Hacking the Human Mind With Applied Behavioral Marketing
The Relevance of Behavioral Science to Marketing
In today's crowded and chaotic digital landscape, capturing consumer attention and driving meaningful behavior change has never been more challenging for marketers. However, while new technologies and platforms seem to emerge daily, the fundamental dynamics of human behavior and decision-making remain remarkably consistent.
Behavioral science offers marketers a powerful toolkit for understanding and influencing customer behavior. By understanding the fundamental drivers of human decision-making and behavior, brands can craft marketing campaigns that work with, rather than against, human nature.
As Richard Shotton, author of The Choice Factory, explains, behavioral economics offers marketers a way to create more memorable and persuasive messaging. He shares actionable marketing insights from psychology research and real-world advertising examples to illustrate how to apply behavioral science principles to boost your marketing results.
At its core, marketing aims to influence people's perceptions and behaviors—whether it's getting them to switch brands, buy more of a product, or view a company more favorably. This makes the field of behavioral science, which Richard defines as “the study of how people actually behave rather than how they claim to behave,” incredibly relevant and valuable for marketers to understand.
While marketers have long relied on focus groups, surveys, and their intuition to guide campaigns, behavioral science draws on rigorous experimental studies to uncover the often irrational and unconscious factors that genuinely drive behavior. Over a century of research has produced thousands of robust insights into human psychology that marketers can creatively apply to solve challenges around messaging, pricing, advertising creative, and more.
3 Key Strengths of Behavioral Science
Relevance: The insights relate to fundamental aspects of human tendency, like memory, trust, and motivation.
Robustness: The findings are based on carefully controlled, peer-reviewed studies rather than just opinion or speculation.
Range: The huge variety of studies means there are applicable insights for any marketing context or category.
As Richard puts it, behavioral science allows marketers to “work with the human operating system, not against it.” By aligning campaigns with established psychological principles, brands can leverage behavioral science to significantly boost the impact and effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
How to Apply Behavioral Science to Your Marketing
#1: Make Your Brand Memorable
One of the biggest challenges facing marketers today is standing out and being remembered in an incredibly cluttered and distracting media environment. Richard highlights two behavioral science principles that can help make marketing messages far more memorable:
Translate Abstract Benefits Into Concrete Language
A classic 1972 study by psychologist Ian Begg found that people are far more likely to remember concrete phrases (like “square door”) than abstract ones (like a basic fact). In Ian's experiment, participants recalled 36% of concrete words compared to just 9% of abstract words—a fourfold difference.
This difference is because concrete language activates the brain's visual centers, automatically conjuring mental images that stick in memory. “Vision is the most powerful of our senses,” Richard explains. “So if we can visualize a word, and if I say something like square door, normally what happens is it'll just pop up in your mind unbidden. If we can visualize these words, they're sticky. But if they're abstract, there's nothing for us to visualize. Therefore, they're very forgettable.”
Richard advises marketers to always look for ways to translate abstract product benefits into vivid, visualizable language.
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For example, rather than touting the iPod's forgettable “128 megabytes of memory,” Apple famously described it as “1,000 songs in your pocket”—a far more concrete and memorable promise.
Likewise, rather than claiming to offer vague benefits like “quality service,” brands should paint a picture—e.g., “We always answer the phone within 2 rings.” Translating abstract attributes into visualizable specifics is one of the easiest ways to amplify any ad's memorability.
Stand Out by Defying Category Conventions
Another powerful behavioral science technique is to deliberately flout the norms and traditions of your product category. Richard references the work of Hedwig von Restorff, a German psychologist who, in 1933, documented what's come to be known as the “isolation effect,” showing that people are more likely to recall distinctive stimuli.
For instance, in a list composed mostly of animals with a couple of pieces of furniture mixed in, people remembered the furniture words best. However, the animal words were the most memorable in a list of mostly furniture items. Hedwig showed that we're hardwired to notice and remember what's distinctive.
To apply this principle, Richard recommends marketers scrutinize their category's advertising and identify the common elements ripe for creative disruption.
For example, Liquid Death mountain water threw out virtually every convention of the bottled water industry—from the clear plastic bottle to the images of pristine nature—and instead embraced an edgy, heavy-metal-inspired aesthetic complete with tallboy aluminum cans and the tagline “Murder your thirst.” By defying category norms, liquid Death achieved massive earned media and rapid growth on a shoestring marketing budget.
While not every brand can adopt a radical stance like Liquid Death, Richard argues there are always opportunities to boost memorability by thoughtfully breaking a few well-chosen conventions. Even minor tweaks to the category formula—like an insurance company admitting their claims process is tedious or a beer brand poking fun at snobbish tasting notes—can pay big dividends in attention and recall.
