Influence or Manipulation? Behavioral Science & Marketing ft. Phill Agnew

Summary

Content Is Profit: Episode Summary

Title: Influence or Manipulation? Behavioral Science & Marketing
Host: BIZBROS
Guest: Phil Agnew
Release Date: April 3, 2025

In this thought-provoking episode of the Content Is Profit podcast, hosts Fonzie and Luis engage in an insightful conversation with Phil Agnew, a seasoned marketer and behavioral science expert. The discussion delves deep into the fine line between influencing consumer behavior and manipulating it, exploring the ethical implications and practical applications of behavioral science in modern marketing strategies.

---

1. Introduction to Behavioral Science in Marketing

The episode kicks off with a compelling question from Fonzie at [00:00]:
Fonzie: "Have you thought about, as you're studying this, am I actually manipulating people, or am I using this as a tool to help them make a decision that's going to help them in the long term?"

Phil Agnew responds thoughtfully at [00:20], addressing the nuanced differences between manipulation and influence:

Phil Agnew: "If sending an ad to someone makes them change their behavior, which is all I'm trying to do, you could argue that's manipulative. But I don't think it necessarily is."

---

2. Phil Agnew's Journey into Behavioral Science

Phil shares his professional journey, highlighting his transition from traditional marketing to embracing behavioral science:

Phil Agnew: "It wasn't until later on in my career that I discovered behavioral science and consumer psychology... and started to apply those principles to marketing that I started to find success."

He emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological underpinnings of consumer decisions, which has been pivotal in his approach to marketing.

---

3. Manipulation vs. Influence

Fonzie raises the ethical concern about the potential manipulative aspects of behavioral science in marketing:

Fonzie: "A lot of people might look at the things that you talk about... they might think, okay, well, this person is trying to manipulate the consumer."

Phil navigates this concern by presenting real-world examples that highlight the difference between manipulation and ethical influence. He cites Google's cafeteria study at [17:14], where subtle changes in the placement of healthy foods led to a significant increase in healthier eating habits among employees. This example illustrates how behavioral nudges can be used responsibly to promote beneficial choices without overt manipulation.

---

4. Key Behavioral Science Principles in Marketing

a. Scarcity

Phil discusses the power of scarcity in influencing consumer behavior, sharing an example from a supermarket study:

Phil Agnew [00:20]: "... a little star and underneath said something like, limited to 12 cans per customer... that one message made the soup seem scarce. The amount of soup people bought increased."

He further reinforces this concept with the holiday toilet paper shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating how perceived scarcity can drive demand.

b. Halo Effect

The halo effect, where a positive trait leads to overall favorable perceptions, is another focal point:

Phil Agnew [27:20]: "The halo effect is a 100-year-old principle... Daniel Craig sells watches when you know he's just an actor."

This principle explains why celebrities like Daniel Craig can effectively market products unrelated to their expertise, leveraging their positive public image to influence consumer trust and purchasing decisions.

c. Reactance

Reactance refers to the resistance consumers exhibit when they feel their freedom to choose is being restricted:

Phil Agnew [21:36]: "...say, don't eat meat. All you're going to do is cause reactants. All you're going to do is make people be defensive."

Phil suggests that instead of imposing restrictions or negative messaging, marketers should focus on normalizing desired behaviors to reduce reactance and encourage voluntary adoption.

d. Anchoring

Anchoring involves setting a reference point that influences subsequent perceptions and decisions:

Phil Agnew [37:10]: "One person said it might cost $999 because it's quite advanced technology... He presses a button... and it's reduced to $499. And they've been cheering."

The classic Apple example demonstrates how setting an initial high price can make subsequent prices appear more attractive, effectively guiding consumer choices.

---

5. Ethical Considerations in Marketing

The conversation underscores the importance of ethical marketing practices. Phil advocates for transparency and value-based pricing over cost-based pricing, emphasizing that consumers rarely purchase products solely based on their production costs:

Phil Agnew [43:50]: "Number one tip is to stop pricing based on pure cost... The vast majority of things you buy... you're definitely not paying for nutrition."

He also warns against the overuse of psychological tactics like anchoring, advising marketers to use these tools thoughtfully to maintain consumer trust and avoid backlash.

---

6. Practical Tips for Marketers

Phil shares actionable strategies for implementing behavioral science in marketing:

• Value-Based Pricing: Move away from cost-based pricing to reflect the perceived value of the product.
• Use of Decoys: Introduce higher-priced options to make other prices seem more reasonable (e.g., Apple’s overpriced watch bands serve as anchors).
• Ethical Scarcity: Frame scarcity in a way that emphasizes genuine value rather than creating artificial shortages.

These tips are grounded in scientific research and aim to enhance marketing effectiveness while maintaining ethical standards.

---

7. Personal Impact and Reflections

Fonzie and Luis explore how an understanding of behavioral science has personally impacted Phil's approach to life and marketing. Phil admits that, despite his expertise, he still operates largely on automatic decision-making systems:

Phil Agnew [33:43]: "Daniel Kahneman... said there's System One and System Two. System One is fast, automatic, unconscious... you rarely catch onto it."

He reflects on how this awareness influences his interactions and decision-making processes, even outside of professional settings.

---

8. Favorite Examples and Resources

Phil highlights some of his favorite resources that have shaped his understanding of behavior science:

• Books:
  • Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini
  • The Biggest Bluff – a narrative on applying behavioral science to poker

These resources provide a foundation for marketers to explore and apply behavioral principles effectively.

---

9. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode wraps up with a summary of key insights:

• Behavioral Science as a Foundation: Understanding the psychological drivers behind consumer behavior is crucial for effective and ethical marketing.
• Creative Application of Principles: Marketers should build upon foundational behavioral principles to develop innovative and impactful strategies.
• Ethical Responsibility: It is essential to use behavioral science tools responsibly to foster trust and long-term customer relationships.

Phil Agnew encourages marketers to adopt a science-based approach, emphasizing the importance of testing and applying proven psychological principles to enhance marketing outcomes ethically.

Notable Quotes:

• Phil Agnew [00:20]: "If sending an ad to someone makes them change their behavior, you could argue that's manipulative. But I don't think it necessarily is."
• Phil Agnew [27:20]: "The halo effect is a 100-year-old principle... Daniel Craig sells watches when you know he's just an actor."
• Phil Agnew [43:50]: "Stop pricing based on pure cost... The vast majority of things you buy... you're definitely not paying for nutrition."

For a deeper dive into the principles discussed, listeners are encouraged to explore Phil Agnew’s Nudge Podcast and his recommended reading list.

---

Connect with Phil Agnew:

• Podcast: Nudge Podcast
• LinkedIn: Phil Agnew
• Twitter: @PhilAgnew
• Email: philudgepodcast.com

Phil Agnew continues to share his wealth of knowledge on behavioral science and marketing, providing valuable insights for marketers aiming to ethically influence consumer behavior and drive business growth.

Transcript

[Fonzie]

A lot of people might look at the things that you talk about, right, this science, and they might think, okay, well, this person is trying to manipulate the consumer. Have you thought about, as you're studying this, am I actually manipulating people, or am I using this as a tool to help them make a decision that's going to help them in the long term?

[Phil Agnew]

I mean, what a question. It's a tough one to answer, because if we're coming at it from a marketing standpoint, if sending an ad to someone makes them change their behavior, and we know it makes them change the behavior, which is all I'm trying to do, and you could argue that's manipulative. You could. The reason why I don't think it is. You know, I didn't really believe people were properly irrational until I heard this one. So there's obviously scarcity, the idea that we value scarce resources much higher. But one of my favorite examples of this is a, is a study in a supermarket in the States. And in the study, they had big signs up which said, buy soup. Then they tried a scarcity variant, and all it said was, buy soup. And then a little star and underneath said something like, limited to 12 cans per customer. Now, this is irrational. Nobody was buying 12 cans prior to it. But that one message made the soup seem scarce. The amount of soup people bought.

[Fonzie]

We've got some.

[Luis]

Hey, I'm Luis.

