How to frame the mind

Top line. In 2016, smart behavioural scientists created an ad campaign that bypassed the logic of millions of UK voters entirely. By targeting the brain’s subconscious framing system, they nudged millions to support Brexit. This article unpacks how they did it—and how brands can use the same smart science to influence decisions and shape behaviour.

During 2016, UK citizens were exposed to an advertising campaign encouraging voters to choose an option to leave the European Union. The very simple Brexit campaign, created for a grouping of political conservatives called Leave, offered Brit citizens just two choices. Either take back control. Or accept the control of Brussels.

Surprisingly—and against sound economic logic—17.4 million UK citizens used the 23^rd of April 2016 to vote to leave the EU. The Leave campaign won. And the UK left the EU.

Everyone who voted to leave thought they chose the option themselves. Using rational sense. But they did not. All were framed.

We now know that the subconscious minds of millions of UK voters were unwittingly but deliberately steered to one flawed choice: Leave the EU. But how were so many minds so easily manipulated?

Turns out, the behavioural scientist designers behind the very successful pro-Brexit Leave campaign knew a thing or two about leveraging the mind’s powerful subconscious framing system. And how to exploit the mind’s mental shortcuts to get the decision they wanted.

How did they do it? And can brands apply the same science to influence minds as effectively? Here’s what you need to know.

The Leave campaign team targeted the voters’ subconscious system

Why the subconscious? The Leave team knew what a large body of neuroscience research proves: the subconscious is the brain’s real mastermind.

Scientists now know the 22-watt brain doesn’t have nearly enough battery power to consciously process the 11 million bits of data it scans every second. So, it relies on its lightning-fast and super energy-efficient subconscious system to radar and react to the bulk of inbound data—automatically.

The brain’s subconscious system triggers 95% of decisions and behaviours in nanoseconds—using almost no electricity at all. And although the subconscious loops its judgements through the brain’s conscious system for final endorsement, almost all subconscious choices stick. (The brain’s integrated endorsement process simply makes the brain feel like its choices are conscious and rational.)

The Leave campaign designers didn’t waste time appealing to the brain’s conscious rational system with logic. They aimed straight for the subconscious—the system that makes all the calls.

The Leave campaign designers understood subconscious framing.

The behavioural scientists behind Leave were expert framers. They understood the subconscious’s intuitive process of sensing cues in incoming information and slashing it to a bare minimum—and how to exploit the framing process to nudge the simple subconscious in a desired direction.

To react instantly and efficiently, the subconscious relies on preloaded reaction templates—tried and tested emotional response patterns stored in memory. It matches these to similar patterns in new situations in a heartbeat, launching decisions and behaviours with no thought at all. But to find and trigger the right reflexive one fast, it first has to cut through a lot of noise.

It decides what to focus on by framing. Framing senses cues in the data that help pare down information to just a few key data points that matter most. This intense focussing process shrinks the search field so the subconscious can reduce the number of many potential reaction templates to a best-fit option -and snap the ready-made behaviour into place.

Framing narrows the brain’s attention to only what’s inside the frame. Anything outside the  frame get ignored. The Leave designers knew: if you control the frame, you control the response.

The Leave campaign hijacked the brain’s framing system.

The Leave campaign designers applied their unique expertise to pull off two smart strategic behavioural plays.

First, they exploited the subconscious framing system. They collapsed a complex national decision into a simple binary the subconscious could process: take back control or be controlled by Brussels.

They also knew the subconscious is wired to exclude anything outside a formed frame. So, they shaped the frame in a way that no other options were considered. Remain wasn’t just rejected—it was erased.

Then came the second move. Knowing the subconscious would form the tight binary frame it was directed to, they triggered within the frame a powerful subconscious bias known as reactance—the brain’s automatic resistance to any threat to personal freedom.

Tell the subconscious it’s being controlled, and it will do almost anything to reclaim autonomy. So, when be controlled was set up as one of only two choices, the subconscious rejected it without pause. That left just one perceived path to freedom: Leave.

The ethics of the Leave campaign are certainly questionable. (Leaving the EU was far more complex than the binary options presented – and arguably wasn’t in the UK people’s best interests.) But the campaign was a masterclass in behavioural science design. Two moves. One frame. One bias. Millions of votes.

What brands can learn from Brexit.

The behavioural strategists behind the Leave campaign proved a powerful truth: the subconscious decides. The same tactics that won a referendum can be applied—ethically and effectively—to influence the minds of any decision-maker you target. Here’s how you can apply the influence science to your brand and messages:

• Frame it, fast. Shrink the choice early. Set a tight binary where one option feels clearly better. The subconscious excludes whatever’s outside the frame. So, control what goes into the frame.
• Speak to emotion, not reason. The subconscious mastermind decides reflexively by feeling first. It doesn’t think in facts—it matches emotional cues to emotional reaction patterns. The clearer your emotional signals are, the easier it is for the simple and fast subconscious to match your message to the readied response you want.
• Keep it simple. One message. One feeling. One action. Complexity stalls the subconscious. It defaults to the status quo and does nothing. If you want action, keep things basic. The subconscious moves fast when signals are clean.
• Exploit bias, strategically. Loss aversion. Reactance. Social proof. These are a few of the mental shortcut tools the subconscious uses to make intuitive decisions. Strategically design your message to work with the brain’s shortcuts, not against them.
• Use story schema. The subconscious naturally organises even limited data into story patterns to reflexively sense cause, effect, and predict outcomes. The Leave designers cleverly framed minimal facts into a familiar narrative: Britain as hero, Brussels as villain, and Leave as the win. The subconscious filled in the rest. Hero. Threat. Victory.

The bottom line? If your brand message isn’t framing the subconscious, it’s not speaking at all.

About

Jonathan Hall is the CEO of ThinkWorks, a behavioural science consultancy that helps organisations move more minds with influence science. ThinkWorks blends the disciplines of strategy, behavioural science, and communication art to produce messaging tactics that persuade effectively.

Jonathan is a graduate of Wits Business School, has trained in strategic modelling at Aix-Marseille University in France, and is certified in behavioural economics, brand, and narrative science.

He is the author of the e-books The Power of Brand Story and BrainSell. His work has earned several accolades, including the IMM Marketing Company of the Year award, a Deloitte Best Company to Work For award, and a PSA Innovator of the Year award.

To find out if ThinkWorks can help your organisation to motivate minds to move, contact ThinkWorks soon.

www.thinkworks.co.za | jonh@thinkworks.co.za | +27 83 251 0716