We all know one. Someone who asks for a proposal, ideas or help. Urgently. You shift things around to make space. Sacrifice weekend time. Deliver as asked. Not another word. Even after follow-ups. The trend seems on the up. Apparently, Gen Z are the worst. Over the past months, I’ve had heated debates about whether this […]
Top line. Volkswagen leveraged the brain’s incongruity resolution bias to send Beetle sales soaring by 1500%. But the same subconscious trigger that fuels curiosity can also backfire spectacularly. Learn how to harness this powerful bias safely — to spark attention, shape emotion, and make your brand story impossible to ignore. When Volkswagen’s 1959 ad suggested
For sweeter attention, add lemon. Read More →
Top line. Science shows people don’t buy products. They buy versions of themselves. Identity — not logic — drives the vast majority of decisions. When brands speak to who people are (and who they want to be), they bypass reason and plug straight into the subconscious engine that really sells. Erol Demir could have bought
Better vision doesn’t sell. A better image does. Read More →
Top line. Science says the odds of making good choices now for your future self are slim. Why? The brain sees its future self as a stranger. Behavioural science exposes this flaw—and shows how to use anticipated regret to bridge the gap, trigger emotion, and drive smarter, lasting decisions. At 37, I was asked to
The best way to look forward is backward Read More →
Top line. We think the brain sees the world as it is—but it doesn’t. It reconstructs it. Read on to understand how reality is assembled inside the brain’s black box using sensory input, memory, emotion, and expectation—and how brands can shape perception and influence decisions by leveraging this process. The brain doesn’t see. It assembles.
The brain is a black box Read More →
Top line. Pricing is never just a number. It’s a story the subconscious tells itself about value and worth. Read this for science-led pricing tactics—like anchoring, decoys, and scarcity—that shape perception and drive action. Use them to reduce friction, boost conversions, and gain a powerful neural edge over rivals. To drive up revenue, The Economist
Numbers have their own story Read More →
Top line: Most execs dismiss storytelling as fluff. But the Significant Object experiment proves otherwise: attaching a story to worthless items raised their value by over 6100%. This article unpacks how emotion, narrative, and meaning fuel buying behaviour—and why story may be your brand’s most underused profit lever. Many business execs write off storytelling as
What is a story really worth? Read More →
Top line. In the 1970s, Kahneman and Tversky discovered that the brain integrates a conscious and subconscious system to make decisions. But the big, Nobel-winning surprise? Not the rational mind—but the subconscious—is the brain’s true decision-making mastermind. Read this to unpack how the two systems work, and how brands can influence them. In the early
Top line. Gruesome cigarette warnings backfired—driving smoking rates up instead of down. The reason? Hidden mental frictions like the reactance bias, which blocks persuasion when freedom feels threatened. This article unpacks five subconscious stumbling blocks, drawn from Jonah Berger’s The Catalyst, and offers tactics to help shift stubborn mindsets. Gruesome images and grim stats didn’t
The more they warned, the more they smoked Read More →
Top line. Douglas Van Praet’s research, published in Unconscious Branding, reveals a hard truth: 95% of human decisions happen preconsciously—and they stick. This article unpacks what his research shows and how to apply 7 proven steps to influence the subconscious. Use them to build brand strategies that trigger instinct, shape feeling, and shift decisions and
Unconscious branding in 7 steps Read More →