Loading summary
Phil Agnew
In 1912, Italian brothers Luigi and Silvio Barberi inherited their father's liquor business and decided to create something new. After seven years of experimentation, they landed on a unique blend of citrus, spice, herb and essences. They called it Aperol, after the French slang for repair teeth. Aperol offered a lighter 11% strength compared to its competitors. It was originally marketed to women and sportif people. It was popular, but never an international success. That was until Campari bought Aperol in 2003 and heavily promoted the Aperol Spritz, a cocktail that softens the bitterness by making Aperol with Prosecco and soda. And then, in the mid 2010s, the drink became an almost overnight sensation.
Teresa Priola
Nothing is more refreshing on a hot summer night than a cocktail at the Aperol Spritz really hits the spot. Fox size Teresa Priola shows us why it's being crowned the cocktail of the summer.
Phil Agnew
Google searches for Aperol Spritz began increasing in late 2015 and increased 50 fold by 2021. And it's now America's favorite cocktail.
Teresa Priola
The Aperol Spritz is the top cocktail in the us, according to Forbes.
Phil Agnew
Many would assume the Spritz success is down to its flavor. Surely people buy it just because they like the taste. But maybe it's also down to something else.
Teresa Priola
It's bright, bubbly and instantly refreshing, the closest thing you'll get to an Italian summer in a glass. Hard not to see why the Aperol Spritz is taking the States and really the world, by storm.
Phil Agnew
It's bright. That's how Aperol is often described. And that brightness, that colour, well, it could increase its appeal. At least some bartenders think so.
Teresa Priola
This is the most popular summer drink.
Phil Agnew
So, because of orange, because of the.
Teresa Priola
Color, because of Prosecco.
Phil Agnew
So people love bubblies. And my guest on today's episode of Nudge agrees.
Richard Shotton
They create the impression of popularity rather than directly stating it. Now, the way they do that is they have this completely distinctive, visible, notable orange color.
Phil Agnew
Today on Nudge, you'll hear why everyone started drinking Aperol Spritz and you'll learn that it had less to do with flavour than you might expect. Now, chances are you're listening to this ad while doing something else. Maybe a couple of other things, maybe three other things. Unfortunately, this is the bane of podcasters like me. We have to repeat points because many listeners don't pay full attention when they're listening. There's a bit of evidence that suggests people only pay attention to 70% of what you say, but that is just us. Podcasters now imagine only listening to 20%. Now that would be ridiculous. And yet most businesses do exactly this with their data. They miss 80%. The emails, the calls, the chats, all of these data points just float into the digital abyss. HubSpot I, however, pulls that data together so you can actually learn from it. It helps you see the data you miss because the more you know, the more you grow. Get the full picture@HubSpot.com hello and welcome to Nudge. I'm very happy to share that Richard Shotton, the brilliant applied behavioral scientist is joining me again on today's show.
Richard Shotton
My name's Richard Shotton and I specialise in applying behavioural science to marketing. So I've written three books on the topic Choice Factory, the Illusion of Choice and then a new one out which I've co authored with a wonderful American friend called Michael Aaron Flicker. And that new book's called Hacking the Human Mind.
Phil Agnew
Richard analysed Aperol's spritz for his latest book. He looked at how the brand quickly became America's favourite cocktail and he thinks it's down to one bias that you're probably quite familiar with.
Richard Shotton
Social proof. Sure, listeners are very familiar with it. It's probably the most well known of behavioural science biases, which is it's essentially the idea that if we think something's popular it will become more appealing and we're more likely to try it, more likely to buy it. And this isn't people being stupid, it's people thinking to themselves, well if the crowd is buying something they've probably weighed up cost versus quality. They've done the hard work, you know, it must be a half decent product, I might as well give it a go.
Phil Agnew
Robert Cialdini popularized social proof as one of his six principles of influence. Cialdini writes that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we we don't. Especially when we are uncertain. We are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd.