#2: Build Trust Through Counterintuitive Tactics
Trust is one of the most important factors in driving consumer behavior and decision-making but also one of the hardest for marketers to earn. Richard shares two techniques rooted in behavioral science that can enhance your brand's perceived trustworthiness:
Boost Believability Through Specificity
We tend to associate specific claims with greater credibility than round numbers or broad statements like “99% of customers love our product!” or “You'll save $100 with our service!” Richard cites a 2006 study by Rutgers marketing professor Robert Schindler, which presented participants with mock ads for a hypothetical deodorant.
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When the ad claimed the product reduced perspiration by “50%,” people rated it as less credible than an ad claiming either “47%” or “53%.” The precise figures, even though lower, increased perceived accuracy by 10% and overall credibility by 5%.
This effect arises because, in our daily experience, we observe that individuals with true expertise speak precisely, while those who lack knowledge rely more on loose generalities.
“If someone stops you in the street and said, ‘How old's your brother or sister?' You would say, ‘She's 39,'” Richard explains. If someone said, ‘How old is Bob, who lives 10 doors down?' You'd say, ‘Oh, he's in his 60s.' You'd give a general answer because you don't really know. And over time, these things become fused—people associate precision with accuracy and truthfulness.”
Another example is Uber's study on surge pricing, which revealed that people are more likely to accept a ride with a price increase of 1.9X than 2X (charm pricing). Surprisingly, people are also more willing to take a 2.1X surge price than 2X, as they assume round numbers indicate larger markups compared to precise numbers, even if the latter is higher.
To tap into this cognitive bias, Richard advises marketers to audit their websites and campaigns to convert round numbers to more exact figures. For example, rather than saying, “We have millions of users,” try “We have 3.7 million users across 28 countries.” Or instead of “Installation takes just minutes,” specify “Installation takes 12 minutes on average.” Concrete numbers lend marketing messages a clinical, scientific air that can substantially boost credibility.
Disarm Consumers by Admitting Flaws
Another powerful way to boost credibility is to point out a weakness or drawback of your product strategically. Known as the “pratfall effect,” this bias was first documented in a 1966 study by Harvard psychologist Elliot Aronson.
Elliot had a colleague participate in a quiz show and, unbeknownst to the audience, gave him all the correct answers in advance. The contestant seemed like a genius, getting 92% of questions correct. But then, as the show was ending, he “accidentally” spilled a cup of coffee on himself.
When Elliot later played a recording of the incident for subjects, he found that the clumsy contestant was rated as more appealing than one who just aced the quiz without a blunder. Admitting a flaw made him more likable.
Richard argues this effect works because of a few factors:
Flaws make you more memorable
Weaknesses can imply related strengths (slow service suggests quality)
Admitting negatives is disarming and makes your other claims seem more honest
He cites the example of Buckley's cough syrup, which leaned into its terrible taste with the slogan, “It tastes awful. And it works.” By poking fun at this objective weakness, Buckley's stood out from the syrupy-sweet competition, came across as more effective, authentic, and trustworthy, and quickly went from a niche player to a market leader.
The key is identifying a mirror weakness that subtly highlights your core strength. For example, a luxury hotel chain might admit its properties are costly and often sold out, implying exclusivity and popularity. A farm-to-table restaurant could joke about its limited menu options, hinting at an uncompromising commitment to fresh, seasonal ingredients. When used judiciously, pratfalls can potently let down consumers' defenses and foster deeper affinity.
These examples also tie into the broader principle of scarcity, suggesting that people want things more when they perceive them as rare or in limited supply. Richard notes that many successful product launches, from Spotify to Google, have initially leveraged scarcity by using invite-only signups or limiting access to certain groups. By making the product seem exclusive and in demand, these companies were able to drive greater interest and adoption.
Moreover, Richard emphasizes the concept of social proof and how it can sometimes backfire if misused in your marketing.
For example, saying that “loads of people waste food” or “many youths are getting drunk at university” leverages social proof in the wrong direction by suggesting these undesirable actions are widespread and, therefore, acceptable. Richard argues this “removes a sense of transgression” and can make people more likely to engage in the behavior.
Marketers should be thoughtful about using social proof in their messaging. Rather than highlighting the prevalence of behavior they wish to discourage, they should emphasize how many people are adopting the positive behavior or belief they want to promote. Used strategically, social proof can be a powerful tool for shaping consumer perceptions and choices.
The Value of Applied Behavioral Marketing
Because behavioral science is rooted in empirical market research rather than intuition or trend-chasing, these techniques tend to produce more consistent and replicable results. “It's easy to think, well, okay, can we really learn from 20 or 30 or 60 years ago?” Richard says. “But generally, these insights are into the fundamentals of human nature. They're not fashions or fads. They are about the key drivers of memory or believability or trust.”
Behavioral science is the difference between push and pull marketing—the difference between swimming upstream against human nature and deftly redirecting its current to work in your favor. Marketers who ground their strategies in scientific insight will be primed to deliver more memorable, believable, and persuasive messages that cut through the clutter and spark meaningful behavior change. In the end, that may be the ultimate competitive advantage.