[Fonzie]

And I'm Fonzie.

[Luis]

Welcome to Content Is Profit podcast.

[Fonzie]

In here, you're going to get the insights, accountability and drive to create consistently and increase revenue.

[Luis]

You'll hear from top entrepreneurs, creators, and anything and everything, everything you need to know about content. All this while having a good time.

[Fonzie]

The goal of this podcast is simple. Entertain, educate, and turn your content into profit.

[Luis]

I, I, I took the horn because you said it right.

[Fonzie]

I know. Appreciate it. Actually going through my mind, my, my internal voice as I was reading the rest of the intro, I was like, you nailed it. Good job. I did an internal fist bump.

[Luis]

Good job. All right, Fonzie, what are we talking about today, guys?

[Fonzie]

Today we're learning all about the science behind great marketing. And disclaimer out there. I did take this straight out of our guest website, but I should have worn it because it is so good.

[Luis]

Lab coat. That would have been great.

[Fonzie]

Oh, that would have been good.

[Luis]

That would have been great.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, that would have been a great.

[Luis]

Idea, but didn't happen.

[Fonzie]

Hashtag fail.

[Luis]

Hashtag fail. Anyways, guys, if you are enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe, follow, send us a dm, whatever you want to do send us a quick subscription. Subscription, Subscription. What's happening?

[Fonzie]

It's just going downhill from here, guys.

[Luis]

Yeah, just like. And just engage with the show.

[Fonzie]

Since you didn't mention it, the handle is bros. Co. Also, if today's guest helped you move one step closer towards your goal, please don't forget to share this episode and of course, leave an honest review. Thank you.

[Luis]

So we are back with another member of the Hotspot podcast network and creator program family, the master of behavioral science himself.

[Fonzie]

That is right. Today's guest is a marketer to the core. And not to be creepy, but he probably knows exactly why you are making some of those debatable decisions in life.

[Luis]

If you are trying to stay broke, then you should not listen to today's guest. Besides helping people crush your marketing efforts, his senior product marketer at Buffer and host of one of the most practicable. Practicable.

[Fonzie]

Practicable.

[Luis]

Practicable.

[Fonzie]

I think that's the right word. I hope so.

[Luis]

Practical marketing podcast Nudge Podcast.

[Fonzie]

Please welcome soon to be your favorite marketer, Phil agu.

[Phil Agnew]

Let go. Wow, wow, wow. What an intro. Hey, you two are pros at this. I was sitting there thinking, this guy sounds worth listening to. He sounds interesting. And then I realized you were talking about me. And I was like, oh, oh, no.

[Luis]

Phil was too humble.

[Fonzie]

Too humble.

[Luis]

Phil, too humble. Okay, question. We're talking like behind cameras a little bit to start the show, right where obviously football fans, for those listening in the States, that's soccer, if you didn't notice.

[Fonzie]

Phil has a really cool accent here.

[Luis]

So, you know, he's from, from London. And Fonsi here is, he's a fan of a London team. And like, we legit were like, discussing for about 10 minutes the best team in the world. What team? And, and Phil would not say. And he says that he's the best. Best team. Fonse says that's the best team. And we honestly don't know what's about to happen, but they're going to reveal what, what team that is. It' am a Spanish football Barcelona fan, since nobody cares about Barcelona, so it's okay. And, but anyways, so who wants to go first?

[Fonzie]

Phil. Phil, you go. I'll give you the honors.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah. So to the listeners, I, I, they said, are you a football fan? I said, yeah, I'm in London. And they said, who do you support? And I said, tongue in cheek. I support the best club in London. And then I thought they'd be like, bang. Got it. Got it. There's anyone. But they didn't. But so I support the best club which as all three of us know is Chelsea.

[Fonzie]

Oh my gosh. Get out of here, Phil. Get out of here. Look at this.

[Phil Agnew]

Best team in the world I knew.

[Fonzie]

Oh, best team in the world right here.

[Luis]

So a little context. Fonse is an Arsenal fan, Phil is a Chelsea fan. Let us know in the comments. Send us a dm. Who's your team but North London forever. I'm just gonna say this. I'm just gonna say this. Barca Chelsea League Semi Final Barza Arsenal Champions League Final I am sorry guys. I think, I think I win on this one.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Phil Agnew]

He can live his own World in 2012. And I saw a very different thing, very different story there.

[Fonzie]

All right, Phil, we can, we can have one of these days a full on debate on which one is the best football team in the world, even though we all know his Arsenal. But for those that are listening right now, you know, for, for the, I guess the Chelsea fans that stay listening, you know, because all the Arsenal followers might have left right now, which is their loss because they're about to learn a lot. Right? But Phil, why don't you share a little bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are right now?

[Phil Agnew]

All right, cheers folks. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm Phil Agnew. I am a marketer by trade. Been a marketing for going on eight, nine years now. And I studied marketing at university as well, which is kind of a bit odd. Like, feels like that's not like a normal thing. I always feel like a bit weird when I say I'm in marketing and I studied marketing. It's like, come on, get a life. But anyway, I did that and like disclaimer, didn't think it was the best use of my money. It's very expensive here in the UK and I got into marketing, got into. My first marketing job was doing community management for a company down in Brighton. And I basically found myself thinking, this is really hard. I'm not, I'm not that good at this. And I should be a lot better because I've spent 50 grand, I've done four years worth of training, I've been training on the job. Why am I not much better than this? If I had spent that amount of time learning to be a doctor, I'd be a fairly good doctor by that stage. I wouldn't be just waiful. And it wasn't until later on in my career that I discovered behavioral science and consumer psychology and just psychology in general and started to learn some of the principles behind why people make decisions and start to apply those principles to marketing that I started to find success in my world. I started to get repeatable success. I started to be like that doctor or lawyer to some extent, who encounters a problem and is able to deal with it because they have a set of laws which they can rely on. That's how I felt when I sort of discovered behavioral science. So I got really addicted to behavioral science. I read everything there was to read, Spent a lot of time working with behavioral scientists as well, just to learn from them. And in 2019, started a show called Nudge, which is obviously named after one of the most famous behavioral science books, which by Richard Fowler and Cass Sunstein. And yeah, since then, I've been running Nudge, releasing episodes every two weeks with brilliant guests, folks like Rory Sutherland, Nia Eel, Bruce, Daisley Natalina. High loads of wonderful people have been on the show talking about how we make decisions. And I've spent all this time learning how we make decisions, and I've been applying it to my job as a marketer. And. Yeah, hopefully we can dig into a little bit of that today.

[Fonzie]

Dude, absolutely. Just so you know, I don't know if you noticed, but I used one of your tips in the intro, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. It said if people will listen more if you tell them not to listen. So I was like, hey, if you want to stay broke, do not listen to this episode. Maybe I didn't apply correctly, but, you know, I tried improvement through repetition.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, yeah, There's a lot behind that tip, which I'm sure we get into. It's. It's a gnarly one for sure.

[Fonzie]

Absolutely, man.

