Enhanced Games: Did the $320m marketing stunt backfire?

Summary

Nudge Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Nudge
Host: Phill Agnew
Episode: Enhanced Games: Did the $320m marketing stunt backfire?
Release Date: June 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the launch and fallout of the Enhanced Games, a $340 million spectacle in which athletes competed openly with performance-enhancing drugs. The event, unprecedented in its approach, doubled as an experimental marketing stunt to sell enhancement products to the masses by leveraging the powerful psychological halo effect. Host Phill Agnew analyzes why the organizers chose this radical approach and whether it achieved its intended marketing goals—or backfired.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Introduction to the Enhanced Games

• Background:

  • First ever sanctioned sporting event where athletes could openly use performance-enhancing drugs.
  • Hosted in Abu Dhabi, focused on swimming, sprinting, and weightlifting with up to $1 million in bonuses for breaking world records.

• Organizational Motive:

  • The Enhanced Games is not just about sport but is the public face of a for-profit company aiming to market and sell performance-enhancing drugs and supplements to the public.
  • BBC’s Dan Rowan (02:22): Describes the elaborate training and preparation in a medically managed environment.

• Athlete Participation and Incentives:

  • High payouts: Salaries 3–5× higher than national teams, additional appearance fees, with six-figure sums possible.
  • Max McCluster, Enhanced Swimmer (05:30): “...maybe over the course of four years I maybe made ten grand. So it's like chalk and cheese for me.”

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2. The Underlying Marketing Strategy

• Goal:

  • Use the Games as an innovative marketing platform to demonstrate “the power of enhancement,” linking athlete performance with consumer-targeted products sold by the event’s organizers.
  • High-profile investors (Peter Thiel, Trump-family-backed funds) expect commercial returns via mass sales.

• Transparency vs. Profit:

  • Max Martin, CEO (07:07): “Yes, it's about making money. We're not a non profit organization...To create awareness that performance enhancements under the right clinical and medical supervision can actually be very good for people.”
  • Aim to expand platform to thousands through athlete-generated IP and consumer products.

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3. The Role of the Halo Effect in Sports Marketing

• Explanation of the Halo Effect:

  • The phenomenon where a single positive attribute (like elite athletic performance) colors perception of connected products.
  • Host illustrates with behavioral science studies—from TV experiments on attractiveness to academic ratings, hotel reviews, and Bundesliga football club kit ratings.

• Study Examples:

  • 2020 Hotel reviews: 47% of improvement in a hotel’s location rating could be linked to better staff/service—highlighting ‘bleed’ of positive impressions.
  • 2019 Bundesliga kits: Fans of winning teams rated kits up to 19% higher than fans of losing teams, despite kits being identical.

• Application to Enhanced Games:

  • If athletes break world records using Enhanced’s products, the halo effect predicts viewers will see those products as more desirable and effective.
  • Phill Agnew (16:15): “If you see Ben Proud breaking a world record using enhanced products, you'll be more likely to buy these products.”

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4. The Event Itself: Results and Reception

• Spectacle & Anticipation:

  • The event promoted as a Vegas-style show, promising “strength and speed.”
  • BBC’s Shai McCallel (20:49): “The lights, the booming music, the cheering crowds and the huge billboards...”

• Outcomes—Performance Letdown:

  • Only one world record broken across all events (21:16).

    • BBC’s Shai McCallel (21:16): “The arena's gone wild for Christian Gomeyev. He broke the world record with a 50 meter race, the only world record to be broken in the Enhanced Games, and walked away with a million dollars...But this world record...won’t be recognized.”

  • Only 14 personal bests (PBs), or 29% of athletes, broke their own record—a rate lower than the 38% typical at major competitions without performance enhancing drugs.

  • Many of the top swimming results (including the world record) came with controversial use of the banned “polyurethane supersuit” from pre-2010, muddying the impact of the drugs themselves.

• Critical Reception & Aftermath:

  • Some claim the central world record was due to timing controversy, not athletic gains.

  • The CEO maintained optimism:

    • Max Martin, CEO (21:51): “We have changed the world tonight. Thank you everyone.”

