Interview: Tim den Heijer, author of The Housefly Effect, on how friction, incentives, and context shape behavior

In this episode, we chat with Tim den Heijer, co-author of the best-selling book, The Housefly Effect, about how small and often overlooked details can have a large impact on behaviour. Tim unpacks some key ideas from his book, including how to apply loss aversion, how to prevent incentives from backfiring and the importance of product naming. 

Transcript

MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Behavioral Science for
Brands, a podcast where we bridge the gap between academics and practical
marketing. Each week we sit down and go deep behind the science that powers
some of the most effective marketing today. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.
Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotton.
MichaelAaron Flicker: And today we're sitting with Tim Den Heijer, creative
strategist, author, and one of the most insightful voices connecting behavioral
science.
With real world marketing and advertising. Let's get into it. Tim, welcome to
Behavioral Science for Brands, Richard and I, are so excited to have you here.
Tim Den Heijer: Well, yeah, I'm very excited to be here as well. I've known
Richard for a while. Big, big fan of the podcast. I hope I can tell you something
new.
Maybe tell you something you already know, but in a D English accent,
MichaelAaron Flicker: if that does nothing else, it will make us all feel
smarter by hearing your accent. But no in our prep for [00:01:00] today's call,
we've had a lovely conversation before we hit the record button. If you'll
indulge me, Tim, I'd just like to give our listeners a little bit of background on
you and then we'll get into today's, to today's conversation.
You're the author. Of the House Fly effect, a very compelling book on how
nudge psychology steers everyday behaviors. You're also the founder and co-
owner of Brain Creatives, where you develop creative campaigns inspired by
behavioral science for clients, and you are regular contributor to many industry
publications like Marketing Facts and The Daily Express.

We're thrilled to have you here for our conversation. Thrilled to be here. Yep.
So maybe we can start with a story. You've become an enthusiast and expert in
how psychology and behavioral science steers decisions, but how were you
introduced to this world of [00:02:00] psychology and behavioral science?
Where did, where, where did Tim first meet this field and get interested in it and
fall in love with it?
Tim Den Heijer: Well actually me and my business partner, the Boer, we were
creative directors and managers of the larger advertising agency for about 10
years. And the thing is that agency was very successful at creating effective
campaigns. So the problem I had wasn't that I didn't know what worked.
The problem I had was that I couldn't explain why it worked. And as we did
better and better with an agency we got a request from the press to Oh, tell us a
little bit more about this effective campaign. Yeah. Well, we sort of know it
works, right? So I got more interested in that. And, and that happened around
the time when a lot of the, the big names in popular Behavioral Science started
releasing their, their popular books.
So that was a great time for that [00:03:00] to, to to, to read more about it go
back and, and study a bit more. And then I think I went very quickly, I think
within a year from, well, this will help better explain what I'm doing. To this
changes the way I, that I do stuff. I really need to find a new way of working
because all the stuff I learned in advertising or a lot of it, and a lot of the stuff I
learned in school really doesn't apply anymore.
And they're going to be people who are like 22, 23 coming from school who
know better than a strategy director. So it's really time to to change her way of
working. And well, it was just so much fun to start looking at it from that angle
to not look at it like, well, what do we know that works?
And what do we appreciate in, in the advertising industry? What might win as
an award? Basically go back to what do we know about why people do what
they do? And the, what we have are the motto of brain creators is inspired
[00:04:00] by science because we really felt that way. It was really like, this is
much more inspiring than looking at other creatives work.
And
MichaelAaron Flicker: yeah.
Tim Den Heijer: So there,

MichaelAaron Flicker: Richard and I have talked a lot about this maybe even
more off camera than on camera, how sometimes great creatives, great strategy
people have access to what motivates human behavior. And they don't know the
why they, but they have a hunch or they have an insight and it works. What
have you found about learning the science that's.
Been so helpful to you? Is it, is it being able to explain it more? Is it thinking
more about human behavior? What's the thing that now that you've done these
studies that, that it's opened up for you?
Tim Den Heijer: I think two things were really interesting to me or really
worth worth for. Would you put it valuable for me?
The first one was learning that I could use a completely different language to
explain my ideas. Mm-hmm. [00:05:00] So I, maybe 10, 12 years ago, I would
talk to a CEO and say, well, you really need guts to do this because it's very
different. And CEOs don't really like to be heard that the advice you give them
takes a lot of guts and courage.
So now I would say, well, if you use the full restorative effect, you will be
noticed. This is scientifically proven. So it's the same idea. It's a different
language and I found that people will. Listen to your ideas as a creative better if
you can explain why they work, rather than if you put it in standard creative
language, which is all about guts and feeling.
So that's one thing. The other one is that while it's cool when you have a certain
hunch and then you find some piece of research that proves that you're right. It's
mu it's much more interesting that you're not, that you're, well, I think it was
Kaman who said the problem with [00:06:00] intuition is that intuition doesn't
warn you when your intuition is off.
We don't have a meta intuition for that. So, o on one hand to know how to
explain my hunches, and on the other hand, to learn not to trust them too much.
Always question them. I think that those two things are are yeah, most valuable
to me.
MichaelAaron Flicker: In all the work that I've done with CMOs, there's a
class of CMOs that I've come across who believe their hunches are the reason
for all of the brand success.
They're convinced that they just have a read either on the consumer or on their
brand better than anybody else. And maybe one of the things that most connects