[Luis]

Phil, why. Why you decided to publish around, you know, what. Why you, like, and your passion that you found, Right. In behavioral science. Right. I don't think that's like, you know, you. You go to content creators and you're like, oh, my gosh, you know, I want to start, like this page on, I don't know, maybe football or Chelsea. But you went to, like, this niche, right? Like, I'm very curious because for us, you know, when we started continuous profit, it was not, maybe not the first choice. It was like, out of, like, a need for the business. Like, we were like, hail Mary. Like, this is the thing that has to work, because if not in two months, we're out of business. And thank God it did work. So, you know, 300 plus episodes, we're still here. Thank God. Yeah, knock on wood. But, you know, I'm very curious. Like, what, what, what prime that. Thought of starting publishing around that. And then how do you make the connection. Right. With what you do on your professional life or with your business or what you do around that?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah. So, I mean, that's partly just I wanted to speak to people smarter than me, and having a podcast is a great way to do that when I started up. So that was a big part of it. A good example that I'm reading a book at the moment called the Art of Thinking clearly, and it's a book about all these behavioral biases. And there's one great example he gives, the author gives, of sort of survivorship bias, which is a problem that we have in business. And this example of. I think it's originally from Taleb and the philosopher Taliban. It's this example where if you get 50,000 monkeys and get them to bet on whether the stock market will grow or decrease over a sort of week period, half of them will get it right. You'll get 25,000 monkeys that get it right. If you repeat that 20 times or however many times, you will eventually end up with a group of five monkeys or 20 monkeys who have consistently predicted the stock market to be correct time after time after time after time after time after. And people would be saying, these monkeys are geniuses. They are this. It's unbelievable. We should follow every single. Everything this monkey tells us, we should follow it. And it sounds ridiculous because I'm using the example of monkeys, but that is the example. If you just say business people rather than monkeys. Like, we follow very successful business people because they've had success without acknowledging that, really success in more most cases is heavily down to luck, heavily down to fluke, and it's rarely down to natural talent. I mean, just look at the incredible, incredibly disproportionate number of white male people in the business world compared to, you know, the major races, religions, genders in the world. It's completely unjust. And one of the reasons why I was so attracted to behavior science is I was really bored and really tired of marketing bs, really just fed up of just reading the same old advice by the same old dudes. You know, this classic survivorship bias of, you only go to a talk at a conference if it's got Facebook or Google or Apple, you know, it's one of the speakers. And we're all just. We're all learning stuff, which is nothing more than gut instinct and experience and stories. And I wanted to learn stuff that had been tested. Science. I wanted to Learn stuff that had repeatable results. I wanted to start to apply things to my work that I knew people had actually tried themselves and not tried themselves on a one to one level, but you know, at a much larger level and stuff that I could apply. So that's really why I was attracted to behavior science. That's really why I wanted to make a podcast about it and why I feel so strongly about it today. Because I feel like marketing, a lot of marketing is full, you know, a bit of marketing bs. There's way too much of it in our field and way too much of it in the business field and I'm on my little crusade to try and say no, let's test things, let's apply science and let's go from there.

[Luis]

What do you call marketing bs? I'm very curious.

[Phil Agnew]

What do I call marketing bets?

[Luis]

Yeah, you don't like or what is marketing acronym?

[Fonzie]

No, no, no, we know what the acronym stands for.

[Luis]

I mean translation marketing bullshit. Right. Like it's fine but like I'm curious like what, what is it? Right? Because you know, we came from this world of like direct response marketers and like you know, the, the click funnel world and you know we've been like levitating out of that. Like we use the tool for some things but it's crazy. And you, you start learning from these people that are very loud or that you consume this content from people that are very, very loud.

[Fonzie]

But at the same time they do use, I'm sure a lot of these principles that you talk about, right. To influence people and I'm going to say help them make a decision. So yeah, I'm same curious like what do you consider BS marketing?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah. So I mean I'm not going to throw people under the bus because I should, I should have, we can, we.

[Luis]

Can throw fancy under the bus. That's fine.

[Phil Agnew]

Definitely not you like so marketing bs, like the most successful business book of probably this year will be some sort of autobiography. It will be some sort of rich dude who's got been very successful, writes about their success and says look, here's all these wonderful things I wrote about, here's my story. Or it's somebody who's actually making a living selling books and has only got the goal of selling more books and that's their story. Yeah, that's what I'd classify as marketing bs. Maybe it's easier to say like what do I not think is bs? And I would point out to like books like this, this is Robert Cialdini's influence. Robert Cialdini is a social scientist at Arizona University. He does all his research, applies himself, himself, tests it, the stuff in there and the stuff in his new book that I wouldn't 100% agree with. But, like, he's testing it and he's working it, and people can build on it. And then you've got folks like Richard Shotten, who wrote the Choice Factory. He's not a scientist, he's just a marketer who is applying these principles, running his own tests, and then sharing those results to the world. You know, that stuff you can get behind, that stuff you can learn about. And that's what I mean. Like, I want to read books which don't start with, I was born in Washington, D.C. 1960, whatever. I don't know why they've got that accent either. But I don't want to be books where it's like, you know, here's my life story. If you wake up at 6am do yoga, take a cold shower, you'll be as successful as me. I want to, I want to read a book where it's like, here is this known bias that we have known about for 100 years. Here's me applying it to an ad. Here's the results I got. I'm not saying you should do it, but test it because it might work for you. That's what I want to read. And I think that's difference between behavioral science and some of the marketing BS I spoke about.

[Fonzie]

So lots of, I'm hearing data driven, you know, marketing, right. Things that again, have been tested multiple times. There's numbers behind it in the sense of like, hey, we tested this with a certain amount of population. These are the results. It's a little bit, it sounds like a little bit more tangible in a way.

[Phil Agnew]

Maybe. Yeah, maybe not. Data driven. Maybe peer reviewed is what you'd classify as. Because I think data driven, it can mean anything. It can just mean, you know, we do a little test ourselves. Let's lean on the science, lean on professionals and see what.

[Luis]

Yeah, and you can frame data, right. Like, however, like the angle that you really want to use it for.

[Phil Agnew]

Right.

[Luis]

Like, and we've talked about this on the show, you know that gray line. We've discussed this on titles and headlines and things, right? And Fancy Mother on the side of like, you know, Louise, you're, you're, you know, you're crossing that line. I'm like, well, no, I'm really at the edge of that gray line.

[Phil Agnew]

Right.

[Luis]

I'm like, but I get it. Right, because we've been involved. And it's crazy because there might be a lot of people listening to the show today that are. In that. Where we were there and until we didn't see like something from outside and we didn't educate ourselves or we continue to have these conversations through podcasts, for example, right? Like, we're like, okay, this is opening our world right after 300.

[Fonzie]

I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this out there. I still love direct response marketing. I think it's absolutely amazing.

[Luis]

And actually, he didn't say bullshit marketing was. I don't know.

[Fonzie]

I know, I know, but, but I know. I agree. But clickfunnels is. Is highly, highly linked to direct response marketing and they don't have a really good. You know, I'm. I'm not like putting up and down anybody here, but, you know, they, they have a lot of haters, right? But what I'm gonna say here is. And going back to. I have. I have like two questions, so I gotta pick which one I'm gonna ask first. And I guess the first one, right? Since we're talking about gray lines and all this thing is, a lot of people might look at the things that you talk about, right? This. This science, and they might think, okay, well, this person is trying to manipulate the consumer, right. In a way. That's not how I think. I just want to put it out there. But I think it is a. It's a serious concern, right? That is something that we've heard a lot in this other market, right? It's like, oh, man, all these guys do is.

[Phil Agnew]

Is.

[Fonzie]

Is very manipulative. They're just trying to get people to spend their money X, Y and Z. So I'm curious, how do you, like, have you ever approached that in a sense, right? Have you thought about. About as you're studying this, am I actually manipulating people or am I using this as a tool to help them make a decision, A decision that's going to help them in the long term?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah. I mean, what a question. It's a tough one to answer because if we're coming at it from a marketing standpoint or marketing's manipulate. If, if, if sending an ad to someone makes them change their behavior, and we know it makes them change the behavior, which is all I'm trying to do. And you could argue that's manipulative. You could. The reason why I don't think it is, or the reason why it may well be. I've got a lot. There's a lot wrong with advertising at the moment. There's a lot I hate about it. I'm a marketer with adblock on everything but the point. If we even remove it out of that. Let's just go down to. There's a great example of Google running an experiment in their cafeterias. And Google wanted to get more people to eat healthy food. Why? Because, in general, we all want to eat healthier. If our staff eat healthier, they get sick less, they stay alive for longer, they're fitter. There's all the benefits you get from that. So they wanted people to eat healthier. So they did some nudges to change perception. They reframed things. They basically put stuff like all of the fruit and veg at eye level. They put all of the fizzy soft drinks behind an opaque glass, and they put all of the water behind a transparent glass. They put the sweets slightly out of arm's reach. They made the plate slightly smaller, made all these little tweaks, all these nudges. Lo and behold, people were consuming far less calories. They were eating far more healthily. Once they made this change and once they realize this, they then have this dilemma of like, oh, crap, is this. Are we manipulating people? Should we do this? We don't know if we should. We should do this. And there was this real debate internally of like, oh, we're manipulating people to eat healthier. Maybe we should put it back to the old way. But then think about the old way that is manipulating people as well. It is because you've put the chocolate at eye level, you've put the fizzy drinks in a transparent container, you've put the water behind opaque glass. Like you. You're manipulating people in the same way. And I think what you need to do is you need to go in with a mindset of, who am I trying to help? How am I trying to help them? How am I trying to maybe influence them? But more importantly, if I was being influenced in the same way, so if this was happening to me, would I agree with it? Like, is it. Is it in line with my values? If I worked at Google, I'd say, yeah, keep it that way. Let me try and eat healthier. I can make decisions on my own, keep it that way. And if I'm as a marketer, if I see advertising that I think works, I think clearly gets across a point that encourages me to do something, I'm far more like, I think that's better. Personally, I would love a world where there are 10 ads, not 10,000, but they're just really effective. I'D love to see no more perfume ads. Wouldn't that be great? Just nonsense.