  • Most journalists, investors, and the public viewed the event as a flop.

    • Guardian’s Shawn Engel predicted collapse by 2031.
    • Podcast Host (22:19): “The number of personal bests was significantly less than the typical personal bests you would see in an elite competition.”

  • Financial Impact:

    • Enhanced’s NYSE-listed stock plummeted 45% following the event (from a high of $14 down to around $3.19).

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5. The Halo Effect Backfires

• Host Summary Analysis:

  • Instead of casting a positive glow on the products, the event’s mediocrity tainted perceptions:
    • “There's certain irony in all of this. The Enhanced Games was built on the Halo Effect...But the Halo Effect cuts both ways. Mediocrity is just as contagious.”
  • Failed on intended outcomes: Records set via gear, not drugs; underperformed vs. clean athletes; stock collapsed; negative coverage.

• Memorable Quote:

  • Phill Agnew (24:00 approx):
    “When doped athletes couldn't beat their clean pbs, when the share price halved overnight, and when the CEO stood up there claiming to have changed the world after one disputed record, well, the Halo effect didn't take hold. It backfired.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• Ben Proud on risking reputation (04:04):

  “I knew signing up to this was going to absolutely ruin my credibility as a traditional swimmer.”

• Max Martin on the real purpose (07:07):

  “Yes, it's about making money. We're not a non profit organization...To create awareness that performance enhancements under the right clinical and medical supervision can actually be very good for people.”

• Halo Effect illustrated in sports (16:15):

  “If you see Ben Proud breaking a world record using enhanced products, you'll be more likely to buy these products.”

• Evaluation of the event’s failings (22:19):

  “The number of personal bests was significantly less than the typical personal bests you would see in an elite competition.”

• Phill Agnew on the backlash (24:00):

  “The Halo Effect cuts both ways. Mediocrity is just as contagious.”

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Key Timestamps

• 00:13 – The Enhanced Games’ “new era” introduction
• 04:04 – Ben Proud on personal and professional risks
• 05:30 – Max McCluster on athlete compensation
• 07:07 – Enhanced CEO Max Martin on business model
• 12:00–19:00 – Deep dive into the halo effect and supporting behavioral science
• 20:49 – BBC live reporting from the Enhanced Games
• 21:16 – Only world record set, controversies
• 22:19 – Post-game analysis and quantifying disappointment
• 24:00 – Financial fallout and final assessment

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Concluding Insights

• The Enhanced Games sought to revolutionize both sport and sports marketing by marrying dramatic performance with direct product sales, betting $340 million on the power of the halo effect.
• The strategy was intellectually bold but operationally treacherous: the athletic results failed expectations, undermining the products’ allure and eroding both brand and investor confidence.
• Phill Agnew’s behavioral science lens shows the double-edged nature of the halo effect: greatness may be contagious, but so is mediocrity.
• The podcast argues that while the Enhanced Games’ marketing premise was “visionary,” its execution and results stand as a cautionary tale for high-risk brand gambits.

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For listeners seeking to understand the complicated interplay between psychology, sport, and marketing—and how an audacious campaign can collapse under its own hype—this Nudge episode is a masterclass.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

On May 24, 2026, 40 athletes took part in a first of its kind event.

[Narrator/Promotional Voice]

On Memorial Day weekend. 2026, the world of sport will change forever.

[Podcast Host]

For the very first time, athletes would compete openly using performance enhancing drugs in a sanctioned sporting event.

[Narrator/Promotional Voice]

Enhanced Games. A new era where sport meets spectacle, where records fall and traditions are rewritten.

[Podcast Host]

That was the aim. Athletes would attempt to break world records with a $1 million bonus on offer for anyone who managed it.

[Narrator/Promotional Voice]

The world's best athletes, fully unleashed and powered by science, pursuing their full human potential in a safe and medically supervised environment to become faster and stronger than ever before.

[Podcast Host]

Listening to these promotional clips, you might be forgiven for thinking these clarity clips are just for another sporting event. But behind the spectacle sits a publicly traded company with the ultimate aim of selling these supplements and drugs to all of us.

