Interview: Jo Arden, strategist and Campaign contributor, on why hope and humor make messages stick

In this episode, Jo Arden - Chief Strategy Officer at AMV BBDO and Campaign contributor - shares how hope, humor, and smart messaging can drive behavior change. From Stoptober to herpes awareness, we explore the behavioral science behind emotional resonance, effective messengers, and public health impact.

Transcript

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MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Behavioral Science For

Brands, a podcast where we bridge the gap between academics and practical

marketing. Every week we sit down and go deep behind the science that powers

great marketing today. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.

Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotton.

MichaelAaron Flicker: And today we're sitting with Jo Arden, strategist

extraordinaire, regular contributor to Campaign magazine, and a wonderful

thought leader in our industry.

Let's get into it.

Hi, Jo.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Welcome. Welcome, welcome to Behavioral Science

for Brands.

Jo Arden: Thanks very much for having me. I'm so excited. Well, excited to see

you again, Richard, after a few years. But to meet you, Michael, thanks for

having me on.

MichaelAaron Flicker: We're thrilled that you're here and in our pre-chat

before we clicked record, we were having such an interesting, wide ranging

discussion.

I can't wait for everybody to hear it. But before we get into our conversation, if

you will indulge me, I'd just like to give our listeners a [00:01:00] little

background on you. Because. It's so helpful for people to understand who's on

the show and where they're speaking from. So today, your chief Strategy officer

at A-M-V-B-B-D-O, and you've had a wonderful career leading strategy at some

of the UK's best shops, Ogilvy Publicis, Mullin Low, and a number of

independent agencies.Richard Shotton: Mm-hmm.

MichaelAaron Flicker: You are a regular contributor to campaign with thought

leaderships about brands and the strategy industry and to me. It's been so lovely

to learn about what you've done outside of your day job. You've worked with

the WACL on driving gender equality with the A PG on supporting young

strategists, mentoring young women and in 2024 you became the convener of

the IPA Effectiveness Awards.

So thank you for being with us. We're excited to chat and our listeners, like all

humans. Love [00:02:00] stories. So maybe you could tell us, how did you get

interested in strategy for brands? How did you get interested in advertising,

advertising as an industry? How did you learn about this as a field?

Jo Arden: Well, it's, I mean, it's a very, it's a long story and I'm gonna try and

keep it brief so we don't bore for to to tears.

But where I first became interested in advertising in a way, which has brought

me round to one of the things we'll talk about today. So as a child growing up in

the northwest of England in the seventies and eighties there was an ad on tv,

which was picture the scene. There was a dad in the garden.

He's digging some, you know, some of the earth. A daughter is upstairs and

she's got huge dictionary and she leafs through the pages and finds cancer in the

dictionary as dad's outside and he's coughing. And the ad is about stopping

smoking. And I can remember watching the ad and as the, as a daughter of two

parents who smoked my dad a pie from my mom's cigarettes.

I can remember [00:03:00] thinking. That's awful and they should stop. But also

really this, this like kinetic feeling of how the ad made me change my views and

change my motive to get them to behave differently. And it's, you know, I was

probably only about 8, 9, 10 at the time, but it stuck with me and that still stuck

with me.

So when I got to work on stop smoking campaigns, like 20 years after that I just

thought it was such a privilege and that, and that's why we're gonna talk about

one of those campaigns today.

MichaelAaron Flicker: It's amazing the emotional power advertising can have.

Now that you are in the industry, what do you think it was about that ad that

stuck with you all these years?Why, why, what, what do you think they did that was so impactful?

Jo Arden: I think it was at the time in the uk people never said cancer. They

always said the big C. It was that weird era where we didn't like to put a name

on it, I guess [00:04:00] through fear of jinxing ourselves. So it was quite

powerful that it actually said that, but more than the content of it, and I've, I've

not been able to find it online since I've searched so much for it.

But more than the actuality of what it said in the script, it was the feeling, you

know, it was the pace, it was the music, it was the casting everything about it

created this mood, this sort of mood of sort of slightly foreboding doom and

then a lift at the end. Like, you know, I can remember that there was a, a

solution and it probably was a, a.

