95. Impossible to Ignore with Carmen Simon

Carmen Simon
00:00:20

So, first of all, start by asking, what is my 10% message? A lot of people aspire at being memorable, but not that many people know what they want to be memorable for.

Unfortunately, what happens in business is that we're a bit wishy washy with emotions. Things are not always as strong as we think we are. The brain that creates content is not the same brain that processes content.

Retrospective memory, which means recalling what happened in the past, is very instrumental because it can inform what is going to happen in the future. The brain is, by the way, the most advanced predictive engine on the planet.

Dom Hawes
00:00:56

Hello, unicorners. This is the unicorny marketing show, and I'm your host, Dom Hawes.

Now, the reason that many of you keep a pen and paper handy when you listen to this show is that you know that if you don't, you're going to forget those things that you wanted to remember. And you're not alone. We all forget most of what we see and hear.

And in your and my world, the world of marketing and communications, every message, every piece of content, everything we create to promote our businesses competes for attention. This very podcast competed for your attention before you press the play button today.

And right now, it's competing with all sorts of other distractions going on around you. So we know that getting attention and retaining it is hard. It's really hard.

But of course, getting notice, getting attention, that's only half the battle. You have to be remembered, too. You have to be remembered when your customer is ready to buy, is what Byron Sharp calls mental availability.

You have to be remembered because as buyers, we rely on memory to drive decisions. But if most of the content that you and I create gets lost in the noise and of the stuff that does cut through, only 10% stands a chance of sticking.

More on that later. Well, what are we going to do? Well, that's when neuroscience can help. And that is why we're talking about it today.

So in this show, we're going to explore how neuroscience can help you and me create lasting memories. We're going to talk distinctiveness, how standing out against the bland and boring can ensure your content cuts through.

We'll unpack emotion, the powerhouse that amplifies memory retention, and we'll discuss how to implant emotional cues to strengthen recall. So, get your notepads ready, and we're going to go straight to the studio now to meet the amazing Carmen Simon.

Carmen Simon
00:02:45

It's exciting to be here and talk about the brain, because everyone in your audience has one.

Dom Hawes
00:02:59

Well, we hope so. You never know these days. We might have lots of AI bots listening to us, too.

But anyway, Carmen, you've had a fascinating career blending neuroscience with marketing.

Could you maybe start by telling us what drew you to that field in particular, and point to why you believe understanding how memory works is important for marketers?

Carmen Simon
00:03:18

I'm drawn to this field because I'm constantly humbled by how quickly and how much audiences forget content. From my research, I'm noticing that after 48 hours, very little stays in people's minds.

And when I say very little, I equate that with about 10% of the entire segment of communication that you would have created for someone. It's a metaphorical 10%, because sometimes I'm noticing that people may remember 18%, they might remember 3%.

It's possible, by the way, that they remember zero.

In fact, I did a study a while back where after 48 hours, I had asked people what they remembered from 20 slides that they had seen, and the population was 1500 people, and 500 came back and said, what presentation? Okay, so it's possible that people take away nothing. And this is detrimental in business because memory fuels decision making.

All of your customers, as you're listening to this, large or small, will make decisions in your favorite based on what they remember, not on what they forget. So it is critical from here on out, as you're listening to us, that you always, always ask the question, what will people remember in a few days?

From what I share.

Dom Hawes
00:04:29

Well, Carmen, it's almost like we've rehearsed this because you've just hinted at some of the content areas we're going to dive into in a minute. But before that, as part of the introduction to you, I was really taken with the personal story you put into print in the book.

And I'd love you to tell the story of redcoats and banana cues and its significance to us as marketers, because I thought it was a fabulous story.

Carmen Simon
00:04:53

One of the variables, the fairly few variables that impact memory is distinctiveness.

So as you reflect on your own content and you're thinking about ways to capture an audience and impact their memories, then consider how distinct your materials are. The personal story that Dom is referring to that I was relating in the book, is me standing in line and waiting to buy bananas.