all those CMOs is that. Luck eventually runs out like, you know, like they were
high flyers, they were successful, nobody could help add, but then that intuition
fails them.
So this idea that you should lean into your intuition, but there is a
counterweight. [00:07:00] We don't have meta intuition. This there's a
counterweight that we should be using academics or using studies to help
validate and show us where our intuitions may be off. That takes a lot of
humility, but it, but to me it's so inspiring to hear you say that.
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think what me and my business partner also
discovered was the first few times when we were younger, when campaigns
were tested, you would hope that your idea would pass the test. Right? It's like,
so like we got an a, it passed the test. And then when we started running our
own agency and basically we were the ones who said, well, let's test this.
Our whole ideas started changing and we were like, wow, we discovered
something we didn't know. That's really cool. We thought this scene would
work really well, and it doesn't. Now we can, I really found that maybe also
working in creative a little longer that finding out you're wrong about something
means that there's a lot of stuff that you can [00:08:00] try that you haven't tried
before.
Rather than copying yourself because you, you believe in that. So we started
getting excited about being wrong. Because yeah, it, it, it's, it's something new,
something you didn't know, something that can stimulate you. So that changed
our whole approach to testing. Which I think it's a lot of fun to find out that you
don't know everything yet and that things might be different and try to
understand why that is.
I think to make it a little bit more concrete, we we once a TV commercial,
where we were working with real people who had been through a very rough
patch and they had been helped and they were really touched and grateful, and
we were filming these real people. So you can't do it like six or seven times.
You have to, maybe you can speak to them twice, but then you have to have
them. And then there was this wonderful moment where the woman we
interviewed started crying because she was so touched and so grateful by what
the charity had done. So we thought it was really like, did you get that? Did
[00:09:00] we get that?

What's the sound of? Yeah, we have it. And then we edited it, edited the, the
commercial put it, put it through I think EEG, an eye camera, and we could just
see the brain going, no way. So that was our money shot. That just didn't work.
And then we talked to a psychologist who said, well, it's a bit like a stranger
next to you on the bus that starts crying.
You're not going to put your arm around and you're gonna be like, maybe I
should send that somewhere else. Maybe I should press
Richard Shotton: the bell.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah, that's good. And then we were like, okay. Yeah, I, I
understand that this works in a TV show where I have. Gotten to know this
character, but when it's a TV commercial, it's 25 for 30 seconds.
I don't have the time for that. It's just a, a stranger crying in my living room. So
that really, that that was like something that we were sure we were right about
and then we were wrong, and then we were just sort of excited. And I'm telling
you now, we tell everybody like we found out something that we didn't know
yet.
So yeah, I think research can [00:10:00] really make creative work more fun.
MichaelAaron Flicker: It is interesting in this story that the research that you
did was e, e, g and I, cameras not a focus group, let's say where, you know, it's
always interesting when you hear claimed responses. You may want to have an
emotional connection to someone who's crying on camera.
You may, and the people that make the ad know it was authentic. So you want
to share that with the world. But it's interesting that what really proved it to you
was the actual responses people had of pulling back, of shutting down, and
that's what taught you, you know, gave you the confidence to say, no, this can't
work.
Could have gone differently if you had chose a different research methodology.
It strikes me.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah, I think so. I think the problem with, I mean, I know that
there are researchers who are great as focus groups who can really get. Passed a
lot of those problems, but people are media savvy and people have a, have a
very [00:11:00] clear concept of what works in communications.

So they will always look through the glasses of of an expert also and say, well,
if I was an advertising expert, I would expect this to happen. And. So, yeah, so
EEG and I cameras also aren't the solution to e to everything. But if you want to
know about these, these system one reactions to to, to a commercial for
instance, they are very valuable.
Mm-hmm.
Richard Shotton: I, I, I really like your point about a skilled researcher
knowing the danger of claim data and then looking for tactics to try and get
around the problem. Mm-hmm. I think it was Timothy Nisbet. Sorry, Timothy
Wilson or who, who did this, but it was an experiment about charity donations
and what they realized was if you say to someone, would you donate money?
Everyone is gonna claim they are very, very generous people. So the way they
got round that was to say, how likely [00:12:00] is it you think, you know, one
of the fellow students would donate money. And what they found is people
were. Either not truthful or didn't know their own generosity, but what they
were bloody good at was ascertaining what their friends and peers would do.
So, so yeah, I think they're, you know, I'm always a big fan of experiments. I
think that's the, the gold standard. But even if a researcher knows the danger of
claim data, I think they can put tactics in place to try and boost the validity of
the answers.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah, definitely. We actually used that same insight as the
basis for a, a political campaign a few years back for prime Minister Margaret,
where we made a campaign where we, we, where we knew that if you ask
people, what do you think?
Who do you think your neighbors are going to vote for? That that's sometimes
a better prediction of the, the elections than if you ask them, what are you going
to vote for? I that insight very, very interesting to us. Yeah, so we did a
campaign where we asked people in the streets, are you going to vote for Marco
Luther?
They said, no, no, I, I won't. I vote for [00:13:00] different party. I don't agree
with his ideas. And we said, well, but can you tell us why other people will vote
for him? And they would start saying, well, he's a great leader. He's really
trustworthy. He's he's always there you can count on. And, and it just gave these
beautiful reasons to vote for him.