[Fonzie]

Every time I see those, I'm like, who gets paid for this thing? Like, they make no sense whatsoever.

[Phil Agnew]

One more thing is we're talking about advertising here. I'm not an advertiser. I'm a marketer. So actually what I'm doing is helping brands sell their products to people who usually want to buy the products on a website. And so I'm applying this stuff to help them do the thing that they want to do anyway, which is, which is, you know, what, what, what part of this product do I want? How can I try this thing? So that's, that's my angle.

[Fonzie]

I find this so interesting how this tiny little changes, right? Nudges, like, can cause such a big change, right? I mean, this example that you just shared, I thought it was impressive, right? Every freaking cafeteria in every school and everywhere here should be doing that stuff, right? But then there's probably marketing from the company that is selling the trash food, right? So they can get their stuff in front of the other stuff. And I think that's, that's part of the, the challenge in today's world and why so many people are now conscious about marketing and now calling it manipulative and all these things is, I mean, the access to information, right? And now you get slam with ads and just any other sort of marketing. And so people are now so aware that when they see somebody that is potentially doing something a little bit more direct, right? They might get on a, on a defensive side, like, oh, why are you trying to do this? Why are you trying to make me make a decision right now? Right? And I think that that's part of it, why people are considering, in a way, manipulative.

[Phil Agnew]

And there's a but, like, if you study behavior science, you'll understand that a hell of a lot better because what that is, is that's called reactance. So what's happening there? There's studies where. And you do this with children. If you've got kids, you'll be able to do this yourself. You bring a child into a room, this is studies. And you put two toys in the room. One toy is right in front of them, and one is behind a glass barrier. And you ask, which toy do you want to play with? 100% of the time, it'll be the toy behind the glass barrier. You can then swap the toys at a later date, try it again. Doesn't matter what the toy is. You want the thing that you can't have. And part of that is because you want to push back at the establishment. So you want to say, no, I don't want to. I don't want to be, you know, I want the freedom of choice. I want to be able to choose what I want to choose. If you understand reactants, if you understand that people react that way, you can actually build that into your marketing. So a good example in the UK is we have this movement called Veganuary which every January tries to get people to consume more vegan meals to make a more sustainable planet. A worthy cause in my mind. Now in the past they've done marketing which actually causes reactants, stuff like saying, and beyond meat have done this as well in the past, saying, don't be a loser, don't eat meat. Or like, don't, you know, don't. Basically, essentially saying that if you eat meat, you're a loser. Yeah. Whereas, you know, behavioral scientists look at that straight away and say, don't say that. Definitely don't say that. Because all you're going to do is cause reactants. All you're going to do is make people be defensive. What you should try and do is make the behavior seem really commonplace. So say something along the lines of, in the past five years, three times as many people have tried meat free products. Maybe it's time to try yours today or something along those lines. So there's, I think that's where I come from with it of like, you know, if you start to understand the principles behind people, behind how people make decisions.

[Luis]

Yeah.

[Phil Agnew]

You'll be able to factor all this stuff in and, and make marketing that actually works.

[Luis]

I love this. And you know, when you were explaining that before Reactance, there's two stories that came to mind. I love a podcast, Business wars. Right. And I, there was a series there about diamonds, how, you know, we come from Venezuela. Just a little background. Like our parents like never wore like their marriage rings or like they were never big into that stuff. And then when we come here to the States when it was time for me to propose, I was very lucky because Katie was like, yeah, whatever, you know, but the ring. And I was like, what is this thing with the rings? And you have to spend like two and a half, like months of your salary to do this ring. And it's like everybody's talking about the engagement ring, right? And you know, I was very lucky that, you know, Katie was, that, you know, was not that girl, but she still got a ring. And I'm like, but like, why, like, isn't this a commitment between two people. Like, it's just very weird. It was just very weird to me. And then I hear this story and.

[Fonzie]

It was all women listening to this are punching her right now. They're like, what are you talking about? I'm not gonna send this podcast to my boyfriend right now.

[Luis]

I don't care. I'll send it to him. But the De Beers family, right, which control the diamonds and the, and the whole market, when they came to the States, they, they established as a marketing campaign that to sell the rings, to be able to sell the rings, they hired these Hollywood studios and the movies and all these movies around that time was they were framed to actually sell these diamonds. And they actually decided the two and a half, like salaries, price point in an office. And now these became this thing and now this obviously exploded. And you know, I hear that story, I'm like, how many other things like we believe from, you know, when we were born or things that our parents maybe pass on to us or these companies pass on to us? I'm like, how much of this is marketing, right? Breakfast the way that Americans do breakfast, right? It's a lot of it. The cereal, all this thing that's fast paced nutrition that a lot of people might be having negative reactions to, right? And you start to think and question really like, what is the ethics of marketing and what are these things? And then there's a book called Hate Inc. Not to get political, but I just want to mention it. And it's the story of media here in the States on why they transition into a very polarizing and how like things are like really messed up in media today, mainstream media. And I thought it was super interesting because they talk about those same things and they're like, okay, they really learn how humans behave, right? And they, they exploited that for profits. And you're like, wow. And again, everybody has their point of view, but I think it's like pretty, pretty, pretty awesome point of view to like explore that route. And we, I thought you were going.

[Fonzie]

To say pretty awesome to exploit.

[Luis]

Definitely, definitely Fonzie off the mark. But you know, we come from a, we come from a socialist country, communist country with a dictatorship, right? And we saw the whole propaganda, we saw the whole thing. We saw like that they control people in different, different aspects and different environments, right? And it was really hard. That's why we're here. So it just really, it's home. And I, and I, and I'm loving this topic and diving deep into, into.

[Fonzie]