Richard Shotton
What most businesses do with social proof though is they apply it in quite a literal minded way. They say we've got a million customers or we're number one in the market.
Phil Agnew
For example, Bud Light broadcasts that they're America's favorite beer. Tunic's chocolate caramel wafers state on their packaging that 6 million of their biscuits are sold every week. This literal application of social proof has some very solid evidence behind it. In his book Richard shares an example from the British tax collection organisation, the HMRC. In 2012 they sent 140,000 letters designed to boost tax repayments. When the letters focused only on the risk of fines, just 68% of recipients paid up. However, when the letter added a bit of social proof stating 9 out of 10 people in your area pay their tax on time, compliance jumped from 68% to 83%. In other words, when we're told everyone else is doing something, we're far more likely to follow suit. But here's the thing. Aperol never told people that it was popular. It never advertised how many cocktails were sold.
Richard Shotton
The Aperol example is quite different because they essentially let people come to their own conclusions. They create the impression of popularity rather than directly stating it. Now, the way they do that is they have this completely distinctive, visible, notable orange colour.
Phil Agnew
Aperol looks totally different from any other drink. Its distinctive neon orange colour. Served in an Aperol balloon glass topped with orange, you know immediately that someone's drinking Aperol Spritz. But that's not a case with most other drinks.
Richard Shotton
So think about the difference between Aperol and Gordon's. Now, Gordon's, Gordon's Gin. You go and buy it at the bar, you take it away from the bar and no one knows what you're drinking because it looks like every other gin and tonic if it's in an unbranded glass. So the purchasing volume of Gordon's, if you walk around a bar is completely invisible.
Phil Agnew
And it's not just Gordon. Most spirits are colourless, meaning most of the time we can't tell if someone's drinking Gordon's Gin and Absolute Vodka, Patron Tequila or Bacardi Rum.
Richard Shotton
Now, think about a situation in which you go to a bar and three or four people are drinking Aperol Because Aperol is so distinctive, you notice all of those purchases, you know they're drinking Aperol. It takes up this disproportionate amount of your kind of mental headspace. So what Aperol have done is make the consumption of their product visible when most people allow their consumption to be invisible. And it's that, I think, super powerful. Now, there's lots of evidence to support my argument. My favorite study in the area is a 2008 one from Kaze Kaiser. He finds this alleyway and loads of people park their bikes there. And crucially for the study, there's no bin. So he goes down to the alleyway early in the morning and he puts flyers for a fictitious sport shop on the handlebars of the bike. He then wanders off 20, 30 yards and then he stealthily monitors what do the returning cyclists do. So remember, there's no bin. They have a choice. Do they either take the flyer home with them as good citizens or do they chuck it on the floor? Kaiser sets this up in one of two ways. So sometimes he goes down to the alleyway very, very early in the morning and he cleans it all up. So he picks up every bit of litter, he covers up every piece of graffiti. What he's essentially doing there is making it look like most people take their litter home with them. He's creating the impression the social norm is not to litter. And when he does that, just a third of people chuck the rubbish on the floor. The other setting that they say, this is a different day, same alleyway. This time, Kai's goes down super early in the morning, but he makes the alleyway a complete tip, chucks loads of rubbish around, spray paints graffiti on the walls, he makes it look like most people litter. And now in that setting, when people think lots of others are littering, you get a more than doubling of littering rates. So 69% of people chuck their rubbish on the floor.
Phil Agnew
In the book, Richard writes how this implied version of social proof is often more powerful than explicitly stating your popularity. In Kaiser's study, there was a more than doubling of littering when the social norm was changed. That was far bigger than in that HMRC study I cited earlier, which only altered behaviour by 22%. Richard writes that this is because implying popularity removes some of the scepticism associated with direct claims of an interested party. If you tell your audience that you're popular, it will have an effect, but this is tempered by the knowledge that, of course, it's what all businesses say anyway. But by creating the impression of popularity and allowing customers to come to their own conclusion, well, then the suspicions are removed.