Well, they didn't want to vote for him himself. So it was a very fun way to make
a political campaign where people who don't vote for your candidate are telling
you what's so great about him, but it was based on the same insight. Yeah.
Richard Shotton: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Oh, brilliant. And we, we'll put a link to
that study in the show notes and just check the author.
I'm not sure if it's, I always get the mixed up. It's either Timothy Wilson or
Richard nsbe, and I've kind of blurred them into a single entity, unfortunately, in
my mind. So, so, so Tim, thinking about things you've been doing recently,
you've written a, a, a brilliant book all about behavioral science and advertising
and marketing.
And before we delve into the, the content of the book, can we just stop and talk
about the title? Yes. There's an awful lot of books [00:14:00] out there that just
are, you know, behavioral science and multi effectiveness. They're quite dry.
You call Jaws the Housefly effect. So what was behind the title?
Tim Den Heijer: Yes.
Well, I think it all started with a, with a little insight that a five from the book I
wrote it with and I had. We said, it's sort of weird that when I go to a talk about
behavioral science, especially in the communications and marketing field the
speaker will usually start out by explaining that in just pure information doesn't
change people's minds or their behavior.
And then he will proceed to give you pure information about that for about an
hour. So,
Richard Shotton: physician heal thyself?
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. Yeah. So, so our, our deal was we should use some
insights. When we're making this book take our own Medicine, starting with the
title. So what would work? And then we heard about this thing called the Effect
Effect, which might be Apal, but it was very funny that people are more
[00:15:00] interested in something when you call it an effect.
And then we said, okay, it's going to be the hm effect. And then we were talking
about, well, what's the most basic example of a nudge especially in the
Netherlands. That's the little fly in urinal at Sri Airport. And then Ava said, no
way. I'm going to name the book after Urinal. And then our editor said, we're
not going to do a book named after Ur.

No, we were hoping for something like behavioral science in. Real life or
something like that, which I'm the advertising guy and I said, I think it might
work. We have a Dutch word, which is actually like a. A bit of a bigger fly
which is not the fly that's in the urinal, but it sounds really nice and Dutch
effect.
So we used that one and then our agent said, well, it's brilliant Yeah. To know
name it effect. And I was like, well, it's just one book. Let's do it, Ava. Well,
we're now on book number five and edition number eight. And there are points
if, [00:16:00] if you look for me online, you'll often see a picture of me with a
big slide of a urinal behind me.
And I sometimes sometimes at breakfast I say to my daughter, well, daddy is off
to talk about als to people again. But it was something that we really well, we
put some thought into it thinking what, what can we use to draw people into it?
And also illustrate this idea, there's very small things that don't really seem to
make sense, can lead to behavioral change.
And well, for the listeners who don't use men's als skippo had the, had the
problem that the guys who do use them didn't aim too well. There was
something called splashback was the problem. It cost them a lot of mon money
to clean it up, but it's also very inconvenient when the the restrooms are closed
in.
Yeah, in an airport. And what was fascinating was that they brew this little fly
in it guy started [00:17:00] aiming at fly and it worked. But when you ask them
why, I don't know. It just happened. And I think most of us who work in
behavioral change, which is most people, basically. Would love for behavior
change to be that simple.
The people say, I, I don't know why I did that. It just happened. So then we
started looking for other instances where behavior change just happens. We
some because of something small. And then we found that this was because
basically we wanted to write a book about everything we loved about behavioral
science and we needed some kind of filter to say, well, what's going in the book
and what isn't?
So then we said, okay, we're just going to focus on all these instances where
some, a small change has a larger effect. And call that the house slide effect.
And well then afa, who, AFA is I have to say this right, she has a PhD in
behavioral economics, but she has done several studies. One of them is biology.