All this, I want to take a Quick thought here to that story about the diamonds, right? If you look at it, this is oversimplifying the whole story, but, okay, they had the diamonds, they placed them in the eyes of, you know, everybody that was watching movies. You know, they put it in the. In the rings of the movie stars. And I feel like that speaks to status. Do you want to be like this famous person, Right. Do you want to have this romantic story? And people are like, yes, of course. And eventually everybody started getting into that. And this is something that we heard a long time ago, that a lot of people make decisions based on status, right? Improving their status. And I'm curious, right, like, how much, and I'm not looking for, like, a clear number, but how much of this behavioral science goes around status and improving somebody's status and actually how effective it is?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, we care an awful lot about how people think about us. So our behavior changes dramatically when we're thinking not about ourselves as an individual, but thinking about how others are perceiving us. So if you want to get people to conserve more energy, this is a study done by Opower, I think, in the uk they sent two groups of people their energy bill. One group of people just said, the energy bill. Try and reduce your energy consumption. It's good for the environment. The other said, honestly, they weren't being disingenuous. This was true for the people who were in this case. They said, oh, by the way, you're using more energy than your neighbors. You might want to reduce. When people read that, they dramatically reduced their energy consumptions up to three years after they received that one letter, that's how powerful that is. Just thinking of yourself and compared to others changes your behavior. And I think the status one. You're talking about De Beers, you're talking about how they got movie stars to wear the rings. For me, that's halo effect. So halo effect is. This is a 100-year-old principle. So this is not a new thing. This was discovered 100 years ago. And it's been present not just in humans, but in the species for eons. You know, gorillas have the halo effect where we. Basically what you do is you see a individual that has one very positive trait that could be that they are a CEO or that they are a movie star or that they are a rock star or that they happen to be attractive or tall. And you assume that they have a number of other traits that make them a positive person. You assume that you sort of embrace them. Positivity, which is why George Clooney who, as far as I know, knows nothing about coffee, is the number one coffee salesman in the world and not the world's best barista. You know, it's why I don't know all these examples, you know, why Daniel Craig sells watches when you know he's just an actor. And the halo effect is more interesting, it's way more interesting than just looking at how it's used in advertising because it affects us in all of our day to day. So there's this amazing study in Dutch supermarkets, and these two people sat outside a Dutch supermarket which had one door which you had to open. And, you know, it was a small door, so you'd often open it and let people free. And they measured how many people let others free. And what they were looking to see is if there was some sort of correlation or causation between the height of people and whether they were let through or not. And what they found is taller people, just because of their height, were significantly more likely to have the door held open for them by a smaller person. We have this bias towards taller people. Same goes for beauty. There's this famous studies which have found that people who are attractive genuinely get an increase in pay. I think for males and women, it's an increase of around £600 or dollars per. Per year, which is the equivalent to some of the racial differences, you know, so beauty is a big one as well. You've got. You've got heaps of other stuff there. This amazing study by, I think it's J Awitz, which looked at jaywalking in the. Lefkowitz, I should say, which looked at jaywalking in the States and he got his researchers to jaywalk across roads in the States and see how many people would follow him or see how many people would follow the researchers. When people are wearing denims and a T shirt, very few people follow them. When people are wearing a suit, suddenly three times more people following. We literally follow suits, not just in a business sense, in a general sense, illegally, across the road. So halo effect affects us in all sorts of ways. And just before we finish, I'll leave you my number one favorite example of the halo effect. Yeah, yeah. So in the UK, back in the 80s, Cold War was raging. There was a genuine threat that nuclear bombs would be firing off between the US and Russia and that the UK would be stuck in the middle of it. So in the uk, the government issued a bunch of video preparation videos to try and get people to prepare for nuclear war. These were videos which told you what to do where to go, how to act if nuclear war strikes. Who would you expect them to get to face these videos? You probably think prime minister, you know, head of the army, some sort of very trusted person. Nah, they chose England footballer and Jordy. Kevin Keegan. Kevin Keegan went on to be England manager. He was the face of these campaigns. This footballer. It was like in his 30s at the time, had absolutely no experience with nuclear or nothing like that. And yet people listen to this message. Why? Because he is a good footballer. And when somebody has a good skill, we assume them to have other good skills. We're more likely to take their advice. So the halo effect is incredible. I mean, it's really something to be wary of, you know, as an individual, I think, do I really like working here because I like the people, or do I like working here because I think, you know, I'm just. Something about the CEO is making me think, yeah, I should stick around.

[Fonzie]

Wait, before you share, you're coming here?

[Luis]

I'm.

[Fonzie]

I'm first. I'm amazed at all the stories that you know for each of the topics. Obviously you are a master of your craft, man. So congrats on that. I do want to speak eventually. It doesn't have to be in this conversation today on how do you. You do your research and how you keep memorize all those stories, because I find that absolutely amazing. And I mean, the. The other thing is, I mean, this whole thing is blowing my mind.

[Luis]

I just want to say I understand now why I was not successful at the United States bars when I came to college here in the state. I'm 5 7. People here are taller. 20. Like, it's like now it makes a lot of sense. So, you know, that's why my wife is Canadian. Like, she, she, you know, she wasn't adhering to people states, you know, So I. That makes a lot of sense.

[Fonzie]

So they feel like this is.

[Luis]

This is so good.

[Fonzie]

This is my. The question that I have is I feel like you have this level of awareness now on how, you know, people can again, influence decisions all over the place. And I think that that gets to be fun to an extent, because you now see every sort of marketing and you're like, oh, they could do this better. Or, wow, that is great because of this. Or you see people taking action and you're like, okay, they're doing it because X, Y and Z reason. But I'm extremely curious on how all this knowledge, all this awareness. Right. Has affected your life personally.

[Phil Agnew]

Right.

[Fonzie]

Like when you are at the end of the marketing Being marketed and you feel yourself, you know, persuaded to take action. Like, do you look at yourself in a way and stop yourself, reflect? I'm so curious.

[Phil Agnew]

It's a good question.

[Luis]

So by the way, for those listening, go watch the video because there's a bunch of question marks around our faces and our heads right now. Because this is just like priming all these questions down. We're seeing the world with different eyes, which is amazing.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, Fonzie, that's a good question. And I think I'm definitely no expert. And I think Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winner, behavioral scientist, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, he was asked this. He said, oh, you must be like a superpower. You must act so differently. He said, no, I literally don't act differently at all. There are two modes of thinking in the brain. There is system one and system two. System one is fast, automatic unconscious, makes 98% of our decisions. And you can try to train that and like you can, but it's so quick that you rarely catch onto it. That said, you do occasionally pick up on it. So like I was in the cafe I was in, I work often from a local coffee shop and I was in there today. And there's this. There's this great technique, salesperson technique that people use called the door in the face technique, which is where you ask for something fairly big and people say no, and then you follow up with something small. So Cialdini talks about this in his book Pre Suasion. He said he would go up to people and say, in one set of scenarios, will you chaperone these kids who are, I think, also juvenile and imprisoned in a juvenile prison? Basically they're kids you wouldn't want to chaperone around the zoo for your whole day on Sunday. He says, will you do this? Basically no one says yes. It's actually a surprising amount of people do say yes. It's not zero percent, but basically no one says yes. In the second scenario, he uses this door in the face technique where he asks for something much bigger. So it's a bit of anchoring, but it's also this sort of dual question approach where he says, will you give up, mentor these children? We're looking for people to mentor these children for like a five year course. Over a period of five years. We would love someone to mentor these children. Give an hour of your time each week. Obviously, no. Barely anyone said no to that. I think some people do, but barely anyone said no. Yeah, and then he follows up with the smaller ask and says, well, you know, okay, if you can't do that, no worries. By the way, we're looking at people to chaperone on Sunday. A much larger, I think three times as many people said yes to that request versus the first one. And so you learn about this stuff. I learn about this stuff. And then I'm at. I'm at a coffee shop earlier today because there's this other example of this, which was again, done by waitresses, and it showed how you could apply this to business. Waitress goes up to people and says, do you want a dessert? And if she leaves at three minutes between saying, do you want a dessert? And them saying no, and then says, do you want tea and coffee? No one will want tea and coffee if he or she says, do you want a dessert? And then ask. And if people say no, ask immediately. Okay, but do you want tea and coffee? They're much more likely to say yes. So there's this sort of intimacy immediate, like, okay, say no to one, but get them to say yes to the other. And I would just noticed it at the coffee shop. I was like, that's so funny. Like, he. He, like the guy, he came in and he said, so what, you know, what can I get you today? Would you like to try one of our, like, really nice sandwiches that we put together? It's quite expensive. The person said, no, okay, no worries. What about this lovely iced coffee we've got today, which is again, more expensive than what people would normally have? And got the person to say, yes, like that. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I'll try the coffee. I'll try this iced latte. And I was sitting there like that was it, thinking, thinking that, look, they've been done. And then I looked down at what I was drinking.

[Fonzie]

They got me, too.

[Luis]

Well, they did that to you. Fancy the other day when you brought the. The breakfast, the perfect tacos. And then you come up, you come home with a tray of coffee and juice, and you're like, bro, I just. I just asked you for a breakfast taco.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, they upsold me The. The whole store.

[Phil Agnew]

It's not.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, that. That is so cool.

[Luis]

That.