Richard Shotton
The argument from this study is, yes, social proof's very powerful, but if you make an explicit direct claim, you know, you say we sell 10,000 bottles of our spirit, well, people might be skeptical. But if you create the impression of popularity by making the behaviour you're trying to encourage really distinctive, really noticeable, well, then you're allowing people to come to their own conclusions. And the argument would be, frankly, who do we trust more than ourselves?
Phil Agnew
Aperol Spritz stands out from the crowd and that implies social proof. It makes the drink seem more popular than it actually is. Apple benefited from this by adding the sent from iPhone suffix to all emails sent by using the phone. TikTok do the same thing by adding their watermark to all videos shared from the platform and standing out. It will make you more memorable. Loyal listeners of Nudge will know this to be called the von Restoroff effect, named after the German psychologist who discovered this distinctiveness phenomenon in 1933. In her original study, participants heard a list of nine related items, for example types of drinks and one odd one out. So for example a type of food, it turns out that odd item, the food, is just far more likely to be recalled. When the experiment is reversed, suddenly the drink, if it is the odd one out, will become more memorable. Richard writes in Hacking the Human Mind how he replicated this 90 year old study with his colleague Laura Weston. They gave 500 participants a list of logos, 11 car brands and one fast food brand. After a pause, they asked which of the brands the participants could recall. Turns out they were four times more likely to mention that distinct fast food brand than the average car brand. He also shares industry research of distinctive ads. Research company Zappi analysed 2,300 US ads and found that those that stood out were more likely to be effective. Aperol gains dual benefits from standing out. Being distinct makes the product more memorable. That's the von Resteroff effect. But that distinctiveness also implies that the product is more popular than it actually is.
Richard Shotton
So that I think for me is my favorite example of someone taking a very, very well known bias. But I think applying it in a very creative lateral way which just supercharges.
Phil Agnew
The power of the bias that creative application triggers customers to buy. You see New Yorkers sipping on Aperol on Friday after work and suddenly you'll want one too. It's a very effective trigger that prompts behavior. But implied social proof isn't the only way brands trigger behavior. No, some brands like Snickers have found very innovative ways to prompt customers to desire their chocolate bar, and we'll cover all of that after this quick break. The podcast My First Million is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals, and it's the podcast I'd recommend you today. My First Million explains how successful entrepreneurs made their first million and how you can apply their learnings to capitalize on today's business trends and opportunities. There are many fantastic episodes, but the one I really enjoyed was with Will Gidara. Gidara's book is one of my favorite books. It explains how will applied behavioral science to create a three star Michelin restaurant. It's a fantastic book and it really made for a fantastic episode. So if you want something to listen to after this, go and Listen to my first million wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome back. You're listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. Now, no matter where you're from, chances are you've heard an advert like this. Seriously, you gonna help or what? You know, you're a right pain when you're hungry. Have a Snickers, will ya? Better. Better.
Richard Shotton
You're not you when you're hungry.
Phil Agnew
That's because the Snickers, you're not you when you're hungry ad has been replicated in 58 different markets.
Teresa Priola
You're not you when you're hungry.
Richard Shotton
You're not you when you're hungry.
Teresa Priola
You get a little hostile when you're hungry. You're not you when you're hungry because.
Phil Agnew
You get a little angry when you're hungry.
Richard Shotton
You're so weak when you're hungry, because.
Teresa Priola
You get a little bit whiny when.
Richard Shotton
You'Re hungry, because you turn into a right diva when you're hungry.
Phil Agnew
This is a little surprising. It's rare for companies to use such a specific storyline in so many different regions. Most companies customize their campaigns for different markets, but not Snickers. So this ad must be doing something right. It must be getting decent results for the company. And Richard Shotton has a theory why. To understand the theory, you'll need to hear about this 2002 study.