Call line at the time, or maybe a writing offer or a pack of something. But I do

remember this sort of feeling of hope. So, and we know that, don't we? We

know that emotions drive our responses. And when I think about the ad, I think

about how I felt, not what I took, like intellectually from it. And yeah, I mean,

what an amazing tool to have at our hands that we can make people feel like

that and get 'em to sort of do something differently as a result.

It's such a privilege.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Richard and I often [00:05:00] talk about, you know,

Daniel Kahneman's work and how much is, you know, emotionally led,

subconscious, how much is rational and logic decision driven and hearing you

talk about the ad. It was, you know, a living ex experience of that, which is, it

really was emotionally driven and resonant, and that's what you keep with you

today.

And so it's just a, it's a lovely way into talking about behavioral science and

talking about why it's important for marketing and advertising. So we've asked

you to play a little game as part of today's episode. Could you pick campaigns

that you love? And that you think could teach us something about behavioral

science and you've chosen three and the first one couldn't be a better lead in

from your opening story.

So can you tell us a little bit about the ca campaign about you, what it was

about, and then maybe we can [00:06:00] then talk a little bit about the

behavioral science that was powering it.Jo Arden: Yes, yes. Perfect. And I, and I'm really thrilled to have two absolute

experts to talk about this with because the campaign I wanna talk about is

stoptober.

And they, the thing that I always caveat when I talk about Stoptober is that it

was the product of many people's incredible hard work and and insight. So I

never claim it. I was definitely involved in it and and was really happy to be.

But there's a lot of people that were part of that team.

Not least the brilliant, brilliant marketing lead, Sheila Mitchell, who was the,

the Public Health England lead on it, exceptional marketer. But it was in quick

summary, we'd done a lot of work from a public health standpoint to get people

to stop smoking. Many campaigns I'd worked on before this and they'd all been

successful in various ways and they tended to balance, hope and harm.

So, you know, all the way through, we talked about that harm, about the

cigarettes, hope that you [00:07:00] can quit. Stoptober was the first time that

we went really big on hope in mainline communications. And so it's 2012.

They've, they've kind of rejigged it a bit over the years and actually this time it

was back and you know, it feels really great again.

I've, I've been sort of following what's going on with it in 2025, but there's so

many behavioral techniques. Embedded in it. I think some of them we were

aware of and we planned into it at the time. I think some were happy chances.

And, and it's interesting to look back on it and to hear other people talk about

the principles that we deployed because it was very clever, but it was also

extremely simple.

And I guess that's the alchemy that we all search for every day, isn't it? You

know, to be able to get something which really works. But you don't need to be

a PhD to understand why. And I think Stoptober is an, an excellent example of

that. Also lots of, lots of people successfully quit smoking as a result of it, and

that is ultimately what [00:08:00] we're here to do.

Yeah.

Richard Shotton: Jo, quite a lot of listeners are American, so if someone's

never heard of Stocktober, what was the kind of key thing that you, they might

be have to guess from the name a little bit, but what was the, what was the kind

of key thing that you, you, you did?Jo Arden: So, so Stocktober, it was yes, as you might guess in the name, it was

getting people to stop smoking in October.

And it was a, it was a 28 day quit attempt. One of the really brilliant things

about it is that we had this piece of data, which is that if you stop smoking for

28 days, you were four times more likely to quit. I can remember at the time,

like a funny research element is that we were a bit worried that people would go

four times more likely than what.

What's the baseline anyway? People don't, because what they really want is a

sense of hope, like a silver bullet, that you are going to be able to quit. So the

full times message was enough in its own right. And the, the, the unusual thing

about it, we had had something in the UK calls, [00:09:00] no smoking day.

British Heart Foundation had run that for many years.

It was a one day quit attempt. And there was some good evidence actually that

that did motivate those who were sort of keen to quit to get started. It was like a

line in the sand. What Soto did though, is to expand that over a full 28 day

period and sort of chunked up the things that you could expect over the whole

month.

