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Blindsight

Book by neuroscientist Matt Johnson and marketer Prince Ghuman on the neuroscience and psychology behind consumer decisions and branding.

Episode 39 (guest episode, "what is a brand"): brands exist as neural associations rather than any physical property of a product (see Brand Value (Neural Association Theory)); Nike-branded golf clubs were driven measurably further than identical unbranded clubs by the same golfers (see Brand Placebo Performance Studies); visible premium-brand logos on clothing more than quadrupled a stranger's willingness to comply with a survey request, and changed hiring and status judgments (see Dutch Branded-Clothing Status-Perception Studies); filming a concert on a phone reduced how well the experience was later remembered, since the "remembering" work is offloaded onto the phone (see Diana Tamir Concert-Phone-Recording Memory Study); and actively-engaged media (video games) encoded embedded brand objects more deeply into memory than passive ads (see Video Game Branded-Object Encoding Case and Encoding Depth (Attention and Memory Formation)).

Episode 40 ("what makes a great story"): neural coupling, where a listener's brain activity synchronizes with a speaker's during effective storytelling (see Neural Coupling (Speaker-Listener Brain Synchronization)); the identifiable victim effect, where donations fall as the number of people shown in need rises (see Identifiable Victim Effect (Psychic Numbing) and Slovic Identifiable-Victim Donation Studies); essentialism, where an object's origin story transfers perceived value onto it even when nothing physical about the object changes — an eBay experiment that added invented backstories to cheap thrift-store objects raised their resale value roughly 80-fold (see Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn eBay Significant Objects Study), and Perrier's origin-story marketing campaign is credited with recouping over $500 million in sales from a $5 million spend (see Perrier Origin-Story Branding Case); and simply watching chefs visibly cook food (versus not seeing them) raised diners' satisfaction with identical food by 17.3% (see HBR Cafeteria Chef-Visibility Study).

Episode 41 ("the irrational way we perceive food"): extends the brand-placebo research on how branding and belief change the perceived and even physiological experience of a product, and introduces Essentialism (Origin-Story Value Transfer) in the context of food and taste perception.

Episode 57 ("charm pricing"): cited for JCPenney's 2011 "fair and square" pricing failure, where removing charm pricing (prices ending in .99) despite customers saying they preferred simple round pricing caused a sales collapse the company had to reverse the following year (see JCPenney Fair-and-Square Pricing Failure).

Episode 142 ("the secret psychology behind movie trailers"): the central research source for this episode's analysis. Cited for George Lucas's research into The Hero with a Thousand Faces before writing Star Wars (see Star Wars Blindsight Novelty-Familiarity Case), Stuart Shapiro's logo-placement study (see Shapiro Logo-Placement Novelty Study), the Spotify Discover Weekly accidental-mix story (see Spotify Discover-Weekly Accidental-Mix Case), and the earliest Zeigarnik-effect memory studies underlying Zeigarnik Effect (including Marvel's post-credit-scene strategy, see Marvel Post-Credit-Scene Zeigarnik Case). Phill Agnew notes he had both authors on the show previously (Episodes 39-41) but hadn't had time to cover the Zeigarnik effect material until this episode.

Episode 178 ("6 scientifically-proven persuasion techniques"): cited for a San Francisco charity-donation study finding a "someone has already offered to donate $400" anchor line more than doubled average donations, from $64 to $143 (see San Francisco Donation Anchor Study).

Discussed in

  • Episode 39 — 39- A Neuroscientist and Marketer Discuss - What is a Brand
  • Episode 40 — 40- What Makes A Great Story
  • Episode 41 — 41- The irrational way we perceive food
  • Episode 57 — 57- Charm Pricing- The greatest trick in marketing
  • Episode 142 — 142-the-secret-psychology-behind-movie-trailers
  • Episode 178 — 178-6-scientifically-proven-persuasion-techniques

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