So when she was on board with [00:18:00] actually naming it after the, an
animal, she's like, we have to have seven classes of this animal. And she got
very, very serious about it. So that helped us sort of divide up the information so
we, we. Playfully gave these different species of flies. Different names. Yeah.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Well, that's what struck me. Your book chapters are
themed around these various flies. So maybe you could, let's go deeper on that.
Can you tell us how did you choose the, the, the different chapters and the flies?
You have some very interesting ones. Tell us how, how, how it went from there.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. Well, once again, we started from behavioral science
and we knew that people are really receptive to lists of seven.
So we said, okay, can we make this work with seven species of flies? Can, can
that work? And if, if I'm completely honest, I think five of them make total
sense, and two of them are sort of like. This stuff has something to do with each
other. [00:19:00] It belongs in the same chapter. I'm not sure if it's adjacent or
the same thing, but let's, let's combine them.
But we found that it really worked, and I think the ones that really stuck out to
us were the pain fly. So everything that has to do with avoiding pain affording
discomfort. The social flights. So everything that has to do with well, all these
instances where what other people think or do are maybe more important than
what's going on in our inside our own head.
So a few of these really work well, and we had a lot of fun with it. And then
sometimes we have these discussions, well, what should, should this be the pain
fly? Or maybe you see a traction flight. We just invented these, right? Let's let's
not take it too seriously. Yeah.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Oh, that's lovely. So let's talk about the pain fly.
Can may tell us a little bit more about it and what can marketers learn from the
pain fly?
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think if I look at my own work in marketing and
advertising, I think [00:20:00] lots of what I learned once I started looking
through a behavioral science lens is in this area of the pain fly. Because
marketers tend to think of everything that's attractive about their product or their
brand, and they, they tend to think if you can just get people really enthusiastic,
they will change their minds and change their behavior.

Whereas you often, first of all, well there's the famous quote by Cy start with
why. We always say start with why not. What's, what's stopping them. And
basically that's the pain flies all the stuff that's in the way because people worry
about if they think it's a hassle, they think they're going to regret it.
They, and maybe they don't, they don't even worry that they will regret it, but
they will worry that they're the only one who, who made this mistake and other
people will laugh at them. So I think one thing that really started making sense
to me was I think I can mention this name. Yeah, sure. I can.
We, we used to work for Center Parks long ago when we [00:21:00] worked at
og. And sometimes, and this before we had kids ourselves, we were sort of
puzzled that people, that, that consumers were so enthusiastic about center parks
because we were like, well if you for that money, you could also fly to India,
you know?
And then when, when, when I started looking through that lens of the pain
flashers, I was thinking, okay, this is basically defensive decision making.
These people aren't optimizing for the, the best holiday of their life. They're
making sure it won't be a disaster. If your kid gets ill, you can go to your own
physician.
There's going to be food. Your kids like, you're going to sleep in a bed, that's
fine. The pool is going to be open. It's not going to be a disaster. And at that
point in life, people want to be sure that they are avoiding a lot of pain and
maybe some blame around that. That's much more important to them than
getting the best holiday experience of their lives.
Maybe they will do that later when the kids leave home or whatever, but for
now, it's just before you in pain. And that's what that [00:22:00] brand was in
the Netherlands at least built about. So I think a lot of brands can learn from that
because they think that people are optimizing for the for the best results.
And then they think, why aren't they choosing me? And basically they're
managing that bottom line. They just don't want it to be a disaster.
Richard Shotton: You mentioned, Tim, that marketers are reverse to this idea
that they seem to be genuinely attracted by focusing on the positives. Mm-hmm.
Have you found, if you tell a marketing director or a creative or a anyone in, in
the business about loss aversion of the pain fly that you've won them over, or do
they tend to be resistant still?

Tim Den Heijer: I find that one example that has to do with it is not, not
exactly the same thing, but I'll have to explain to you in English what the
campaign is about. But it's a very famous and successful long running campaign
in the Netherlands. That's interesting because it goes about this in a very
[00:23:00] like in an oblique way.
I think Richard, you would say it, it is lateral, not literal. Okay. Yeah. So there's
a, a brand that makes snacks that you can fry or heat in your home. Like stuff
you would buy at at a snack bar, but now you can buy it in your home. And it's
called Morra. And Morra had a campaign that was basically very simple with a
girl called Cora, Cora from Mora, and she would basically look into the camera
and tell you, we now.
This new snack and it tastes great. And then her colleague would come and it
would taste and would say, oh, it's so nice. And that's it. It seemed like a, not a
very creative or very clever head. But if you saw the commercials you wouldn't,
you wouldn't really notice it until someone pointed it out.
But the cord was always dressed in like a white lab coat that was spotless. And
she was always in a completely clean kitchen where it was just white tiles
[00:24:00] and and stainless steel. And then we found out that the, the problem
that Moha when they started out was that people thought, this is dirty stuff.
This is what led left over after they slaughter the animals, that goes into the,
okay, so they, but they never made one ad that said, well, you might think that
this is from a dirty slaughterhouse where, but actually it's a very clean place
where we put this stuff together. They never did that. But the whole campaign
was basically about taking away that barrier, that pain in the background, and it
worked like a charm.
Nobody thinks Morra stuff is from a dirty ETO anymore. So when I tell them,
okay, one of the campaigns you grow grew up with that you never questioned
was actually doing this in the background, then they're like, okay, this is
interesting. Yeah.
Richard Shotton: Okay. That's, that's interesting. So winning them over by
looking at their kind of past portfolio, [00:25:00] identifying as they've already
had success with a bias and using that as a, a beachhead to nice.
Yeah. Or maybe not