[Narrator/Promotional Voice]

This isn't just sport. This isn't just athletes. It's a revolution. And you can be a part of it. Together, we are enhanced.

[Podcast Host]

With $340 million in funding, the Enhanced Games might just be one of the most expensive marketing stunts of this decade. But why use this approach? Why not just run $340 million worth of ads? And will this approach even work? Find out on today's episode of Nudge. When someone asks AI for a solution, a product, a service like yours does your business. Does AI suggest you? Well, most companies have no idea. And by the time they find out, they've already lost the deal or the sale to someone who did. HubSpot AEO helps you show up in those moments with the right answers buyers are looking for before the first click and before the first form is filled out. That's the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

We've been granted access to this sprawling sports complex here in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

[Podcast Host]

That is BBC's Dan Rowan back in March 2026.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

This is where the Enhanced Games athletes are spending months not only able to train using the sports facilities here, but also able to take performance enhancing drugs as they prepare for one of the most divisive and controversial events the world of sport has seen.

[Podcast Host]

The Enhanced Games was the first of what the company hopes will be many Enhanced Games. For the inaugural version of the event, they focused on three Swimming, sprinting and weightlifting. Just three sports, but with an astronomical amount of prize money.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

Athletes able to earn up to a million dollars if they break the world record in their discipline.

[Podcast Host]

But despite the money, athletes signing up for the Enhanced Games faced immediate backlash from the sporting authorities.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

Last year, World Aquatics became the first international sports federation to ban any athletes, coaches or officials that are participating in the Enhanced Games from their competitions.

[Podcast Host]

Brits listening to this may have heard of Ben Proud, one of Team GP's most decorated swimmers with World Championship golds, multiple Commonwealth Game victories and an Olympic silver medal medal in the 50 meter freestyle at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In 2025, he announced his retirement from traditional competitive swimming to join the Enhanced Games. He is probably the most high profile athlete to have signed up. Here he is talking about the decision with the BBC.

[Ben Proud]

I knew signing up to this was going to absolutely ruin my credibility as a traditional swimmer.

[Podcast Host]

So why did Ben Proud sign up

[Ben Proud]

during that time as a professional swimmer? I think I conducted myself well. I was on 10 consecutive podiums. Towards the end of my career I got the most sub 22 second swims in history. And you know, I did a lot of things I'm proud of. I built this skill and that skill had no value in swimming anymore. You know, even though I did all these things, I rarely received any sort of compensation.

[Podcast Host]

On the Guardian's Today in Focus, the Guardian's chief sports reporter explained the money involved.

[Guardian Chief Sports Reporter]

Every athlete is getting a salary. Enhanced Games say that's between three and five times what they would get say if you competed for Team gb. I've seen some athletes talk about six figure salaries in US dollar terms, so that's significant amounts of money. They also get an appearance fee for racing as well as that for every race there is a half a million dollar prize pool with a winner receiving a quarter of a million dollars. And then if you break a world record in what they call the glamour events which is the 50 metre freestyle swimming and 100 metre athletic sprint, you also would receive an extra $1 million.

[Podcast Host]

On the same podcast, the enhanced swimmer, Max McCluster, who set an Irish record for the 100 meter butterfly in 2024 and competed at the Paris Olympics was asked how much money he could make at the event.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

I'm competing in two events so I guess the minimum if I come fourth in both events is, is 100,000 in over a couple of hour event or the maximum being 500,000 right if I win both events. So compare that to my swimming career before where you know, maybe over the course of four years I maybe made ten grand. So it's like chalk and cheese for me.

[Podcast Host]

So for the athletes there is a huge payout and supposedly little health risk. Apparently all the Drugs are safe to take.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

Organizers say the drugs are all market authorised and hail what they claim is a science based and visionary project exploring physical potential.

[Podcast Host]

That's what they claim. But there's more to this event than just exploring physical potential. There's a huge amount of money being poured into the project and you might wonder where all this money is coming from.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

With investors that include US tech billionaire Peter Thiel and a venture fund backed by one of the sons of US

[Podcast Host]

billionaires, President Donald Trump, you'd expect that these investors would want a pretty solid return on that $340 million investment. How will they get their return? Well, by selling the exact performance enhancing drugs that the athletes are taking to the people around the world watching.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

The Enhanced Games is already selling lifestyle healthcare products on its website, ranging from supplements to testosterone replacement therapy and longevity treatments.