Which was useful for people who needed that sort of daily, like validation that

they were doing okay, that they could get to the next day. The other part of it

was that it was a mass quit attempt and we called it, you know, radical mass

action. So part of, part of the the joy of it was that people knew everybody else

was given it a go at the same time.

2012 was a different period. You know, one of the things that we did with it is

we had a, a text line which we absolutely loved. So people used to text October

as if it was a person at [00:10:00] the end of it and say things like, goodnight

stopped October another day without smoking. And it was just adorable that

people would, you know, like volunteer that sort of relationship with a.

Campaign. It was a campaign. So so it, there was various elements to it. It, it

was meant to feel like a grassroots movement. And right from the off we had all

sorts of partners involved. So all of our big retail pharmacists were involved,

you know, from Asda, Tescos, but also people like Boots, high Street chemists.

And we had all of the local authorities in the uk, so people who run the

communities around the uk. And then all sorts of other organizations too.

People who had a valid. A valid reason to be invested in people's quit attempts.Richard Shotton: Yeah. As you said, I think there's so many interesting things

going on there.

Yeah. The phrase that you had of radical mass action, I think is, is fascinating

because there's one theme or set of experiments of behavioral science that is

shown to work again and again and [00:11:00] again. It's this idea of social

proof. So the, that humans are a herd species. We're a deeply social animal, and

if we think lots of other people are behaving in a.

Particular way we at least consider it. So, you know, you can imagine an

alternate universe government tries to get people to quit with, you know, an

ongoing annual campaign. Reaching people at disparate moments, different

times. But getting everyone to quit at the same time, I think then has a, a

snowball effect.

If we. Think our neighbors are all doing it. Social proof suggests we are much

more likely to, to try. So our ourselves. I think that idea of the the mass radical

action is super interesting.

Jo Arden: Yeah, and it was a, it was an interesting element to it because in all

of the research that we'd done for the, I, I would say the sort of four or five

years previously on, on previous campaigns, one of the things that came out

really clearly is that, that quitters often try and quit secretly.

Because telling people that you are quitting smoking raises the stakes. You

know, you've [00:12:00] already created a group of people that you will let

down if you don't succeed. And so. Stoptober was a risk in one way because we

were making it purposely very public. But I think the idea that we made it very,

very public almost neutralized this sort of high stakes ness that we would create

if it was in smaller cohorts.

So it was an interesting experiment, which did really pay off. And we did it

knowing that for some people saying, I'm doing stocktober would raise the

stakes. But I think it was so big that that was fine.

Richard Shotton: I I hadn't realized that that kind of element there is, there are

some evidence, there is some evidence from Steve Martin at Columbia

University, author of

Yeah.Messengers in the power of getting people to make a public commitment. So as

you say, there is a risk that it might put some people off, but once they've made

that public commitment, they're more likely to, to follow through. So he did a

study back in 2012. Where he tried to encourage people to turn up to their

doctor's appointments [00:13:00] and previously the receptionist just gave

people a card saying their, you know, time and date of when they just turn up.

Yeah. But Steve Martin's intervention was to get the receptionist to hand over a

blank piece of card and then get the patient to write their own. Time and date

down. And what he found is when you did that, you've got this 18% decline in

in no-shows. And his argument was consistency is a big driver of behavior.

Jo Arden: Yeah.

Richard Shotton: But so his argument is, look, we don't, if we say something,

if we do say we don't wanna behave differently to what we, our past selves did.

Yeah. But

his argument is you only tap into this bias if there's a degree of activeness. So if

someone passively thinks to themselves, I will turn up to an appointment.

It doesn't harness consistency, but if they've said out loud or in his case, written

it down, then you get this bias working in your favor. So once you've got people

to get through that threshold, yeah, you've used the [00:14:00] scale to make

them prepared to make the commitment, then. That bias consistency should

increase the probability they, they follow through.

So I think that's a, you know, another lovely behavioral science angle haven't

really considered beforehand.

