Apologies Really DO Work

Have you ever annoyed a potential customer, or made her angry? Before you decide to ignore the faux pas and press forward with the pitch, or write her off and move on to greener pastures, try this simple technique: say, “I’m sorry.” That’s likely instinctive behavior for many of us, but at times it may [...]

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The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

Nobody is doing more to add to our knowledge of the irrational side of human behavior than Dan Ariely. Not only does he conduct experiments that are elegant in their simplicity, but he writes about his work and that of other researchers in a highly acccessible way. Upside is the successor to the bestselling Predictably Irrational, and it takes to new topics, ranging from CEO pay to speed dating.

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Neuromarketing Explains Weiner’s Pickle

The latest news on the lewd messaging scandal involving Congressman Anthony Weiner (Democrat, NY) was that he called former President Bill Clinton (who officiated at Weiner’s wedding) to apologize for his behavior. No transcript of the conversation was released, but it must have been an interesting chat. Did the ex-pres say something like, “Dude, I [...]

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Wear a Fake Rolex, Turn Into O.J.

You can find fake designer and luxury products just about anywhere these days, and most people consider owning one a harmless transgression. After all, if you were never going to pay $12,000 for a real Rolex, who is really hurt if you wear a fake that cost you $30? Rolex didn’t really lose a sale, [...]

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Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

The imperfection of our human brains has been a frequent topic of books lately, most notably Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. Mistakes were made goes into considerable depth on one key failing, cognitive dissonance. The authors call cognitive dissonance the “engine of self-justification” and attribute many examples of irrational behavior to our attempts to resolve it.

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The Power of FREE!

A few days ago, I wrote about the power of the word “New” to get our attention – if there’s a more potent attractor out there, it’s almost certainly “FREE!” For years, advertising gurus have listed “free” on every compilation of powerful headline words. Now, research conducted by Dan Ariely (a Duke behavioral economist, previously [...]

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Book Review: Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely does a great job of demolishing the idea that people make decisions in a rational manner. Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke, describes dozens of experiments that show how we procrastinate, when we cheat, how we interpret prices (definitely a neuromarketing hot button), and much more. Ariely’s work is fascinating [...]

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Placebos, Price, and Marketing

Hot on the heels of learning that more expensive wine tastes better, we find that more expensive placebos are more effective at controlling pain:

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