[Podcast Host]

The Enhanced Games co founder Max Martin didn't hide this in the interview he did with the BBC. He was very upfront about what the Games were ultimately for.

[BBC Correspondent Dan Rowan]

But isn't the truth that it's about making money?

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

Yes, it's about making money. We're not a non profit organization. On the one hand side we have a sporting business. In that sporting business we host veenhanced games, but we will also be producing more and more sporting events. We utilize sports as well to create awareness. To create awareness that performance enhancements under the right clinical and medical supervision can actually be very good for people. And once we have that awareness, we give people access to those performance enhancements.

[Podcast Host]

And this here is why the Enhanced Games is so interesting from a marketing and business perspective because essentially it is a radically different to novel marketing campaign. It's a huge gamble to link a set of products directly with the outputs of a group of athletes. On the State Change podcast released just before the Games, the CEO Martin explained how the consumer products were linked with the athletes.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

Originally, when we started with Enhanced, it was just about sports. The reason why we have built now a consumer platform to make enhancements accessible to people is because what I said in the beginning, right, for the first year of the Enhanced Games we have roughly 50 athletes. Say we have a new roster every year. We do this for 10 years. We have 500 athletes whose lives we've changed. That's already great, but it's way too little.

[Podcast Host]

500 people is far too little. The Enhanced Games wants to supply performance enhancing drugs to the masses.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

What we take is all of the knowledge and the IP that we generate with the athletes in like the highest clinical and medical setting that you can think of and take those learnings and make them accessible to the people through our product platform.

[Podcast Host]

That one line defines the marketing strategy for enhanced improve the drugs, work at the highest clinical and medical setting imaginable and attract the masses by turning these very good athletes into world record holders.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

So I think we definitely see a few world records being broken. Our athletes have been putting in the work like they really have shown also in training already that they're capable of doing it. So I'm very excited about, you know, some athletes beating world records. But what I'm equally as excited about, to be honest, is athletes that are going to put up personal bests and specifically athletes that are not at an age where you would expect them to have personal bests.

[Podcast Host]

Here Martin, the CEO is clearly explaining the two core sporting goals for the event. Break world records and break personal bests.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

So for example, we have one category of athletes that's really primed to break a world record. These are, you know, like people that have just meddled at the Olympics medal, at the world championships, we have natural world record holders. Like these people can break world records and be the best of 8 billion people in the world, which is quite the achievement, right? Yeah, but what I said before, enhancements are not just relevant for those absolute elite athletes, they're relevant for everyone. So why I'm excited about our second category of athletes, which is people that came out of retirement, that are in their mid-30s, that through the help of science can actually beat the performance of their younger selves.

[Podcast Host]

This is the cell. Through the help of science you can beat the performance of your younger self.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

So for example, we have a swimmer, Megan Romano, she's 35 now and she's training. And in training she's already set new personal best for herself at 35. This is already amazing. But to just give a little bit more context, when Megan was in her prime, she was swimming for Team USA and was a two time world champion. So at 35, is she quicker than when she was a two time world champion through the help of science? That's what I'm really excited about and that's what I think also the people that are watching the sport are going to be very excited about to really see like what enhancements can do for people, to inspire them to think about what can enhancements do for myself.

[Podcast Host]

And there we have it. The ultimate goal of the event. Showcase athletes performing at either their personal best or world best through the use of enhancement products sold by the event organizers. As a viewer watching the event enhance hopes, I'll be inspired by watching these athletes and go and try some of their products for myself. Now, later on in today's show, we will cover whether or not this strategy worked for the Enhanced Games. But before that, I should explain why I think this strategy could work. See, there is some compelling evidence that linking products to high performing individuals will change how that product is perceived. This is known within the world of behavioural science as the halo effect. Put simply, the halo effect is the tendency to let one positive impression of a person, a brand or anything really color our overall judgment of them. So if we find someone attractive or likable, we automatically assume that they are also intelligent, competent and trustworthy. Even without evidence to support those conclusions, many of us have quite simplistic views of the halo effect. And it's probably due to some of the late 1990s experiments on the bias.