Richard Shotton
There's a lovely set of studies from the University of Bath, say 2002, Sarah Milne, she is thinking, how can I get people to exercise more? So she recruits, thinks 248 people, invites them into the lab and they're randomized into one of three different groups. So the first set of people, they come into the lab, she gives them a diary. And she says, every day, just note down the diary, whether you've exercised or not, come back in a fortnight's time and tell me what's happened. Those people come in a Fortnight's time and 35% of them have exercise at least once a week. Next group, the intervention starts the same. They come to the lab, she gives them the diary, but then she plays them a motivational video. So she plays in this video about why exercise is amazing. It's going to increase your longevity. You're going to feel enthused, you're going to feel pumped up. And people come out of that screening and they say, oh, I'm really keen to exercise. I'm going to be doing lots over the next two weeks. But when that group come back two weeks later, there is barely Any change, you know, it's gone from 35% to 38% of people exercising. So this tiny little improvement. Now, Milne says this is an example of the intention to action gap, because those participants said they were going to exercise, but it didn't quite translate into action. And she says that problem, that gap, blights many campaigns. There's all sorts of stuff that we as citizens say we're going to do. We say we're going to cut back our drinking or we're going to quit smoking, but we never quite get round to it. And Milne's argument is the motivation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for behavior change. If you just motivate people to want to do something, you often don't create concrete, positive action. So she then tries to find out what this missing ingredient is. Third group of people, she invites them to lav.
Phil Agnew
She.
Richard Shotton
She gives them the diary she plays in the motivational video. And then she says to them, tell me when, where and with whom are you going to exercise? So if it was me, I might say, I'm going to exercise on Tuesday mornings once I drop my son off at school. That's what a psychologist called an implementation intention. Now, when that group comes back two weeks later, there's a massive change. It's a completely different experience. You've now got 91% of them exercising at least once a week. So we've gone from 35% in the control to 91% in this particular setting. Now, Milne's argument about why this happens is, take my situation of dropping my son off at school on a Tuesday morning when that moment rolls around. By setting an implementation intention, I've essentially attached the behavior of exercising to a very clear trigger moment. Tuesday morning is a trigger moment. And what happens is that trigger moment acts as a catalyst to convert vague intention into action. So Milne's argument is, if you want to change behaviour or if you want people to get by your product or consume your product, you need to attach that behavior to a very clear time, mood or place.
Phil Agnew
It's an incredible study. Milne managed to increase the amount of people exercising once a week from 38% to. To 91%. But why is it relevant to Snickers?
Richard Shotton
Now, if we bring this back to Snickers, what they do with their brilliant, brilliant strap line, you're not you when you're hungry is. They associate consumption of Snickers with the kind of feeling of hangriness, this feeling of confusion or grumpiness that comes from hunger. They're not in their ads talking about Snickers being amazingly tasty, but they are very, very clear about when people should consume.
Phil Agnew
And the campaign worked. In the first full year running it, Snickers increased their global sales by 15.9%, according to Campaign Live. It contributed an additional $376 million in sales and it helped Snickers increase their market share in 56 of the 58 markets where it ran the campaign.
Richard Shotton
And that approach is different from most other advertisers. Most other advertisers make the mistake of motivating people to want to buy their product without attaching that consumption moment to a clear trigger.