Tim Den Heijer: those people themselves, but what, what, what you can say,
okay. So brands you really look up to that you grew up with, that were
obviously great at marketing, we're actually doing this, but you just didn't
realize that this is what they were doing. Makes I think that and, and that goes
for a lot of great advertising.
I know Richard, it's also often your approach to figure out why great
advertising from the past actually has a behavioral insight that maybe they
couldn't name yet, but they felt inside it. And if you can point that out, it's not
like you have to do it completely differently now. You have to use some of the,
of the insights that have worked for others and, and make them work for you.
Richard Shotton: Yeah, that, and that's the approach of MichaelAaron and my
last book, hacking The Human Mind. So what we do is, yeah, identify 17 super
successful brands and then use that as an entry point to explain a behavioral
science. So for each of the brands, we pick one or two experiments [00:26:00]
that don't fully explain the success, but.
The, the, that, that that brand has used repeatedly to generate, you know, part of
it, its success. And I think it's a, a way of turning what can be a, an abstract
discussion into something that is much easier for people to understand and
therefore easier to apply. Yeah.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. And I also think in, in marketing, we have this
addiction to saying all the old rules don't apply anymore every year.
Also because nobody's actually wants to do the business of figuring out what
the old rules were, you know? And then there are like these, there are these
books like tested Advertising Methods, which is like a hundred years old. And it
has basically, it has some direct marketing rules in there where you can go,
yeah, that still works today.
But nobody, so I think it's sometimes it's, it's really good to point out, well, we
weren't this this industry wasn't crazy for 70 years until we started looking
through a scientific lens. It was just very much hit and miss and [00:27:00]
intuition. We can more systematically make great stuff now that we understand
why it works.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Tim, do you find that when you're explaining these
concepts to clients, when you're selling in creative, what in your, in your
experience. Talking about the actual academic study, talking about the, a known

example like you just talked about, what percentage are you using each? Is one
always your go-to rather than the other?
Is there a third way as you try to bring behavioral science into your work?
What's the, what's the, the method that's worked MO best for you?
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think I've been very lucky that I do a lot of keynote
speeches together with my co-author and my my business partner and our books
and our own podcast have been quite successful in the Netherlands.
So for the last few years, most clients that choose to work with us have seen
some something of that and are like, I, I want that for my company. [00:28:00]
So we don't really need to convince them. Sometimes we need to convince the
people they work with and sometimes there's one person who's really
enthusiastic about it.
What really works is to say, look, they all have to like these inspiration days
where they go away for a couple of days and have speakers and sessions and
say, book us for that. And we'll just do a really fun, like, edutainment session
where we show them how interesting behavioral science is and sort of get them
excited for the, for that that really works.
And then I have found that once you are discussing the business, it really a lot
of improvisation has to do with it. You really have to listen to what's important
to them and dig in your mind and say, oh, but do I know a case that really has
something to do with that? You know, an example of that.
It shouldn't be a standard, sorry. You should really be. Well, basically proving
that you can take their concerns and, and their [00:29:00] challenges and at least
say something interesting about, well, how science and creativity can help them
with the next step. But I think it is, it is a pitfall to sort of turn into a teacher
when you're actually there to provide a service.
And you have to walk deadline. It's a fine line. Yeah. That's so helpful.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Okay, so let's go to our next fly in the book. How
about the social fly? Can you tell us what marketers can learn about the ideas of
the social fly?
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think what's the most interesting thing to me about the
social fly is whenever people behave in a way that's, to me, rationally,
unexplainable.

The explanation is always in the social realm. It's always about the, the people
around them or how they want to be perceived or something they have done or
said in the past that they want to be consistent in. So the most irrational
behavior in my [00:30:00] eyes, always has to do with this social element. This
goes all the way into well, for instance, war crimes when, when they look at
what's going on there, it always has to do with a group.
Three or four or five guys who are trying to impress each other or going off the
rails together. So this behavior that really puzzles us always has something to do
with a social element. And I think what's really interesting from a media
standpoint. Instead we have been focusing more and more because obviously
Google and Meta want us to on targeting where we will send this message to
MichaelAaron and one to Richard and another one to two.
So we are not building this shared frame that we all look at a brand or a product
through anymore. And I think it's. Incredibly failure to realize that it really
helps. Well, for instance Gox, the watch brand in Netherlands, they sometimes
advertise, or the [00:31:00] store itself advertise in newspapers that are read by
nobody who is able to afford Gox because they know that the people who are
able to afford a Gox want to know that the people who aren't able to afford a
otics know how expensive ADON is.
This is very clever marketing because they understand the social. Meaning of a,
of a wristwatch if they, and obviously I think that there have been agencies who
have talked to the, the VX retailers and said, well, you're wasting your money
there. You should really target it. People who are into luxury watches and who
can afford it.
But they understand that it doesn't work that way. So I think and this also goes
for charities. How can you be a, a meaningful brand within society rather than
just meaning something to one person and maybe something else to a different
person. So I think the, the media we use I still love especially digital outdoor,
you can really.
Give people the idea that, oh, everybody's seeing this. I can, I can refer to this
[00:32:00] joke because I, I'm sure somebody else has seen that ad as well. You
know I think it's a really meaningful addition to a media plan to make
something that, that feels like everybody's seen it.
Richard Shotton: Yeah. I, I think you've, I think you've definitely onto
something being there.