Jo Arden: Yeah, that's great. That's great. So yeah, so the idea that people

would say I'm doing stoptober was more active than them just kind of quitting

smoking people, people sort of notice it, but they've not said it out loud.

So, yeah. So it's actually the, the declaration of it worked in our favor, I

suppose. Yeah. Yeah, really interesting. Yeah,

MichaelAaron Flicker: we, we are gonna put the campaign and the links in our

show notes so everybody can look at the whole book of work and, and then clue

into this conversation before we go to the next case study.I had one more question when I went through it as an American, that was struck

me, and it's on the NHS website right now. So when people click, they'll see it

Halfway down the page, there's a section called What Happens When You Quit

[00:15:00] and it tells you four hours. Your, your body starts to heal in 12 hours.

You start to have better lung capacity, 48 hours. Your heart is pumping blood

better, whatever. It's got maybe six different time-based elements up to 28 days.

Good to know. That's why you did it that way of, of why I'm healing my body.

And what struck me as I read it was I'm reading this and I'm thinking I'm never

gonna unsee.

What they, what they've shared here, but it is rather rational and logical. Like I

knew smoking was bad for me already. And so I wonder if either of you have

any insight into why sharing those time-based. Healing moments, you know,

might be effective or maybe is not that effective. I, but it, it made a big impact

on me when I read it in prep for today's interview and it stuck with me even

through our conversation.

Any thoughts, Jo, on what, what might have, [00:16:00] why that was a part of

the campaign or what you think it might do as part of the campaign?

Jo Arden: Yeah, I think there's a, there's a few bits, and actually in the first

year, maybe the first two years even of the campaign we put those messages in

paid media, which was a very, like, interesting way to use paid.

So they were digital posters where you could literally track, you know, second

of. 2nd of October, people would collectively see a message about what was

happening in their body. And they did work really well. I think one of the

reasons that they were successful is people who want to quit smoking.

One of the things that puts them off is that the upside feels so far in the future.

Mm. And Richard will be able to tell you all the sciencey stuff on this. But I can

remember that there was a real need to give people some, like fairly immediate

happy news. You know, your taste buds are getting better or your lung capacity

is improving, and all of that stuff being in the next couple of weeks, as opposed

to back in the day, there used to be some data.

The reason I stopped smoking myself actually was because there was this piece

of [00:17:00] data, which was if you stopped smoking by 30, your body had the

chance to recover to, to non-smoker levels. So I stopped when I was 29 and a

half, but I, but that's like a bit of willpower. Whereas, you know, saying tosomebody you could taste a great curry in three days time, it feels like it's a very

motivating thing.

So it's rational, but people automatically connect it with an emotional upside.

But Richard will know a better answer, I think. No, I think.

Richard Shotton: From the same angle as you, but thinking, what I really liked

about it is there's this succession of deadlines that, that, you know, or endpoints,

you know, I've only gotta get through four hours and then my taste buds

improved 12 hours and my lung gets better.

And we will put the right details in the show notes, but from memory, I think

there was a guy called Clark Hull. It's always hard to remember someone who

has two, two, you know, a first name. Yeah. And he came up saying, called the

how was it? The gold gradient hypothesis. And I think the original studies were

with rats.

So you put a [00:18:00] rat in a maze, there was a bit of cheese at the very end,

and what he saw was that the rat speed changes so it gets quicker. As it gets

closer to its goal. So it speeds up at the end of the, of the maze. And that idea

that was first shown in animals is shown in humans as well. So as we approach

a goal, we have become more motivated to, to get that great sense of

completion.

So I think the lovely thing, which again I completely missed until you said it,

was by giving people the succession of. Different meaningful and powerful

goals. You've constantly got that positivity of, of, of completion. So again, I

think they're saying ly lovely here. Yeah. And it's a, it's a brilliant example of

how you can use multiple biases and multiple principles to get the, get an

additive cumulative effect.

Jo Arden: Yeah, at the same time that's, so it's kind of like with the, the, I guess

the logic behind loyalty cards at coffee shops, isn't it? Or spend 20, 20 pounds

more and you'll get free shipping. It's that same effect.

