If you were out for a fancy meal would you order Patagonian toothfish? Probably not. After all, it conjures up images of a deepsea monstrosity. But Chilean sea bass? Sounds lovely. Names are important. They shape how we respond to the world. That's what fish importer Lee Lantz thought anyway. Back in the 70s, he tried to sell the Patagonian toothfish to restaurants in the US. Even though the fish tastes delicious, chefs wouldn't return his call. The repugnant sound put them off. His solution? Rebrand the fish Chilean sea bass. Almost overnight, demand rose. Over time a 30x increase in sales. In fact, the Chilean sea bass became so popular that regulators had to cap catches to protect its population. Even today, it's among the most ordered fish dishes. A fish by another name really does taste sweeter... The behavioural science idea behind this change in fortune (which MichaelAaron Flicker and I cover in Hacking the Human Mind) is language framing - a different label drastically shifts perceptions.  Evidence comes from the classic 1974 study by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer (University of Washington).  They showed participants a video of a car crash and asked them to guess the cars' speed. But they randomly changed the verb in the question:  “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted) each other?”  The verb “smashed” made people think the cars were driving 27% faster than the softer verb “contacted”.  Language acts as a lens through which we interpret reality. It shapes thoughts, feelings, and even actual experiences (as the toothfish reminds us...). So with the right wording, you can make the exact same offering a lot more appealing. (Original photo by Glenn Jacobson) *** If you're interested in more, I'm running a training session on applying behavioural science for better B2B marketing on Tuesday 13th October. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

Most researchers collect data first, then wonder why nobody reads their papers. Start with the story. The data comes after.

📚 Au Japon, des gens vont désormais en boîte de nuit… pour s’asseoir silencieusement et lire un livre pendant qu’un DJ joue de la musique d'ambience. Le concept s’appelle JUCY BOOK RAVE et se déroule notamment dans un club souterrain de Shimokitazawa, à Tokyo. Ici, pas besoin de danser ni de hurler pour parler à la personne située à 30 centimètres de vous. Les participants viennent avec un livre, s’installent dans la pénombre et lisent pendant que la musique accompagne leur soirée.

Holy crap. Rick and Morty just explained Jev AI to me better than any tech demo could.

If you need your message to be remembered and believed, then you might want to use a rhyme. The Keats Heuristic, as depicted by @sketchplanator, is the finding that rhyme makes the same message more believable. The original research comes from a 1999 study by Matthew McGlone and Jessica Tofighbakhsh from Lafayette College. They found that making the same statement rhyme boosted believability. But rhyme does more than that. In 2021, Alex Thompson and I, inspired by the original study, tested another aspect of rhyme: its effect on memorability. We showed participants a list of 10 statements. Half of the statements rhymed (e.g. "woes unite foes"), and half of them didn't (e.g. "woes unite enemies"). People had 5 minutes to read through the list. Then we asked them to return at the end of the day and recall as many phrases as possible. People remembered 14% of the non-rhyming statements, but 29% of the rhyming ones - a doubling of memorability. While this study was run with a small group of non-representative participants, in 2024, I reran it using a much larger representative sample and found similar results. There are plenty of brilliant applications of rhyme in older campaigns. For example, Pringles' "Once you pop, you can't stop". Or the Ministry of Health's "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases". So whatever message you're writing, consider adding a bit of rhyme... *** I'm running a training session on applying behavioural science for better B2B marketing on Tuesday 13th October. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…

is this genuinely the explanation for decline of everything - friendships, excitement, spontaneity, dating?