[Fonzie]

That reminds me a little bit of the price anchoring type of deal, right? Where they go on. On a person. This is how we've experienced it. We're in a live event that they're selling from stage. And, you know, they drop, you know, this campaign or this system has, you know, has been responsible for a million dollars in profits. So that is the first number that people get in their head, right? And they use now that as a reference for whatever number that comes after. So if they would be selling that system for, I don't know, $1.5 million, people would be like, whoa, that is extremely expensive. But then they go like, hey, you can have all this for $47 for. Yeah. You know, for 20 grand. And people are like, whoa, so cheap. Right? And there's a lot more buildup in there.

[Luis]

And I think that, I think that technique has been raped, like, many times. And like, where, you know, it's crazy. You go to these webinars, right? It's like, hey, this. The full value of this is $20,000, but you can have it to that 27, right? And you're like, what's that actually make make sense, right? Like, is that the real value? And I think, like, bullshit marketing, we go back to that, right? There's a lot of people right now trying to, Trying to use these, like, techniques. But people are smarter today, right? They, they, they catch on to it.

[Fonzie]

I think they're more aware. They, They've. I feel like now, or maybe this is just my perception because we just live so deep in that world that we just see offers all the time on. Of this type. Right? That we are extremely aware of it. But yeah, I do agree that to an extent, people are, by being more aware. I don't know what is the right word to use, but they're a little bit more immune to some of those tactics. Do you think, do you think that, do you think, like, people are building some, you know, I'm doing air quotes in here. Immunity to some of these behavioral nudges?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, potentially. Potentially. I think, unfortunately, so many of our decisions are made by this quick snap system. One part of our brain that we, we think we're immune, but we're often not. There's been lots of studies in, like, criminal cases, fictional criminal cases, which actual lawyers will take part in, where the person who is suing starts with a range of differences. One scenario they're suing for 20 grand. One scenario they're suing for 50. One scenario, they're suing for a million. One scenario they're suing for 100 million. And each scenario is just, I've spilled a bit of coffee on my hand and it's too hot, for example. And it doesn't matter what the anchor is, how ridiculous it is. In the 100 million scenario, they always get more money. So, like, there's these weird examples where anchoring still has an effect, even if it's ridiculous amount.

[Luis]

No, absolutely.

[Phil Agnew]

And like, I would always say there's one company that probably could charge anything they want in the world and people would pay for it and yet use anchoring consistently. And I think it shows that it works. And that's. That's Apple. What do you believe Steve Jobs was a master of anchoring would always. If you watch the introduction, my favorite is of. Of the iPad. He's standing on stage saying, because there'd been a lot of debate and they lead up to that, but how much it would cost. Now most people said it should cost no more than $250 because what the hell are you going to use an iPad for? I've got a phone and I've got a laptop. One person said it might cost $999 because it's quite advanced technology. And on stage, Steve has just done a presentation, presses a button. Nine hundred ninety nine dollar symbol appears behind him and he says, some of you have said it will cost this much, which makes a lot of sense. This is a huge development. There's been a lot of work put into it. It's a massive innovation in the field. And he presses a button. But we've managed to get the price right down. And then the 999 literally shatters into a million pieces and goes to 499. We've managed to get it down to $499. And the journalists in the room are like, we've been cheering. That's amazing. And they're the exact same journalists who earlier that week were saying it shouldn't cost more than $250. But just with a simple anchor, it influences people. That said, I think the, the, the financial, like the pricing anchors, everyone knows them now, it's sort of overused. I think there's more interesting ways to use anchoring.

[Luis]

Yeah.

[Phil Agnew]

You know, like if you. The De Beers example is a great one. You shared it earlier, you know, saying two and a half month worth of your salary to is how much engagement ring should cost is. Is a much more interesting use of anchoring than just, you know, 999 reduced to 499.

[Luis]

I love the, the Apple because I experienced something very similar. I just got the new crazy headphones that Apple has and you know, that was a big decision. I was like, oh my gosh, okay, I'm making the investment 500 bucks. You know, this pair of headphones and hashtag business expense. But, but like the decision, it was funny because then we got these amazing headphones from HubSpot. Right. Their Beats are amazing. They're Great quality and the price is a little bit lower. And I'm like, oh my gosh, let me watch this video comparing both of them. And there was like this one guy that was explaining that you go to the Apple store and you see both headphones right there, right? Because like Apple sells Beats, right? And you see the 500 something and then the other one and you're like, okay, quality might be similar, maybe like different preferences, but the main difference is not, it's not much. And the guy's like, well, maybe Apple released those, those. Maybe they're marginally better, but the price is so high. So maybe they're selling more Beats because people go to the store, they see both. They see, you know, the, the main Apple headphones, the Max, whatever AirPod Max, and they're like, oh my gosh, 500 bucks. But then we have the Beats, 300, 250. I might get those because, you know, they still do the job, right? So I'm very curious maybe. And if somebody listening has that data that will be very interesting to, to, to see did they actually sold more Beats after they release a more expensive version of the headphones, right? So in a sense it'd be like, okay, how do we present, you know, price anchoring between products, right? And, and we've debated this inside of our own programs, right? We have the, we have a service, we have a, we just really sat down with you, with people that we've been enjoying thoroughly to do it and we're like, okay, how do we actually price this thing? Right? Is it, it's not time based, right? It's value based. And the price conversation has been present, very present in our inside of our business for the last two years, right? So have you found some, some research or, or some information on like to help people price their things?

[Fonzie]

Right.

[Luis]

A lot of people that listen to the show, they might be selling a service, right? They might be selling something. Like, what are some practical tips that we can use maybe to, to target or to take advantage when it comes to pricing ethically, Right?

[Phil Agnew]

Number one tip is to stop pricing based on pure cost. And I know that might sound manipulative or it might sound like an odd thing to say, but. Well, one, I guarantee you do not buy a product which is priced based on cost unless you're down at your local grocery store. The vast majority of things you buy, I mean, there was a thread about McDonald's the other day. The cost of a hamburger to actually produce is literally cents you're paying for a brand you're definitely not paying for nutrition. So that's the number one tip. Just when you're talking, Ellery, I'm thinking about price decoys. So Apple, I don't know if they've done this with your headphones because I think they want people to buy them. But I think it's a really good example of have they created a product that they don't want to sell, they just want to use it to anchor people onto another product. And I know they've done this before because if you go and look at. I used to have an Apple watch and I always wanted to buy a new band because I didn't like the band that I had. And if you go and look at new bands on that page, they have like ridiculously priced, so expensive. I think they're like Armani brands or like Gucci brands, which are a thousand dollar, you know, more than the actual watch itself. And there's no way. I mean, they sell it to like maybe 0.001.

[Luis]

They're still.

[Phil Agnew]

They don't make money on it. All it does is make a 50 pound band, which is a ridiculous amount of money for a bit of plastic. A 50 pound band looks like really good value. That's all it's there for. And the science behind this comes from a brilliant book by Dan Ariely which is called Predictably Irrational. And in the book he gives this example, and this is way back, of the Economist. So the Economist is a magazine subscription. You know, you can subscribe to the Economist Economist. And he couldn't. He was reading it one day and he couldn't believe what they had in there because it said it was three options to subscribe to the Economist. One option, the top option was web only. And also, yeah, web only. And it cost like 150 quid. And then the bottom option was print only and it cost 79 quid. Quid is is dollars in the US currency. And then he had a middle one. 79, 150. And then he had a middle one which was web and print for 120. He was like, why would anybody who would be buying the web only version for 150 when you get that for 120 and you get both because you get the web and the print 1 for 120. And so he did this test, he brought it to his students and showed half of the students the version that I've just talked to you through, and then the other half a version with that middle option removed. So no longer can you get. You have to either pick between the two. And what he found was the average amount people spent was drastically higher. When you had this decoy, when you had this decoy product that nobody would buy, it just massively made everybody think, oh, I need both web and print, because it's such a good deal, versus when you had to choose between the two. And so lots of companies use these decoys to anchor people to a higher price. I think the example of Apple is a very good one. The signature range at McDonald's is another good one of a more expensive version which is not particularly sold a lot of. But people try and buy it and there are all sorts of examples. And I think as a marketer, I wouldn't necessarily go out and say this is going to revolutionize your marketing. Go stick an anchor on everything. But when you're thinking about pricing, you need to bear these things in mind, because people will never view your price rationally. They will never view your price rationally. So you need to approach it with the understanding that there will be. There will be irrational ways that I look at it and just being aware of that can help you price better and to increase your margins and maybe to get what your product's actually worth.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. Phil, man, I hope you are really appreciated a buffer. I'm sure they do. I'm sure they appreciate you so much. You are a well of knowledge man, my friend. And it's. It's amazing, you know, I can't believe.

