the

market, let us know and we might be able to [00:31:00] feature it in an

upcoming episode.

Until next time, I'm MichaelAaron Flicker. And I'm Richard Shorten.

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