[Researcher/Experiment Narrator]

Meet Ruth and Rebecca. Rebecca's classically attractive. Ruth's more on the plain side.

[Podcast Host]

This is a very dated TV experiment featuring two female actors. Ruth is tall with wavy hair, wearing thick glasses in an oversized beige blazer. She's frowning in this clip. Rebecca is short, tanned with straight blonde hair. She's wearing a white patterned mini shirt and she's broadly smiling.

[Researcher/Experiment Narrator]

We're going to demonstrate that how you look affects how you're treated. They're going to struggle up staircases at opposite ends of Liverpool Street Station in London with heavy bags and we'll be filming. First up, Ruth. How long before a knight in shining armor rescues this damsel in distress?

[Podcast Host]

Ruth is filmed desperately struggling to lift a comically large bag up a flight of stairs and dozens and dozens of commuters squeeze past. For almost a minute. No one offers any help. Oh, that's so kind of you.

[Researcher/Experiment Narrator]

Helped at last, but by two women. And it took 45 seconds. Now Rebecca's turn. How long before she's rescued? Would you mind?

[Podcast Host]

I'm just trying to get to the top of those stairs there.

[BBC Correspondent Shai McCallel]

Can you do the other one at the same time?

[Researcher/Experiment Narrator]

All of eight seconds.

[Podcast Host]

It's a very crude study, but it proves the point. Attractive people receive far more help and support, but the halo effect really is much more than that. In 1977, researchers Nisbet and Wilson studied the halo effect. They filmed the same instructor, a Belgian with a French accent, twice. Once the instructor would act warmly and friendly. The other time he would act cold and dismissive. But he would say the exact same things. In both scenarios, 118 students watched one of the versions and then rated how much they liked the instructor. They rated his physical appearance, his mannerisms, and his accent. Crucially, the researchers also showed a silent version of both interviews to a separate group, confirming that the instructor looked and moved in the same way in both. So any differences in the ratings had to come from his personality, but not actual differences in his appearance. Turns out that the students who saw the warm version rated his appearance, his mannerisms, and his accent as more appealing. Those who saw the cold version rated those same physical attributes as irritating. Same face, same accent, completely different perception. A nice instructor was rated by 70% as having an appealing appearance, but the same cold instructor was rated by 80% and as being unappealing. The halo effect influences our judgment. In 1974, Landy and Segal found that male students rated essays higher when they supposed the author was an attractive woman. In 1970, Miller gave subjects photos of attractive and unattractive people and asked them to rate their personalities. Attractive people got better personality ratings despite there being no evidence that they had a better personality. You might be quick to dismiss these papers from the 1970s. That's fair enough. They're very old. But the halo effect has been proven time and time again since then. One of the most impressive studies is from 2020. Here the Halo effect was measured in online hotel reviews. The researchers tested whether a guest's opinion of one hotel attribute, like staff friendliness, can bleed into how they rate a completely different attribute like the hotel's location. So, for example, if I said that I really liked the staff at the hotel, I would also be more likely to say that the location of the hotel is really good. To measure this, they looked at reviews for 21,000 hotels across 400 destinations, analysing 35 million reviews in total, and they proved that the halo effect was real. When a hotel's staff rating goes up, so reviews of the staff increase, its location rating tends to go up as well. Even though the hotel didn't move anywhere, the location was still the same. It turns out the guests can't fully separate their feelings about one attribute from another. A great stay makes everything seem better, even the location, and a bad stay makes everything seem worse. The location rating is the real giveaway here. They found these hotels where the location rating consistently improved over a three year period. It should not change, the location does not change, and the infrastructure around a hotel won't dramatically change in three years. But the location ratings on these sites would drift up and down for some hotels. The researchers reported that 47% of the change in the hotel's location rating can be linked back to the change in other aspects of the hotel. In other words, improving the swimming pool makes the location seem better, but a dirty pool makes the location seem significantly worse. The halo effect explains why attractive people receive more support. It can be seen in hotel reviews. The food served in a clean hotel will taste better than identical food served at a dirty hotel. But does the halo effect work in sports? Will it work for the enhanced games? That's what researcher Gerd Neufer set out to find in 2019. He wanted to know if a football club's success or failure could cause fans to see everything else through rose tinted glasses. In particular, he wanted to see if a football team's success could affect how they rate adjacent things like the quality of the club's kit. For the study, six Bundesliga clubs were chosen. These are German clubs, so FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Mulch and Gladbach Entracht Frankfurt FC Cologne, Hamburg and Stuttgart. Fans of these clubs were surveyed three times across the 201516 season. A control group of people not interested in football was also included. In total, 3,178 fan responses were taken and the findings are telling. Fans of clubs who had an unsuccessful season rated their football kit as significantly worse than fans of successful clubs. For example, fans of successful clubs such as FC Bayern who won the league and the German cup, they rated their kit at 4.1 out of 5, whereas fans of unsuccessful clubs like Stuttgart who were relegated, they rated their kit at just 3.45 out of five, almost 19% lower. The football kit is not linked to the success of the club at all as it has been designed and manufactured before the season even begins. So the difference in perception can only be explained by the halo effect. It is clear that the halo effect is at play in sports and it affects the products connected to sporting events. If you see Bayern winning the league in their Adidas kit, you'll like that Adidas kit more. You'll think it's higher quality. If you see Rory McEnroy winning the Masters with Nike golf clubs, you'll think those golf clubs are more effective. And if you see Ben Proud breaking a world record using enhanced products, you'll be more likely to buy these products. When you review all these studies, you've got to say that the marketing strategy that enhanced are operating with is incredibly impressive. It would have been easy for the enhanced supplements to be advertised in a traditional way with TV ads, influencers and normal endorsements. But the team behind it have come up with something completely novel. They've created an attention grabbing event where performance is directly linked to the products they're selling. It is high risk but huge potential reward. If viewers see dozens of world records being set, they'll follow the laws of the halo effect and link that sporting greatness directly with the products Enhanced are selling. It is very smart, but it has to work. The athletes have to perform, they have to break their personal bests, they have to break world records. But the Enhanced Games didn't go to plan. Find out what happened after the break. The podcast I'd like to recommend to you today after listening to today's episode of Nudge is Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clarry, and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q and A sessions with successful business leaders in marketing, sales and it covers everything from big businesses to startups and entrepreneurship. To go and listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.