[Luis]

We'Re almost at the hour. I'm like, what?

[Fonzie]

Yeah, and just I want to kind of like frame these for. For the listener right now is all these things that we've talked today personally, and correct me if if I'm wrong, I want to hear your opinion too, but I feel like all of these things can be used and applied to your content. Writing your message while you're talking, sharing information. Right? Even. I think even the halo effect, right. You can use it as. When you're about to start talking about a certain topic, just refer to a very specific person with a very high status, right. As your example. And then you are putting the halo. Halo effect into effect in motion. So, man, this has been absolutely amazing. And I know we're getting here towards the end, but I am so curious on which one is your favorite nudge and which one has been the one that you've used the most throughout your career.

[Phil Agnew]

Use the most. Yeah, it's difficult to call that. I've got a favorite, though. I've got an easy favorite just because, you know, I didn't really believe people were properly irrational until I heard this one. So there's obviously scarcity, the idea that we value scarce resources much higher. The day that Concorde announced that they would stop flying between New York and London in like, two years time, the price of the tickets went through the roof because it suddenly became a scarce resource. We all know this, and this isn't irrational in a way, because back in our. When we were cavemen, this was a really smart thing to do, to go after scarce resources. But one of my favorite examples of this is a study in a supermarket in the States. And in the study, they had big signs up which said, buy soup. And people went out and bought. I think it was two and a half, two and a half cans of soup. And it's like, well done. Marketing works. You say, buy soup, people buy soup. Then they tried a scarcity variant, and all it said was, buy soup. And then a little star. And underneath it said something like, limited to 12 cans per customer. Now this is irrational. Nobody was buying 12 cans of soup prior to it. There was not a single person who went away with, like 20 cans of soup. Nobody bought 12 cans of soup. But that one message made the soup seem scarce. The amount of soup people bought, it's like three and a half cans, maybe even four cans, if I remember rightly, once they saw that message. So it's just. I love that example because I think it. You know, we always. We think of ourselves as rational human beings, and in a major part, we are. But so much of our life is spent being a bit irrational.

[Luis]

Yeah.

[Phil Agnew]

And as marketers, we're in the. We're in the business of making people change their decisions. So the best thing you can do as a marketer is understand how those decisions are made in the first place and try and apply those findings to your work.

[Luis]

I fill this example so deeply.

[Fonzie]

Right.

[Luis]

Like, in the last two years, obviously.

[Fonzie]

You just came from buying a bunch of soup.

[Luis]

So, I mean, the last few years, you probably heard the craziness about toilet paper in the United States when all this, like, Covid things started, right? Like, people. We literally went to Walmart to see people fight for toilet paper. Like, people were just like. And it was crazy. But also, there's like, this supermarket Aldi, and there were the same thing, limiting the tuna cans. And it was crazy because as you're explaining this thing, and they're like, okay, you know, only two cans per person. Right. And I'm like, I call my wife. I'm like, where are you? Can you drive at Aldi. Because I need to buy four cans of tuna, right? Which in the past, I would have bought just two, and then the next day I would have bought next, right? And it hits home because, like, it happens every single day. So, you know, I want to encourage, if you're listening, keep your eyes open for these opportunities, these things, right? Because those are things that you can implement ethically, right? In your business or in your message or in your content on how to create, how to frame things. I put a note in here to.

[Fonzie]

To buy more soup.

[Luis]

To buy more soup. Yeah. To encourage. Encourage the people to like to not listen to the podcast. Right. You know, I think this is a great intro and we can test it, right? And see what's up.

[Fonzie]

And so there's a key takeaway, and I might just be making this up in my mind, but. But I find it interesting how there's all these tools, right? All these different nudges, and there are lots of very different creative ways of applying all of these, right? For example, we talk about the price anchoring that, hey, you get this, and this is the value, and this, and this is the value that is overused, right? And now people see it and they can catch up to it. But again, I'm sure you can find a very different way of price anchoring your product, right? And have the same effect. The scarcity, right, usually is we only accept five people. What if instead of saying that we only accept five people, you say, limited to only doing it once. You can only do this thing one time, this cohort, and that's it. So you better take advantage of it, right? I feel like that's a sense of scarcity because people say, oh, man, they must have people asking to come in multiple times in a sense, or at the same time is so good that they just. Yeah, they just want to try it again, whatever. So that I find that super interesting because sometimes I feel like I'm just seeing the same thing over and over again. But by knowing those laws and principles that you mentioned at the very beginning, you have the foundation to then maybe think a little bit more creatively in how you apply this inside of your business. And that is extremely powerful.

[Phil Agnew]

And foundation is a good word. Think about it like architecture. If you're building a building. If you didn't understand how architecture works, every single one of us would be living in a mud hut and it would look the same. There are foundational things you have to know about buildings, about how deep you have to have to dig, how. How much weight you can Things can hold how much structure, what materials work. For me, that is like behavior science. To market, you need the foundations. You need to learn that, and then you can get creative. Look how many wonderful buildings there are. Architecture is extremely varied, but only because you have that same foundational understanding that you can become creative and build these other things. Otherwise we'd all be. We'd all be in mud huts. So I think that's like, that's why I think applying behavior sciences is so valuable. It gives you that foundation to build on.

[Fonzie]

You're doing so much good for the marketing world, my friend. All the marketers appreciate it. Phil, what is your favorite book out of all this? Because you mentioned so many resources, so many books, and we wrote them down, so we make sure we refer to them in the notes. But yeah, it's interesting. You must have. You must have a favorite, because if.

[Phil Agnew]

You'Ve listened, like, I'm just going to give a book I've read recently, which I really like, because definitely the ones I've referenced so far, go and read. But if you're new to this, if you're interested in it, you want a slightly different version. This book here is called the Biggest Bluff. This is a sort of behavior journalist, but knows a lot about psychology and behavior science. And she decided she was going to study how people make decisions and not apply it to marketing, but apply it to becoming a poker player. And this is her story of how she applied all these behavior science principles to becoming a poker player and like, eventually becoming. I won't ruin it, but very, very successful.

[Fonzie]

Still that.

[Luis]

Spoiler alert. Just keep it.

[Phil Agnew]

She does journalism now, but only as a hobby. Wow, that's a good book. Go check out the Biggest Bluff.

[Fonzie]

That sounds so much fun. Sounds like potentially they can make a movie out of. Out of that book in there.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah.

[Fonzie]

And then this is. I'm like, last question, five questions ago.

[Luis]

He did take that. You know, we got time, like, pretty okay.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, I took it too hard. Well, I'm just curious on how do you remember? Like, do you have a database? How do you remember all these stories as soon as you read them? Do you immediately share them or do you have a naturally good memory?

[Phil Agnew]

I've spent. I mean, I do. You know, I talk about them a lot. I'm always talking about them on the show. So there's. I don't think I've got a naturally good memory at all. So I think it's just that there is hope. There's hope then when I'm reading a book, because Often, I mean, reading a book is difficult because you want to just sit there and enjoy it, but at the same time you want to be able to remember a few things. So I use an app called Highlighted where I can take a picture of a page, scan a bit of the notes and then tag it. So I'll read something, I'll say, oh, that's a really good point about anchoring. So I'll scan it with highlighted and then tag it as anchoring and then put it in my notes and can refer back to it at later stage. So that really helps. That's one thing that I use. But otherwise I just spend too much time at the publisher chatting about all this rubbish. That's my problem.