Phil Agnew
It's rarely done, but those who do try this seem to be very successful. Kit Kat's have a break have a Kit Kat line has lasted almost 70 years. Diet Coke ran famously successful campaigns about the Diet Coke break in the 1990s. Taco Tuesdays have become a US custom since the 1930s and Taco Bell cash in on this with their Tuesday offers. But they're not the only fast food brand jumping on the hype. Domino's have offered two for Tuesdays for decades. You can even see this effect in Britain's second favourite takeaway, the Friday Night fish and chips. Richard writes that too many brands do the hard work of making their product appealing to boost motivation, but then failing to convert this into action with a trigger moment. He recommends that for your next campaign, think like Snickers and try to associate your product with a time, a place or a space. That is all we have time for today. Folks, I want to say a massive thank you to Richard Shotton for coming on the show. He's an absolutely brilliant podcast guest, but he's also a fabulous writer. His book Hacking the Human Mind with Michael Aaron Flicker is an absolute must read for every marketer. I've left a link to it in the show notes if you want to pick it up. Now, some exciting news. I started Nudge six and a half years ago now quite a long time. I've spoken to over 150 guests on the show and I've recorded 268 episodes. I've read about 100 books on behavioural science and marketing psychology and I've at least attempted to note down every insight that caught my eye. I catalogued these insights into a huge Excel document with over 1000 rows. For example, row 104 contained the HMRC insight I spoke about earlier in the show about how writing that most people in your area paid taxed, boosted repayments. Each of these insights these thousand insights linked to 85 different principles from scarcity to reciprocity. And all of them had links to different applications, like how you could use this nudge for copywriting or this one for branding. Six months ago, I shared this huge database with 20 business owners who took part in my Nudge unit training course. I really wasn't sure what they would think. The database was messy, it was quite overwhelming, but the business owners loved it.
Teresa Priola
And I love the vault, the Nudge vault of every different piece of research.
Richard Shotton
Or experiment that you related to us. I want it all the time.
Phil Agnew
That ability to match what you're doing with where the trait or the information.
Richard Shotton
Has come from for me is brilliant. So yeah, I use it all the time.
Phil Agnew
And the Nudge vault is hands down the best investment that I've made in 15 years. After hearing this, I decided to work on this database and get it fit for others to access. That is what I've spent the past six months doing. I transformed this messy, overwhelming database into an easy to use app. I've consolidated the thousand rows into 452 reliable insights. I've made the database searchable with filters to help you sift through and find an insight. That's right. I. I've added takeaways for each insight linked back to the original paper or book. And I've included several tips on how you could apply that insight. And I've even attached a ChatGPT assistant so you can ask the AI to find an insight for you or to edit your work based on that insight. I've called this app the Nudge Vaults. The Nudge Vaults are for all of you listening who love behavioral science but struggle to apply it to your work. It'll help you source insights, help you come up with new ideas to test iterate on your existing work and I think ultimately grow your business. But those who subscribe to the Nudge Vaults will get much more than just this database each month. Subscribers will get two exclusive newsletters with advice on how to apply specific insights from the vaults. I update the vaults each month with at least 11 new insights. Subscribers get access to a growing archive of how to videos which walk through how to apply specific tips. And there's a monthly Q and A exclusive Q and A where Vault subscribers can ask me specific questions relating to their work. It's the database I wish I had six years ago. It's taken me half a decade to build, so I hope many of you will consider subscribing. If you are Interested, go to nudgepodcast.com vaults that's nudgepodcast forward slash vaults to take a look, or you can click the link in the show notes. But I know that most of you won't be convinced straight away. I think that's fair enough. This is a brand new offering. You might not want to buy immediately. To be honest, that's probably how I would feel. I am what marketing professors would call a late adopter. So if you're not convinced just yet, I've created a free preview of the vaults. In the preview, you can get access to the app, you can see 50 of the 452 insights, you can have a look around inside, you can see how the app works, you can watch some of the how to videos, and you can determine if the vaults is for you. It's just a preview, doesn't contain everything, but it's enough to figure out if it's something that you think will work for you. You can also find the preview@nudgepodcast.com vaults. So just head there if you want to see the preview or if you're ready to subscribe. Look, if you've ever listened to this podcast and found yourself thinking, oh, I should take a note of that because I want to try it, well, I've literally built the nudge vaults for you. I hope you try it out. But of course you are totally free to ignore me. Anyway, for Those interested, it's nudgepodcast.com Vaults. And thank you for listening to the show for the past six years. Thank you for supporting the show as I've worked through 268 episodes. You have helped me build something that I am incredibly proud of.