[BBC Correspondent Shai McCallel]

The lights, the booming music, the cheering crowds and the huge billboards. Everything you'd expect from a Vegas Spectacle.

[Podcast Host]

That's Shai McCallel, BBC correspondent, reporting live at the Enhanced Games.

[BBC Correspondent Shai McCallel]

Organizers have promised strength and speed in tracks, swimming and weightlifting.

[Podcast Host]

But did they deliver on what they promised? Were their dozens of world records broken? Well, no. There was only one world record broken.

[BBC Correspondent Shai McCallel]

The arena's gone wild for Christian Gomeyev. He broke the world record with a 50 meter race, the only world record to be broken in the Enhanced Games, and walked away with a million dollars. Remember, he broke a world record last year in the trials. It's probably the best or highest paid swimmer in the world right now. But remember, this world record may be big here in the Enhanced Games, but it won't be recognized.

[Podcast Host]

Just one world record. Remember, CEO Martin claimed multiple world records would be broken. So was he disappointed? Maybe, but he didn't show it.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

We have changed the world tonight. Thank you everyone.

[Podcast Host]

Of course he would say that, but I'm not quite sure it did change the world. Remember, here's what the CEO hoped would happen.

[Max Martin (CEO of Enhanced Games)]

So I think we definitely see a few world records being broken. But what I'm equally as excited about, to be honest, is athletes that are going to put up personal bests, and specifically athletes that are not at an age where you would expect them to have personal bests.