[Fonzie]

Wait, you do, you do go to a bar and just talk to people about this stuff.

[Phil Agnew]

Random people. I'll go up and I'll find something. Joking. I don't do that. Your faces, you're like crazy.

[Fonzie]

This sounds great. I'm about to go do that.

[Luis]

With the face that we took, we went. We were in a coffee shop once and there was this guy that sat next to us with a sign. What was it looking? Interesting conversations or.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, he's like looking for interesting conversations.

[Luis]

And he just sat there with this sign. And we were like, I think we were talking or having a meeting. And he sat there probably for like 10 or 15 minutes and just chilling, like, not even drinking coffee. He was just there with a sign. And people like looked at the sign and kept walking. Look at the sign, kept walking. And then we got up and we're like, man, nice to meet you, man. Like, we're like fascinated by this. Like, tell us about it.

[Fonzie]

I explicitly remember his question. He's like, you gotta share with me what is one thing that you believe to be true that most people that you share it with, they don't. And it actually gave for a very good conversation. But you know, I feel that that's a little bit more open ended. Like, hey man, have you heard about behavioral science in marketing and how, you.

[Phil Agnew]

Know, definitely getting no drinks.

[Fonzie]

Either they kick you out or they hire you and give you beer for free for the rest of your life.

[Luis]

Phil, last question of the show. I mean, as an action point, there's so many here, but I like the pricing one. Right. That's something that we ask and something very specific for people to kind of go and maybe implement and test and experiment. So if you test it, let us know. Put it in the comments. But Phil, where will you be if you did not publish?

[Phil Agnew]

Where would I be if I did.

[Luis]

Not publish podcast podcast content.

[Phil Agnew]

Just sitting on that. Safer. Maybe watching a bit of telly.

[Fonzie]

Probably. Probably crying a Stanford Bridge.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah. Spending more time.

[Luis]

We don't, we don't have that sound. That's awesome. I really want to encourage everybody to go and check out Phil's podcast. We're going to leave all the links right below. Amazing production you did mentioned. Can I have two more minutes? I'm very curious, like you mentioned, you're.

[Fonzie]

Not going to sleep tonight, Phil.

[Luis]

That's it. You're spending the whole night. I'm very curious on your cadence, right, like obviously highly produced. We produce three a week for a reason. It's not highly produced to some people's standards, but for us it is. But I'm very curious, like why you decided on that cadence. How do you create, like, what's your creation cadence? Can you walk us through a little bit of your process? Because a lot of the people that we help, right, they're going through that. They're trying to figure out like, what is their production cadence? How do they actually remove friction to create. There's a lot of people that have jobs, there's people that are busy operating their own businesses and this is a big lift for them. So can you share a little bit of like, how do you actually came to that cadence and how do you operate?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, like you said, Nudge Podcast is a show I run. Nudge Marketing science simplified if you're struggling to find it. And yeah, at the moment it's a bi weekly cadence. So I only publish a podcast every two weeks which like has its pros and cons, arguably a lot of cons. Doesn't help me out with the charts, doesn't help me out with downloads, doesn't help me out with heaps of things. Purely like just the time and quality thing. Like I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I. And I'm very like insecure as well. Like I'm conscious of the fact that I'm not, you know, I'm. Who am I? I'm some marketer, I'm some dude with a microphone. I'm talking to people far smarter than me. So I really want to make sure the shows are good. I really want to research them, I want to put a lot of time into them. So, you know, for me, every single show I record with the guest. I don't record myself at that stage. It's just about getting the guest content. I will have read their book already after I record the show. I'll go and do a heap of research to find similar studies to reference or other topics to talk about, weave a story behind it and then record myself doing my script and then stitch that together and publish it. And that just takes heaps of time even for a 20 minute show like nudge. But it just means hopefully the show is fairly high quality and it's concise as well. Like I think, I think there's. There are two styles of podcast. I really like this style and this is the style of podcast I listen to when I'm out running. Like the two dudes or two people talking and just having a yarn. Yeah, hopefully not. Hopefully not. Hopefully arrange. But like I love that style of. And like it is cool. I think it's called two dudes talking. That's why I said it.

[Fonzie]

Oh, that's the name of the actual podcast.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, yeah, no, no, not the actual podcast. Anyway, I'm going way off topic. I like the podcast. I really like this style of like just having a yarn, having a chat, having a chin wag. And then I like for me the other, other style is like, well, if I, if I don't want that, I want something really condensed. I want it 20 minutes. I want to get the points across, don't want the waffle. So I like the in between now and I've. I went for the other one. So I went to the extreme and that's why there's a two weeks cadence. But eventually, fingers crossed, we'll be down to a weekly cadence.

[Fonzie]

Yes, amazing. I do want to encourage everybody to go and check out his podcast Nudge Podcast. But the value of the production is absolutely amazing. I can totally understand why it is bi weekly and I mean just the quality of information. You've had some incredible guests. Harry Dry. I love reading marketing examples. Every time I get hit with Daniel's a lot, I'm like, oh, this is so cool. How you do it is. Is not your typical just conversation, but you are reflecting on what they said. It's. You just weave the story so good into, in, in the podcast. So I do want to encourage everybody to go check it out. You also had. What's his name? I think he's the CEO of Ogilvy. I might.

[Phil Agnew]

Rory Sutherland.

[Fonzie]

Yes, yes.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean he's a, he's a hero, isn't he? Everyone, a lot of people will know him. He's also that people say, I've had Rory Sutherland on my show because it's a great thing to say. But he will say yes to every podcast. So watch out folks, because if you're getting hit with. I've had Rory Sutherland on my show. Like, oh, that's just a bit of halo effect. He does say yes to everyone.

[Luis]

Take a shot.

[Phil Agnew]

He is amazing. I think that's my most listened to episode. Like his book Alchemy is well worth it. Well worth a read as well.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, fun fact. We actually use the halo effect and not so much right now, but at the beginning we used it a lot to get people on the podcast. We're like, oh, we will just name drop the whole thing. It would really work, work out there.

[Luis]

Plus you stop talking because we have to like feeling. So go to bed.

[Fonzie]

I know. Phil, where can people find you besides the podcast? Where can they connect with you?

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Connect on LinkedIn. Find me on Twitter. Phil Agnew on there. So Phil with two L's, a G, N E W. I'm on TikTok. TikTok as of this week. Can you believe it?

[Fonzie]

Let's go.

[Phil Agnew]

So search for Nudge podcast, nudgepod. All one word on Tick Tock. You find me on there. Drop me an email as well. Philudgepodcast.com. that's Phil with two L's and nudgepodcast.com as well, if you're nice.

[Luis]

Awesome.

[Phil Agnew]

But yeah, the show is where you want to go.

[Fonzie]

I, I can totally see your Tick Tock blowing up with all these stories and like actionable advice and, you know, these principles. I think, people, your content on TikTok is the one that I would look at it and then go binge, watch every other single video that you have on your profile and then 10 hours later forget all about it and be like, man, I need to go, I need to go back and refer to it. I watch it again.

[Phil Agnew]

Yeah, I don't know. I've got no idea what you're doing. If you want to laugh, go and look at it because it is an absolute amateur. So if you want to laugh, go and have a look at that.

[Luis]

Phil, we would love to, you know, share a drink. One of those six dollars. Like six quid coffee. All right.

[Fonzie]

A drink at the pub or a.

[Luis]

Drink at the pub. Whatever you drink. We'd love to visit London and watch Arsenal lose. That would be amazing.

[Fonzie]

We can go watch an Arsenal Chelsea game.

[Phil Agnew]

Let's do it. Honestly, let me know.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. And sweet, guys.

[Luis]

With that said, thank you so much for tuning to the Contents Profit podcast. Go ahead and follow this show in your favorite platforms and on social media.

[Fonzie]

That is right. And Phil here help you move one step closer towards your goal, which I'm sure he did. Please don't forget to share this episode and and leave a five star review. See ya.

[Luis]

Bye, guys.