Richard Shotton: Yeah. But, [00:19:00] but, but Stocktober does it, you know,

to a much higher degree.

'cause a loyalty card, you know, you have to get to 10

it'd be as if St.

Starbucks gave you a little something after two, a little something after four.

Yeah. And in your case it was free to. Yes. Information and positive feeling

rather than any kind of cash benefit. Yeah, so I think it's a lovely example.Jo Arden: Oh good. Yeah, it's good.

Richard Shotton: The one big thing that we haven't talked about with

Stocktober, and I'm saving this because I think it's even more apparent when we

talk about your next principle or your next campaign.

So we are going from smoking to fts, STIs this sounds like a kind of

ridiculously hedonistic night in the eighties. Do you want to tell us about the

New Zealand herpes campaign?

Jo Arden: I do. And it is, it is a really great watch. So I'd encourage everybody

to like, you know, click on the links in the show notes and, and have a watch of

it because it is a [00:20:00] delightful piece of work from a conceptual

perspective and a craft one.

It's really, it's really, really well done. So yeah, this is the, from New Zealand.

They they, they have actually got quite a big problem with herpes. That's one of

the things that I found out when I was doing the revision, that, you know, people

tend to have more herpes of all the variants than in lots of other countries.

Dunno the, the reason for that. But. This was a public health campaign, which

just I thought was joyful in the way that it tackled the, the topic you know, loads

of like reframing from stigma and shame into something that you should talk

about. And I really enjoyed that they you know, tongue in cheek made it

something to be proud of, not something to hide.

All of it is geared towards getting people to, to find out more about how they

can prevent it and the kind of measures they should take to stop the spread. So

it's got really good, solid. Public health underpinning, but wrapped in like loads

of brilliant behavior change t [00:21:00] tactics. And my favorite of them all,

and maybe this is what you're gonna point out, Richard, is the messenger effect.

Like they could not have gone bigger on who fronted that, that campaign for

them. And and I really like it when you when people use that particular

technique. I've done a lot of partnership marketing in my time and the

messenger is. The core principle of that, you know, get a better voice to

intermediate, intermediate, the difficult conversation.

Richard Shotton: Yeah. So, so I was actually thinking of something else. Ah,

but the message effect I think is definitely there. So for people who aren't

familiar with it, it's this idea that who says something can be as important aswhat said. So the original study goes back to 1953, I think. Hoveland Vice at

Yow University really.

Clever study. They go out, they stop people on the street and they pick a topical

matter of the day. Like do you think a nuclear submarine can be built in the next

year? People are quizzed whether they think it's yes or no, if it's possible or

impossible. And then after they've given their [00:22:00] answer, four days later

they're invited back to the psychologist lab.

And when they arrive on the table in front of them, there is a sheet of a four

paper with a very powerfully argued logical bit of text saying why that the

participant is completely wrong. So if I said yes, the sub can be built. Very

powerful argument about what was ridiculous. It couldn't be built.

Now, they then question everyone as to how far they've changed their beliefs.

And the twist in the experiment is sometimes the argument is attributed to a

credible source. So I think in that case, the submarine, it was Oppenheim of the

physicist. Other times the argument is attributed to an uncredible source like

PRD at the Russian newspaper,

Jo Arden: right?

Richard Shotton: And what the psychologists find is that low credibility

source, 7% of people change their minds. High credibility source, 23% changed

their minds. And the key thing to remember here is everyone reads exactly the

[00:23:00] same logical argument. All that's changing is who it's attributed to.

And you see this, what, three and a half?

Yeah. Fold variance and persuasive power. So that was the original research by

Holin advice into this idea they called the messenger effect. And then I think

what's interesting is later people have shown there are lots of different types of

messages you can think about using. So you could go down the route of

credibility.

Or you could go down a neutral route, get someone else to say it. Yeah. Or you

could go down a relatable route and, and make sure the spokesman is someone

that the audience relates to. Links to. Yeah. So whether it's credibility, neutrality,

or relatability, these seem to be the three big factors of what makes persuasive

messenger.

