Phil Agnew (2:17)

Today's guest has researched KFC's secret recipe for his book.

Richard Shotton (2:22)

My name is Richard shorten and I specialise in applying behavioural science to marketing. And there are little PR stories that keep on coming out. The manufacturers who make the 11 herbs and spices, there's actually two of them. One does. Five blend the blend of five of them, one does six and then KFC put them together.

Narrator/Reporter (2:39)

The combination of ingredients is mixed at multiple suppliers, so no one knows all.

Richard Shotton (2:43)

The contents, so no one ever knows what's kind of going into going to the mix. Supposedly, only two people know the recipe and they're not allowed to fly together.

Narrator/Reporter (2:51)

KFC says the recipe of 11 herbs and spices is so secret, only two company execs have any access to it at any given time. And it won't tell who those two people are.

Richard Shotton (2:59)

There's always stories about the secrecy behind the blend.

Narrator/Reporter (3:05)

Officials with KFC say the recipe is kept in a vault behind several locks.

Richard Shotton (3:09)

And I think some of this is simply people assuming, well, it's got to be an amazing mix if they're going to such expensive lengths to protect that mix. I think there's an element of costly signalling here. But the bit that we talk about in the book is the power of maintaining this secret, because, frankly, if KFC were to reveal tomorrow what those leavened spices were, it might be big news for a day, but within a week it would be utterly boring. Who would care? We're intrigued, though, because there's a mystery, because they Never tell us.

Phil Agnew (3:45)

KFC's finger licking good recipe has been a secret now for more than 70 years.

Richard Shotton (3:50)

Now, this relates back to an idea from George Lowenstein. So he's a Carnegie Mellon, and back in 1994, he comes up with this idea of information gaps. So he suggests if you leave something kind of unstated and unknown, people crave to fill it, even if it's a trivial fact. Now, often as they do, journalists kind of put it a bit more wittily and a bit more pithily. There is a journalist called Jonah Lehrer. He says these information gaps are mental itches. They are mosquito bites on the brain. I think that's a great way of putting it. But Loewenstein proves this very nicely. So he sets up an experiment. It's a little bit weird, but bear with me. And there are two groups of people and people are paid small amount of money to take part in the experiment. And then the task is that they have to. They see this kind of block of squares on their kind of computer screen and they have to click on at least five to get their payment. Now, it takes a little bit of time to do this because you click on a square it, then you have to wait four seconds until you can click on the next one. So it's slightly frustrating. It's not exactly an enjoyable experience. Now, the first group of People, they click on a square and it reveals an animal, like a little picture of a wolf. Or you click on another square and it shows you another picture, this time maybe of a chicken or a horse. Second group, same basic setup. You've got this big square grid. You've got to click on the mini squares and it reveals something. But this time, rather than revealing the entire animal, it will reveal, say a hoof or a mane or a flank of animal. You're essentially seeing little tiny sub areas of an animal. And the key point is that that group, that second group, the one who just get the partially resolved puzzle, the incomplete information, they keep on clicking after they've done their five. They don't need to click these ones, but they are intrigued enough to continue. And the argument here is, if you click on a square and it shows you a wolf, that is a entire piece of information. You've told them the whole answer. But if they reveal like a little bit of their hind leg, you're not 100% sure what animal it is. You click on another, you're not still not quite sure. You keep on clicking because you want to know.

Phil Agnew (6:26)

Partial information makes us more interested. That's what Loewenstein's information gap theory suggests. Now, the study Richard shared is a little hard to visualize on an audio only podcast, so. So I thought I'd try to replicate it in musical format. So imagine two groups of participants. One group of participants needs to click five squares, and each time they click a square, a full section of a song is played. So we'll use songs rather than images of an animal. So, for example, this first group would click on the square and they would hear. Now the second group also needs to click five squares, but this group would only hear a snippet of a song, a tiny bit of a song. A bit like only seeing a tiny bit of an animal. They click on one square and they hear this. They click on another square and hear this, a third square, and they'll hear this fourth click, fifth click. Chances are if you were playing this game, you would keep clicking after that fifth click. Not because you have to, but because of the information gap theory. We don't like incomplete mysteries and we keep clicking to hear a whole song or uncover a full picture. That information gap not only explains this Lowenstein theory, but also why KFC keep their recipe so secret.