The, the power of a public statement. Is not necessarily in persuading the
audience that your brand stands for something. 'cause people can be skeptical.
But if you can persuade them that, say your beer brand represents being laid
back and fun, even if the audience don't believe it, all they need to know is that
everyone else thinks that.
And then buying the product becomes a, a, a very sensible thing to do if you
want to project that, that image. There's an amazing, amazing article which will
stick in the show notes by, I think it's Kevin Similar. I think it's the title ads
don't work that way and it's all around. The value is not in persuading the
audience, it's persuading the audience that other people think certain [00:33:00]
attributes about, about your brand.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. Well, I think it's easy to lose sight of that within the,
the, the obsession with targeting.
Richard Shotton: Mm. Maybe one final fly. This, this is my favorite one, and it
was the incentive fly. And I love stories of incentives when they don't quite
work in the way that people expected. Can you tell us an example of maybe
when an incentive incentive has, has, has backfired, and then what can
advertisers do differently so they don't suffer the same fate?
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think, the interesting thing about the incentive fly, the,
we call it in Dutch, is that it seems like the, like, well maybe if people who
aren't necessarily in charge of marketing within a larger organization, when they
feel that sales are down, they would say, well just use that. That always
[00:34:00] works.
And it's hilarious that it's, of all the different tactics we describe, it's the one that
backfires most often. Of course we see that in, in this, in post promotion dips.
So you sell, sell a lot of, a lot more during a promotion and then you sell a lot
less effort and it doesn't work. But I think the most fun example, and I know
don't know if it's been discussed on the show before, but is the Cobra effect
where there was I think it was Delhi in in India there were a lot of co glass
there, co glass snakes.
And so they said, well, let's fix that with with an incentive. If you bring a cobra.
To to the government. The government will give you some money for it and
people will catch the coal glass and they will they will be gone. But then of
course, people figured out that if a male co and a female co will like each other
very much, you'll have a lot of small COAs you can also bring to the
government for.

Okay. So now, but this wasn't yet really a problem. There were [00:35:00] lots
of covas being turned in for the government. Then the government was like,
well, this is not the incentive we need. We're going to stop paying you for
covas. And then people were like, well, what are we going to do with all these
covas?
I'll just put them in the park. So they actually made the problem much worse.
And I think that's why the Global Effect is still the name for all these instances
where you try to persuade someone by just basically offering them money for it.
And it works out quite differently. I know when I was a student, I had a, I didn't
have the greatest job, but I had a job that, that I made some money with.
And we also had a in, in my student house. There was a rule that if you if it was
your turn to clean the kitchen and you didn't, you have to pay like five euros.
And so as soon as I could afford the five euros, I never cleaned the kitchen
again. And tell people, try to explain, well, no, it's not a service you buy for five
euros.
It's, it's a fire. It was, for me, it was the same thing. So I learned that one early
on.
Richard Shotton: Yeah. Yeah. And do [00:36:00] you think there are ways that
marketers can avoid. These backfire effects or are they something that just will
always happen and will always blight campaigns?
Tim Den Heijer: I think they happen. A lot more when the incentive and the
actual intrinsic motivation are very far apart when they have very little to do
with each other.
And, but sometimes you still need to do that. Sometimes you need to say, well,
to change behavior, I'm just going to give people a little present, take a win, or
whatever. But then the important thing is to reframe it in communications as
soon as they have done it. So to go back to the Delhi example, maybe, maybe as
soon as people had turned in that snake for money, they should have said, well,
here's a beautiful letter in which the government, thank you for helping us.
You are really concerned about the safety of children and older people in our
streets. And it's wonderful that you are one of those people who are really
working to make this a more safe city. And if the, once you [00:37:00] reframe
the behavior that was actually caused by some external trigger as something
that's intrinsically motivated, people will usually take that.