And I guess from your description with the New Zealand campaign, there's an

awful lot of neutrality. It's not from the health service, it's fromYes.

World Cup winning rugby manager. Yeah. So I think that, I think that's the kind

of element maybe there, you could argue, maybe relatability as well. Yeah.

[00:24:00] So you've got different, different spokespeople for different segments

of society.

Jo Arden: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's, I like the, I like the the messenger

effect because it's so like, innate to all of us. You know? All of us as as children

have decided who's best to tell the parents you've done something wrong. And I

think, and I think it is hard by. Into us to understand that who, who the message

comes from has a massive material impact on how it's received.

So I love it for that. And, and obviously communications and marketing, we,

we apply it all the time. But I thought the New Zealand work did that especially

well, I mean, and just, and I also love it when people, celebrities lend their voice

to something really important. And I thought they did a great job of it.

Richard Shotton: Yeah, it's such a, it's such an easily overlooked piece. It can

be very easy to think, well, we just have to make our content as powerful as

possible. What the messenger effect would say, well, of [00:25:00] course that's

the case. But on top of that, you know, one of the first things you should think

about is who is the ideal vehicle for your message?

And it might not be the the branding question.

Jo Arden: Yeah. So what you, what were you gonna say? Tell me. Oh yeah,

Richard Shotton: what I was gonna say. So best respect I think is absolutely

core, but the one that I think links October and the herpes campaign, especially

when you opened with the 1970s example.

Jo Arden: Yes.

'

Richard Shotton: cause in the 1970s, an awful lot of public service

announcements in Britain really tried to scare.

Not necessarily the one you gave, but a lot of them were deeply scary. What's so

interesting about Stocktober and herpes is, in your words, they lean into hope.

They're positive. The New Zealand one is really humorous, and I think that is is

key often to a public health message.Advertisement: There's

Richard Shotton: an idea called the ostrich effect, that if you scare people,

there is a danger that rather than people changing the underlying problem.

Stopping smoking or stopping having unprotected sex. There's [00:26:00] an,

there's a, there's an argument that instead they metaphorically put their heads in

the sand.

Jo Arden: Yeah.

Richard Shotton: They just ignore messing. That makes them feel

uncomfortable. So we turn away from what makes us uncomfortable. And I

think what's so clever in the examples you've mentioned is that they avoid that

negativity now they actively make you want to engage through humor with the

the New Zealand campaign.

Jo Arden: Yeah, I, and I, I totally agree and I think I'm quite attracted to that

kind of, that kind of approach as well. I mean, and, and it's not the only way of

doing it. As you say, you know, we've got a great legacy in this country of

public health advertising, which has worked and been terrifying. They know the

AIDS campaigns work.

Terrifying and what, and worked. It was a brilliant report that I that I found that

said that our AIDS campaigns in the UK had a very strong correlation with the

with the reduced number of instances compared with other. Communities of a,

of a similar size. But I, I like the idea of using, you know, [00:27:00] humor and

levity to land a message, which is serious.

And I think that there's a, a generational thing with that as well. I think the

younger audiences that we appeal to now don't, don't want to be terrified with

things. I think they're not shy of the facts. And I don't think it, I don't think they

are averse to hearing the home truth, but I think they like it to be wrapped in

something which feels like it's got a solution and a, and a positive upside to it.

MichaelAaron Flicker: It's interesting in the campaign. Oh, just to, just to add

to this connective tissue, a lot of the campaign starts with a TV commercial that

is a throwback to what looks like the seventies or eighties, you know, a lot of

the creative. In the herpes campaign starts with a, like a old timey TV spot,

before you see the rugby coach or before the, the, the messengers or influencers

make their statement.Why, do you know why that was part of the creative con conceit or what, what,

what do you think that does to help the [00:28:00] effectiveness of the

campaign?

Jo Arden: My, my view, I have thought about this a lot and I think there's a,

there's a creative choice there, which was about how to make it entertaining. But

I also think there is a little bit of like making the audience feel comfortable.