Richard Shotton (7:57)

What's so interesting about that is two things. Firstly, this broad argument that you set up this information graph, you enter this element of ambiguity, people want to find out more. That's the kind of key part, but the other bit, and this is why it's relevant for marketers, why it's relevant, it's relevant for this 11 herbs and spices is think how irrelevant this information was. I mean, does it really matter if you know what animal you've been clicking on, whether it's going to turn out to be a wolf or a horse? But even that really, really trivial gap gets people hooked, gets people wanting more. So I kind of thought that was fascinating because it wasn't a study I was very well aware of and at the time of reading about it, researching it, I was watching a Netflix show. I think it might have been the Girlfriend. And it's not a great program, but it's there's a mystery at the heart and I probably wasted nine hours of my life because I wanted to know who is the villain? Is it the mum or is the girlfriend? That's the central conceit and they're always kind of shifting around. I knew it wasn't great, I knew this was not program was not going to improve. But I kept on watching for nine hours because as Joan Allaire says, there was that mental itch, there was that mosquito bite on the brain. I needed to find out. I think that element of uncertainty, that little gap, I think far more brains could apply that.

Phil Agnew (9:23)

Richard writes how brands should lean into the mystery Customers will remember what is unfinished, so retaining a degree of secrecy or mystery around your product will help keep your brand front of mind. KFC don't just do this with their 11 herbs and spices, but across their business.

KFC Marketing Staff (9:40)

So we created the KFC secret menu and like any good secret, told no one about it.

Phil Agnew (9:46)

Back in 2020, the Australian KFC created a secret menu for filled with staff's special menu items.

KFC Marketing Staff (9:53)

We'd discovered that KFC's staff love hacking the menu to make crazy new products. So we hid them deep in the app, making them hard to find.

Phil Agnew (10:03)

This menu could only be accessed by following a kind of rather strange particular sequence of navigations on the app.

KFC Marketing Staff (10:10)

People had to discover the secret menu on their own by figuring out you had to hold down for 11 seconds exactly. We hit a breadcrumb trail of clues scattered throughout KSC's own channels in the edit history of Facebook, comments buried in our website's terms and conditions, hidden in our email footers, or even in split second frames of our digital out of home ads.

Phil Agnew (10:33)

Now, unsurprisingly, after we've heard about everything in this episode, this secret menu was a huge success.

KFC Marketing Staff (10:39)

Eventually someone cracked the Code news spread quickly. So when I discovered that our KFC has a secret menu, my mind was blown.

Actor/Voice Actor (10:47)

Why do you go to Philippines?

Phil Agnew (10:48)

Because it's the 11 secret herbs and spices.

KFC Marketing Staff (10:51)

Which reached over 300 million people, leading to fantastic business results. A 111% increase in app downloads. Nearly two in three secret menu orders included additional items with an ROI of over 10 to 1.

Phil Agnew (11:07)

Now this is impressive, but perhaps not surprising because we know about the information gap and KFC have been doing secret marketing campaigns for years. In 2017, KFC's official Twitter app mysteriously unfollowed everyone except 11 seemingly random people.

KFC PR Representative (11:24)

In September 2017, KFC's Twitter handle followed 35,000 accounts, which seemed like a lot. So we unfollowed all of those 35,000 accounts in one fell swoop and refollowed only 11 back. Those accounts, five Spice Girls and six guys named Herb.

Phil Agnew (11:41)

Get it?

KFC PR Representative (11:42)

11 herbs and spices, like my original recipe. Then we waited for people to not and zero people noticed. So we waited. Nearly two months passed. Then one guy noticed.

Phil Agnew (11:55)

KFC follows 11 people. Those 11 people, five Spice Girls and six guys named Herb 11 herbs and spices. I need time to process this.

KFC PR Representative (12:06)

So he shared it. And some people saw it and they thought it was funny. So then they shared it. And those people thought it was pretty funny too. And then things got a little crazy. The guy who found it even got famous for finding it.

Richard Shotton (12:18)

Mike Edged here From Sioux Falls, South Dakota gained Internet fame when he discovered a secret on KFC's Twitter page.

KFC PR Representative (12:26)

The best part of it all. The entire stunt cost exactly nothing.

Richard Shotton (12:31)

Hats off to KFC for having such a good sense of humor.

KFC PR Representative (12:34)

Now that's finger licking good.

Phil Agnew (12:37)

When you zoom out and look at each of these campaigns, the full picture becomes clear. KFC know that an unsolved mystery is almost impossible to ignore. They know what Lowenstein proved. That mystery doesn't need to hide something impressive. And let's face it, the recipe for KFC isn't that important. The recipe for McDonald's Big Mac sauce was shared widely with the public in 2017. But genuinely, no one really cared. The people KFC chose to follow on Twitter is hardly big news. And yet we all love secrecy. We can't help it. That's the beauty of the information gap. That's the reason why KFC's tactics are are so impactful and memorable. But there's more to the psychology of secrecy. More we're yet to cover, including a principle behind Richard's favourite ad.