People say, yeah, yeah. Well, now that you mention it, I am very much
concerned about helping other people. I, I actually think it's, it's the most normal
thing in the world. I don't understand why not everybody does this. And we
actually use this in campaigns where we try to get people to recycle. We
basically, they win like, like a pie by recycling.
But then we tell them, oh, it's, you are one of those people who is making this
neighborhood beautiful and it's so great that you're doing this. And they will
usually say, yeah, yeah, that's true. So if you, it is really the aftercare after using
the incentive fly where you re. By tapping into more important values.
So basically using behavior to change attitude rather than the other way around.
But really taking the step to reframe it explicitly. I think that's the, that's the big
win there.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. It strikes me that being a [00:38:00] practitioner
in marketing and behavioral science, sometimes you have to have a sense for
what's actually going to get someone to do something.
And then you can apply more thinking to make sure it sticks. Tim, your point
here is like, you know, it may take a bike, it may take a check from the deli
government to get any motive, any action actually started. I love that term. It's
the aftercare. It's what you do after that can really return the right behavior time
and time again.
That's such a helpful way to think about it, to make sure you don't just get the
KPI that you want. You don't just get a measurement, but that you actually get
to lasting behavior change that you're looking for.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. I think it's Adam Ferrier who has this phrase in, in his
book where he says remember, behavior changes minds more efficiently than
the other way around.
Richard Shotton: We had Adam on a while ago, so Yeah. I think, yeah, the
[00:39:00] advertising effect. I think he, he, he, he talks about that, that's a
lovely, lovely example. And I think there's some research up that backs up the
idea. I think there's some Jack Brem work that shows I think that they, they
gave people an incentive to take part in an experiment, and I think they got to
choose from some house I household appliances.
And they got people to rate how much they liked the appliances. They then got
them to choose which one they wanted as their incentives. And then once

people are picked, they asked them again a little bit later to rate how much they
liked the incentives. And what they saw is the, once it was. Had had been
picked once people felt they had chosen that item, they then retrospectively
rated it higher.
And the argument from Brem is people use their past behavior to explain to
themselves who they are. So they look back on past behavior, think, well, I must
be the type of person who, you know, you said, likes to keep children safe from
cobras like say [00:40:00] a bread maker. And once that's in their mind, you
know, all these, these attitudes follow suit.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. And then you can also add a little bit of the social fly
by using dynamic social proof. Because if your incentive is working, then more
people will start to do whatever behavior you want 'em to do. So then you can
also communicate, well, you are one, you are part of more and more people who
are starting to do this.
So it also feels like Okay, we, I, I'm, I'm, I'm part of something bigger.
Richard Shotton: Yeah. So yeah.
Out outside of the flies, you've got your. The sections looking at your different
types of biases. You talked earlier about applying some of the behavioral
science principles to the book itself, and then you also talked later about
edutainment, and one of my favorite stylistic things was the fact that.
The book wasn't all one way. It wasn't you just preaching and telling people
about these ideas. There were boxes scattered all the way through in which you
[00:41:00] try to encourage people to apply some of the principles at home. And
you had lots of ideas how they could do it. Could, could you tell us about one of
those?
Try at home biases, which was your favorite? Which do you like most?
Tim Den Heijer: Missing I, I, I think one I really like is temptation Bundling.
Richard Shotton: Yeah,
Tim Den Heijer: and I know that this is AFA and I both use it once. So it's
basically give yourself a little treat once you do something that you really want
to do, but don't really get around to.

And I know that AFA actually did this with where she kept an audio book on a,
on an audio player at the gym. So she could only listen to that book where she
was at the gym. And then I think a few years ago when we were working on the
book my wife and I were discussing that it would be really go great to go for an
evening walk every, every night.
It's, it's very healthy. It's good for the brain. [00:42:00] We have a teenage
daughter. Sometimes we need to discuss adult stuff. Good to have a work for
that as well. So, yeah, it's, it's a great thing. But we weren't doing this and then
we were looking at the map of Amsterdam and we were like, well, if we take
this route, then we can, then the point where we turn around can be the craziest
part in Amsterdam, which is outside for all.
So basically the heart of the red light district.
Richard Shotton: Yeah.
Tim Den Heijer: And then suddenly that work became a lot more fun because
there's always something crazy happening there. And we're like, a couple of
months ago, two guys were fighting the guy who was dressed as Neptune and
he was actually using this huge fork to fight it, you know?
So we were making this, well, maybe slightly boring, walk a lot more.
Interesting by saying, okay, we're going to give ourselves this little treat that
we're going to walk down this this canal where there's always craziness going
on. And we actually, it works for about, I think four nights a [00:43:00] week.
We actually take a, an almost two hour walk now. So it's really good for our
help. But so yeah, that's temptation bundling, finding out a way to reward
yourself. As part of what? Of something not afterwards, but the reward is sort of
baked into the thing that you feel you need to do. That's when I really that that's
really worked wonder for us.
Yeah.
Richard Shotton: Nice. Nice.
MichaelAaron Flicker: I believe this builds off of this idea, and let me, let me
see if, if anything else comes to mind for you. But so much of what you've
talked about in the, the reason you wrote the book was that small interventions
can have a large effect was in all of your work, is there one or two that's most
surprising?