So almost diffusing the whole thing and giving yourself permission to, to land

the message in the seconds that follow by kind, you know, like, let's just lower

the stakes. This is gonna be fine. You know, it's a humorous ad. So I think there

is an element of that in there. From a creative perspective, nostalgia is an

incredible way to get people to lean into the, the content that you're sharing.

So I imagine that's why that choice was made. And I think there is also

something about sending up the spoof, like public health video is again a way to

get lots of information across, but in a way which is palatable and acceptable

and people can tune in. I dunno, did you think the same Richard?

Richard Shotton: I've mainly thought of it as a, as you say, a route to making it

entertaining. Mm-hmm. The nostalgia [00:29:00] piece is, is fascinating. So I've

seen research, I think we might have talked about it when we did the Pumpkin

spice latte episode. There's some research las liter I think was the, was the, the

psychologist who showed that if you get people to reflect on special moments in

the past or, or you know, what, what things are like as a child, their price

sensitivity drops.

But I haven't seen anything on the the increased willingness to engage with the

nostalgia ads. Yeah. But what I've done is made a note to research just back,

because I, I wonder if it, it's something we don't discuss enough as mm-hmm.

Agencies or, or marketers. And I wonder if there's, there's more research out

there that we're not aware of.

So that is my action to go and find out more about this. And perhaps

MichaelAaron Flicker: the willingness to, like your reduction in price

sensitivity is an outcome, but not the root that's that like, like something else is

happening. And then, yeah, I'm less price [00:30:00] sensitive, but perhaps

there's a, there's more believability or you know, like there's something else

happening.Richard Shotton: I, I think you might be right 'cause the, from memory, the last

leader. Explanation is that there's two ways of people thinking about situations.

There's either a kind of monetary mindset or one of social connectedness. And

by referring to childhood that social connectedness becomes dominant and

matters of money recede.

I mean, it feels, I dunno, vaguely plausible, but I've never a hundred percent

bought into it. So there might be, as you said, there's, there's more to it. So I

think that's a, that's definitely an area to look into more.

Jo Arden: Well, look, I look forward to finding out what you found out.

Richard Shotton: Yeah.

MichaelAaron Flicker: We will have to have you back on Jo, and that

way we can talk about it.

We'll, you've gave us homework and like good students, we will go and do our

homework and come back. We promised listeners three. Yeah, but I think I'm

gonna cut us at two in, maybe we can convince you to come back on it another

time. We'd love to talk more about the last [00:31:00] example. And we'd love

to talk more about this, but as we wrap up.

We always ask our guests, you know, if you could give one piece of advice to

those that want to make their communication effective to brands that are trying

to turn. Consumers into action. You know, what's a thought that you might have

to leave our listeners with?

Jo Arden: Well, my thought would be tune into how you, yourself think and

feel and make decisions.

And I, I think as a start point, that is where we should all look. I think we can

overcomplicate things and, you know, make, make things overly academic,

intellectualized, we all know. What goes on in our own bodies and how we are

impulsive and irrational. And I think if marketers can tune more into that and try

and stop themselves being overly logical about what they believe should happen

in the perfect world they won't go far wrong.[00:32:00]

MichaelAaron Flicker: I can't think of a better argument for behavioral

science. Don't post rationalize. Don't over overthink it. Look at your actions andlet that be your guide. I mean, that's a brilliant, a brilliant thing to leave

everyone with.

Richard Shotton: Yeah. That idea of focusing on what actually influences

people rather than what should influence them.

I think that is a, you know, you could sum up the entire field of behavioral

science in that sense. Yeah.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, Jo, thank you for joining us today. For our

listeners at home you'll find all of our show notes at the consumer behavior

lab.com. You'll be able to leave comments, share this with those that you think

will find it interesting.

And thank you again for being with us today and sharing your thoughts with us.

It was a lovely conversation.

Jo Arden: Oh, thanks for having me and the, it was brilliant. Lovely to discuss

those campaigns with both of you guys.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Thank you. Until next time, I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.

Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotten.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Thanks for listening.[00:33:00]

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