Richard Shotton (13:24)

And they've asked people to pick their favourite ads. And the one I went for was.

Phil Agnew (13:29)

Well, look, I'm not going to do an episode on cliffhangers and not use a cliffhanger myself, am I? So find out about Richard's favourite ad after this break. Content Is Profit, hosted by Luis and Fonzie Camejo, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Content Is Profit is the podcast I'd love to recommend today because it shares the secrets and strategies behind what the hosts call a frictionless sale. Louise and Fonsi talk about frameworks, strategies, tactics and bring in special guests to bring you all the information you need to turn your content into profit. Back in December, they recorded with a YouTuber who reached 76,000 subscribers in just a year to learn how go and listen to Content Is Profit wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. So far we've covered the psychology of secrecy and how KFC have used their secret recipe to keep customers hooked. But it's not just Lowenstein's information gap that is causing this intrigue. There's a separate behavioural science principle at work here, too. It is known as the Zeigarnic effect.

Richard Shotton (14:35)

And it does blend into the kind of Zeigarnic effect bit. So ITV have got their 75th anniversary and they've asked people to pick their favorite ads. And the one I went for was the Gold Blend couple. Do you remember them?

Phil Agnew (14:49)

I didn't, but I've since researched these ads and they're great. It's A set of 12 ads running from 1987 to 1993 promoting Nestle's gold Blend Coffee.

Richard Shotton (15:00)

They had Tony Head from Buffy Vampire Slayer, you know, obviously long before he was in that. And this other lady, God, I can't remember her name, she's a reasonably famous actress. And what happens is every episode they. There's some kind of incident which they go and, you know. Want to borrow some coffee or sugar off people?

Actor/Voice Actor (15:17)

Hello. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having a dinner party and I've run out of coffee.

Richard Shotton (15:23)

Come in.

Actor/Voice Actor (15:25)

Thank you.

Richard Shotton (15:27)

Will Gold Blend be too good for your guests? But it always ends on a cliffhanger.

Actor/Voice Actor (15:32)

You saved my life the other night. The dinner party, the coffee, very successful.

Richard Shotton (15:38)

How can you ever thank me?

Actor/Voice Actor (15:40)

I'll try and think of something.

Richard Shotton (15:41)

So Goldplane's kind of interwovens the story and it's a bit of a love relationship is building. Will they. Won't they Is the main question.

Phil Agnew (15:49)

Do you want the lady of the house?

Richard Shotton (15:51)

Well, she's getting changed.

Phil Agnew (15:55)

Could I offer you a coffee?

Richard Shotton (15:57)

I called round last night with you. You had company.

Actor/Voice Actor (16:00)

You mean my brother came round for coffee.

Richard Shotton (16:03)

Brother. And it ran for about four or five years and it was so popular at the end that they. When they came to the final episode, as it were, you know, or ad in the series, they announced when it was going to air. 17 million people tuned in to watch it. It was front page news of the Sun. And this is the era when the sun was selling about 4 million copies.

Actor/Voice Actor (16:27)

I don't know why I let you do that.

Phil Agnew (16:29)

Because I.

Actor/Voice Actor (16:30)

You serve better coffee.

Richard Shotton (16:31)

Besides, I love you, you know. They had a CD of the. The songs from the ads that went to number one. It was phenomenally popular because they never resolved the story. They always left people on this cliffhanger.

Actor/Voice Actor (16:46)

I was just passing by at this time of night. Are you alone?

Richard Shotton (16:52)

Yes. No. Look, I'm expecting someone.

Actor/Voice Actor (16:56)

At this time of night?

Richard Shotton (16:57)

It's a neighbour.

Actor/Voice Actor (17:00)

Well, do we have time for a coffee now?

Richard Shotton (17:03)

If we were having this chat and your podcast was about movies or TV shows, you would be rolling your eyes, the audience would be leaving and saying, well, that's bloody obvious. We've been doing this for 150 years. Charles Dickens did it with his serialized stories in magazines. They came out one week. They're always left on a bit of a cliffhanger. But what's fascinating there is writers know it, filmmakers know it, TV editors know it, but ads, how many are ever left on a cliffhanger? Gold blend Couple's one of the very few ones I can think of. So I think sometimes these biases are really well known in one walk of life and then they're completely ignored in other walks of life where they could be just as effective.