The, the smallest changes that led to big outcomes that. That surprised you?
Tim Den Heijer: I think I'm well, actually I studied, studied Dutch linguistics,
[00:44:00] so I'm a writer and linguist is basically what I'm, and I'm still
surprised that changing the way you worked, the exact same message or what
you name something has such a huge effect on on behavior because rationally it
shouldn't.
No, rationally the word should have a meaning, and it doesn't matter which,
which word you choose. And I've seen it in a bunch of tests or ways that you
word like a, a call to action. But I think the most, well, the, the the example I
always like to give in presentations I, you might be familiar with it, is, when
they renamed the Patagonian tooth fish, which is very ugly, but nice fish to
Chilian sea bass. Is that how you would pronounce it? Yeah, exactly.
Richard Shotton: Exactly.
Tim Den Heijer: Yeah. And I think it's now an endangered species because
they changed its name, which has to be horrible for an animal because it doesn't
even know it has a name.
Right. But [00:45:00] I'm always surprised that how, how much words and
names matter to for behavior, you know?
Richard Shotton: Yes. So I, I agree with you on that one. I think that's a, a
lovely example in the, and the Patagonian tooth fish to the Chilian Sea bass is,
is a wonderful bit of creativity and has a phenomenal upside in terms of the
sales.
I wonder if the listeners are for something that isn't as exciting, but they can
probably apply it to their work. There's a study that I love from about seven or
eight years ago. And it's from Peterson at the University of Texas, and he got
1000 hundred 17 people to go through an e-commerce journey, and they've got
to buy a basket of items and he does it so that one of the items they're trying to
buy is always not there.
And I'm picking my words carefully now. He then asks everyone to rate their
irritation with the store and the brand. And then he cuts the data by the specific
phrasing he [00:46:00] used. So half the people when they went through the e-
commerce journey, they saw that missing item labeled outta stock. The other
half saw it labeled, sold out.

What Peterson found was that there was like a 13 or 15% variance in irritation
levels. So people got irritated if it said out of stock, much less so if it said sold
out and, and his arguments are wonderful, and it goes back to your social fly.
He says, if you label out stock, what you have done as a business is drawn
attention to your incompetence.
You are telling people you couldn't manage your supply chain. But if you label
that product sold out, what you are subtly suggesting is that this product has
been unexpectedly popular. There's, there's been a surge in demand and that's
why it's not there. So you're using this social proof idea, this popularity
breeding, more popularity in your, in your favor.
So absolutely. I love that as an example. And you've got the really natural,
really creative, amazing examples. Chi zba, [00:47:00] and then you've got the
more mundane, but applicable everyday examples, like sold out versus out
stock. So that's, that's a lovely example. Yeah. It makes a big
Tim Den Heijer: difference. And one I really like that maybe it, it, it is a
famous one as well, but if you buy a telephone or a computer and it breaks and
you have to go back to the store and somebody at the surface desk is going to
look at it, that's not an exciting thing.
Right. But as Apple users are like, well, I've got an appointment with a genius.
At the Genius Bar. Well, these people don't win Nobel Prizes. They just try to
fix your phone. Right to, to rebrand that. Not the Surface Desk, but the Genius
Bar. You're going to talk to a genius. It just works. Yeah.
Richard Shotton: Yeah.
Interesting about that one. I, I hadn't thought of that. And then wondering where
the benefit lies. I mean, sometimes in the the expectation and the positivity that
the customer brings to bear. I wonder also maybe as staff morale, the easier
maybe to recruit for that role. Yeah. [00:48:00]
Tim Den Heijer: It implies that apple apple makes stuff that is so in, so
brilliant.
That it very rarely does it break, and when it does, it takes a genius to figure out
what went wrong, you know? Whereas a regular surface would say, yeah, we
get this all the time. That's not what, what you need a genius for, right? You
need a genius for these very rare occasions where nobody understands what's
wrong.

So it makes, it makes it feel like a very rare occasion that an Apple product
needs surface or repair. So I think it's it's sort of, it's over the top, but it does
work. Yeah.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Tim, as we're coming to a close on today's
conversation, we always like to ask a final question. In market example that you
know of today, can you give one final thought for what marketers could take
away?
One final [00:49:00] thing they could think about using in their work to improve
their brands? What's one takeaway that you'd like everybody to have?
Tim Den Heijer: Well, I think specifically with Brent I, I used to work in Brent
Loyalty for a long time. It's it's OG one. And we had this idea that people were
loyal to brands.
And I think that the big the big insight for me, one, once I started learning more
about behavioral science was, oh, they're not, they're not loyal to the brand.
They're loyal to their past selves. They're loyal to their own selves, to, to their
own behavior. Which sets certain expectations, which also explains that the, the
meaning that a brand has to people, why they can be really disappointed in a
brand.
So yeah, I think the one thing you, you have to keep in mind is what does this
say about me and what does this brand mean to me? And basically people are,
like I said, they're loyal to themselves. And I [00:50:00] think well this is, this is
a lot of marketing theory, but in the last few years we've been focusing very
much in, in marketing on penetration, saying, well, loyal customers really don't
really bring that much value as we used to think.
But I think once we start looking at, through a behavioral lens at brand loyalty
and what brands mean to people, I think there's still a lot of new things to
discover there.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Tim, thank you so much for being on with us. For
everyone listening, Tim's book is The House by Effect, how Nudge Psychology
Steers Your Everyday Behaviors.
If you found this episode interesting and insightful, please share it with others
that can learn from it. And as always you can find us at the consumer behavior
lab.com.

Until next time. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.
Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotton.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Tim, thanks for being with us.
Tim Den Heijer: Thanks for inviting me. Yep.[00:51:00]
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