[Podcast Host]

That's the goal. World records to be broken. Sure, but it was mainly about personal bests. Now we know that one world record was broken, but what about the personal bests? Well, out of the 42 athletes competing across 48 individual events, only 14 personal bests were broken. So for the Enhanced Games the rate of personal breasts broken was only 29%. Now a 2019 paper reviewing the performance of swimmers across a seven year period, including Olympic and World championships, found that non enhanced athletes broke their PBS at a rate of 38%. So for the enhanced games it was just 29%. But in normal competition with no drugs it was 38%. This means that the number of personal bests was significantly less than the typical personal bests you would see in an elite competition. What's more, most of the personal bests came in the swimming results. Ben proud broke his PB. Megan Romano did too, though Max McCluster, the Irish record holder, didn't break his. But here's where it gets worse. Because many of the PBS in the pool, including the world record, were broken by swimmers using the banned polyurethane supersuit, the infamous swimmer swimming suit that was banned in 2010. This suit, launched in 2008, was so fast that 140 world records fell at the hands of swimmers wearing the new suits between February 2008 and July 2009. It was banned shortly after. So it's reasonable to assume that many of the PBS in the pool weren't actually due to enhanced drugs, but instead due to the super suit. Which leaves the results looking September surprisingly mediocre. Just one world record broken, a lower rate of PBS than normal events, and swimming results that are probably due to gear rather than drugs. On top of all that, there's even a bit of controversy around the world record, with many claiming that the clock was stopped early. Putting that to one side, there is disappointment around the event from the organisers. The CEO admitted that he expected more world records to be broken and many of the journalists covering the event have criticised it, with the Guardian's Shawn Engel predicting that the company will collapse by 2031. And it seems investors agree Enhanced, which floats on the New York Stock Exchange, saw its stock drop by 45% after the event. By Tuesday the stock price hovered around $3.19, which was considerably lower than the year high peak of $14. The enhanced games was an extremely expensive marketing stunt, an attempt to use the Halo effect to connect world record breaking elite athletes. Drugs that enhanced sell. In many ways the Games should have been commended. It was an innovative, novel way to raise awareness for a company and its products. Compared to the vast majority of bland, predictable marketing campaigns out there, the Enhanced Games was visionary, but it was also high risk. There's safety in traditional marketing because in traditional marketing you control the message. With the Enhanced Games, the company lost control. They put their heads on the line and ultimately it backfired. Many will be delighted with this outcome. Health professionals around the world are deeply skeptical of these drugs and fearful of the effect they could have on the general public. And there's relief that these drugs won't benefit from the positive Halo effect. They won't be linked with high performing elite athletes. Instead, they'll be linked with a glitzy event that ultimately failed to deliver. There's certain irony in all of this. The Enhanced Games was built on the Halo Effect, the idea that greatness is contagious, that if you watch Ben Proud break a world record, you'll want what he's taking. But the Halo Effect cuts both ways. Mediocrity is just as contagious. And when doped athletes couldn't beat their clean pbs, when the share price halved overnight, and when the CEO stood up there claiming to have changed the world after one disputed record, well, the Halo effect didn't take hold. It backfired. That is all for today's episode of Nudge. Folks. Thank you so much for listening. In today's episode we have covered the Halo Effect, but the Halo Effect is just one of the many dozen behavioral science principles that affect your marketing. And if you want to learn about many more of these principles, I suggest you check out the Nudge Vaults. The Nudge vaults contains over 544 different behavioral insights that you can apply to your business and everything is cited and tagged and easy to search through, making it very easy to look up the 18 different studies I've got on the Halo Effect and apply them to your business. Plus, I have built an AI powered chatbot to help. For instance, I can ask the chatbot, which is called VaultGPT, how can I use the Halo Effect to improve my marketing strategy? And it gives me a number of tips straight away. It tells me to leverage geographical associations, referencing for example that my ice cream is Swiss made. It tells me to connect my brand with admired figures and run partnerships with other high profile brands. Every NudgeVault subscriber gets access to VaultsGPT and they also get new insights added to the vaults each month. To learn more, go to nudgepodcast.com and click Vaults in the menu. Today you can sign up and see your first 50 insights for free. That is all from me folks. I'll be back next Monday with another episode of Nudge.