Phil Agnew (17:45)

And Richard has evidence to prove that this type of advert is more memorable.

Richard Shotton (17:50)

The Zeigarnik effect. Probably the oldest experiment in the book, 1927. So Bluma Zeigarnik was this Soviet psychologist and she gets inspired to come do her experiments because she goes to a cafe with her mentor, Kurt Lewin. They're in a big group of students and teachers. Waiter comes to take the order and he takes the order, doesn't write anything down. Quite a complicated order. Comes back five minutes later. Everything is right, everything is given to people. Perfectly. The party then disperse. Bloomer's eye. Garnet walks off. She has gone for about five or 10 minutes. She realized she's left a scarf. She goes back, she spots the waiter, she's quite relieved because he can help her find it. She walks up to him and says, oh, you know, have you spotted a red scarf? And she's puzzled because the waiter is blank. The waiter doesn't even recognize her. And she thinks to herself, how the hell could this man do an amazing memory fee of getting our order perfect, but 20, 30 minutes later, when I return, he can't even remember me. And she begins to think to herself, there is a fundamental difference between information that has been used and we no longer is no longer necessary. It's kind of been completed and incomplete data. So what I mean by that is the waiter can remember an order while he's fulfilling it because that information is still needed. Once the order's been given, information is its use has been completed, therefore there's no need to retain it. Now, an anecdote is one thing, but Zeigarnik goes and tests this. So she's inspired by the waiter story. To recruit a group, people give them a long list of instructions to build things like cardboard boxes. Some people are allowed to finish the cardboard box. Other people are stopped halfway through. And what Zeigarnik finds is the people who were interrupted, who never got to complete the task, they remember the information much better. So I think that's what's happening with the Goldblend story, this unresolved mystery that ends on a cliffhanger. Because people never get the entire story, it sticks in their mind much more.

Phil Agnew (20:17)

In 1972, researchers Jacoby and Heimbach tested the Zeigarnik effect on ads. They showed participants a 30 minute TV program interspersed with adverts. The six ads were either complete or cut at the end. Afterwards, the participants were asked to name as many brands as they could and describe as many of the ads as they could as well. Richard writes that immediate recall of the unfinished ads was 34% greater than when they watched the ad right through. And the recall for the unfinished ads was 52% greater when they recalled the brand two days later.

Richard Shotton (20:52)

Certainly, yeah. That Jacoby study suggests that we're not making a completely speculative leap to say it would work on TV ads as well. Some people get to watch the entire TV ad. Others are stopped halfway through. If you stop people halfway through, that ad will lodge in their mind far more.

Phil Agnew (21:10)

Richard has shared how the information gap theory and the Zeigarnik effect explain the power of KFC's secret recipe. He writes how we are intrigued by an unsolved mystery. It stays with us. We keep wondering what really goes into that herb and spice Mix wise to this, KFC create campaigns that continually remind us of what we don't know. And in doing so, they keep their brand front of mind. That's all we have time for today, folks. But if you liked today's episode, you will love Richard's book. I think the book is one of the best of the year and here's one of the reasons why.

Richard Shotton (21:45)

I found when I was presenting or talking at conferences about experiments that if you just talked about the experiment and then what learnings marketers could take, some people got it, but an awful lot of people were left a little bit cold because I think it's a really abstract approach. But if you ground everything in the story of a super successful brand, suddenly you make those ideas much easier to understand, much more concrete.

Phil Agnew (22:13)

The book has 17 examples of brands who have applied behavioral science to succeed. To pick up a copy, just search for Hacking the Human Mind wherever you get your books and you'll find it. This is also my last episode with Richard Shotton. He's been a fantastic guest over the past couple of months, appearing a number of times. Please do go and listen back to the episodes you've missed and if you want to watch one of the episodes. I've just started working with a brand new YouTube editor. We've created I think probably the best YouTube video I've ever created for Nudge Podcast. It's on the episode I did with Richard Shotten and Aperol Spritz. It's really good. I'm really proud of it, really happy with how it looks. So if you want a reminder of what we spoke about in that episode or if you haven't listened to that episode on the podcast, go, go and search for nudge podcast on YouTube. That's nudge podcast on YouTube to watch that video. I'm really proud of how it looks. I'd love for you to go and give it a watch. Coming up next week we have another episode with the fantastic Robert Cialdini. We've got a back to back with him next week and the week after. I think you'll love those shows. So please do subscribe to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to the newsletter. Nudge Newsletter. Just go to nudgepodcast.com to subscribe. I'll send you an email as soon as that episode goes live. All right, cheers folks. Bye bye.