Host: Phil Agnew
Guest: Richard Shotton (Author and Behavioural Science Expert)
Episode Date: November 24, 2025
This episode of Nudge investigates the meteoric rise of the Aperol Spritz and uncovers why its popularity might be driven by psychological principles beyond just flavour. Host Phil Agnew and guest Richard Shotton, an applied behavioural scientist, break down the hidden marketing and behavioural science forces that turned Aperol from a niche Italian liqueur into a worldwide cocktail phenomenon. The discussion also extends to broader branding strategies, focusing on social proof, distinctiveness, and behavioural triggers that can supercharge product appeal.
Memorable Quote:
"Google searches for Aperol Spritz began increasing in late 2015 and increased 50-fold by 2021. And it's now America's favorite cocktail." – Phil Agnew [01:00]
Notable Quotes:
"They create the impression of popularity rather than directly stating it. Now, the way they do that is they have this completely distinctive, visible, notable orange color." – Richard Shotton [01:54]
Memorable Quote:
"If you tell your audience that you're popular, it will have an effect, but this is tempered by the knowledge that, of course, it's what all businesses say anyway. But by creating the impression of popularity and allowing customers to come to their own conclusion, well, then the suspicions are removed." – Phil Agnew [08:42]
Notable Quote:
"Aperol gains dual benefits from standing out. Being distinct makes the product more memorable. That's the von Resteroff effect. But that distinctiveness also implies that the product is more popular than it actually is." – Phil Agnew [10:39]
Memorable Quotes:
"They're not in their ads talking about Snickers being amazingly tasty, but they are very, very clear about when people should consume." – Richard Shotton [17:35]
"Kit Kat's 'have a break have a Kit Kat' line has lasted almost 70 years." – Phil Agnew [18:31]
On Aperol’s visual proof:
"Because Aperol is so distinctive, you notice all of those purchases, you know they're drinking Aperol. It takes up this disproportionate amount of your kind of mental headspace." – Richard Shotton [06:39]
On implied vs. explicit social proof:
"If you create the impression of popularity by making the behaviour you're trying to encourage really distinctive, really noticeable, well, then you're allowing people to come to their own conclusions. And the argument would be, frankly, who do we trust more than ourselves?" – Richard Shotton [09:26]
On distinctiveness in advertising:
"Participants were four times more likely to mention that distinct fast food brand than the average car brand." – Phil Agnew [10:29]
On Snickers and implementation intentions:
"If you want to change behaviour or if you want people to buy your product or consume your product, you need to attach that behavior to a very clear time, mood or place." – Richard Shotton [17:25]
| Segment Topic | Timestamps | |-------------------------------------|---------------| | Aperol’s history & early marketing | 00:00–01:34 | | Spike in global popularity | 01:00–01:34 | | Visual appeal and social proof | 01:34–03:12 | | Explanation of “explicit” social proof | 03:12–04:37 | | HMRC tax letter study | 04:37–05:33 | | Aperol’s implied social proof | 05:33–06:39 | | Distinctiveness & Von Restorff effect | 09:55–11:36 | | Snickers case study | 13:20–14:05 | | Implementation intentions (Sarah Milne study) | 14:05–17:25 | | Marketing takeaways and examples | 18:31–19:50 |
This episode of Nudge uses Aperol Spritz as a lens to explore how brands can harness the power of implied social proof and distinctiveness to become memorable and desirable. By making both the product and its context of consumption visible and unique, marketers can not only stand out, but even fuel a sense of popularity that leads to viral growth. The Snickers campaign offers another blueprint—anchor actions to specific consumption triggers to turn intention into behaviour. Marketers seeking actionable insights will walk away with concrete strategies to prompt customers’ next choices.
For more on these behavioural principles and actionable marketing insights, check out Richard Shotton’s “Hacking the Human Mind” and the Nudge Vault app at nudgepodcast.com/vaults.