And the truck that was selling this only had a limited amount, and I was wearing a bright red jacket where everybody else must have been wearing some other types of clothing, a little bit more subdued.

And because there was a limited amount of bananas, the person handling this transaction said, at some point, we only have enough banana up to scanning the crowd, the girl in red. So somehow that artifact was significant and was standing out. In neuroscience and psychology in general, we call the salience.

So, as you're thinking about your materials and your audiences look for pockets of patterns. So, in my case, when the audience must have been wearing gray or beige, a red jacket stands out.

In your case, perhaps, if all of the customers are going in one trend or observing this or doing that, allow for those patterns to emerge and then seek something that is distinct.

And there is an important adage to this guideline, because you can't just always have distinct materials, the brain still has to perceive a pattern before you can even notice that something is distinct. Sometimes marketers put a lot of pressure on themselves, thinking, oh, we have to be differentiated in some way. Differentiation. Differentiation.

The brain or your customer's brain cannot detect that which is distinct unless it comes against a background of sameness.

Dom Hawes
00:06:47

Let's now talk about the science. Neuroscience. Okay, it's science.

So, I'm assuming there are kind of theses and experiments and outcomes help listeners build a picture in their minds of what it is you do and specifically how you do it.

Carmen Simon
00:07:01

When I study the buyer's brain, and quite often the seller's or the marketer's brain, we don't always just study the customer. I use four different signals I put on people, people's scalps, an eeg cap. And eeg stands for an electroencephalogram signal.

So I detect the brain waves that quite often get generated in reaction to stimulation. And that stimulation might be a sales or a marketing presentation, a website, a video, a thought leadership paper of sorts.

Then on people's chest, I also place an electrode that enables me to capture an electrocardiogram signal, an ECG. Then on their wrist and fingers, I place a device that's called the GSR, that stands for galvanic skin response.

What happens is, anytime you expose your customers or your internal teams to some stimulation and they have a reaction to it, positive or negative, it doesn't matter, but at least a reaction, your skin physically changes.

So put some sensors there that capture that, and then also on the computer itself, or they're viewing all these materials, or sometimes we ask people to wear the actual glasses. There is an eye tracker. And the reason for studying visual attention is because typically, you look to where you think.

So there's a connection between visual attention and cognitive processing, and we want to record that as well.

The reason for a combination of these signals, and not just one or two, is because if you didn't have a combination, and you're only using an eye tracker, for instance, you wouldn't be able to make logical inferences. So, for instance, let's just say that somebody gave us one of your websites to investigate in a neuroscience context.

And I noticed that people are looking more in the upper left corner versus the lower right corner, just based on the eye tracking signal and visual attention. I still couldn't be certain if people were looking more in this area because of interest or because of confusion.

So that's why you want to have additional signals and overall bypass self reports, because you could ask people, were you more interested in that, or were you more confused by that?

And people will tell you, but as we just discussed earlier, memories are fallible, and the only time you can ever get the brain and body's raw reaction to a signal is the millisecond that it happens. Anything after that is self reported memory, which often is not reliable when here.

Dom Hawes
00:09:19

We'Re diving into the realms of system one and system two. Daniel Kahneman. So it's the instinctive reaction that you're looking at, right?

Carmen Simon
00:09:25

Yes, something more implicit. And I'm glad that you mentioned the classic. And even for him, we have to all be very humble, because system one versus system two is just a metaphor.

Dom Hawes
00:09:38

Yes.

Carmen Simon
00:09:39

In the brain, things are not aligned so neatly and so very nicely delineated.

So system one and system two, even, I think on page 84 or something of his book, he even says that, just know this, that there is no such thing as a system one or system two in the brain.

But he is correct in knowing that there are some things that a bit more reflexive and automatic from the brain versus some things that are a bit more habitual. For instance, they require a bit of thinking at first, but then you fall on autopilot, whereas some things require a lot more cognitive energy.

So, with these types of signals, we get to know what's happening, whether it's automatic or requires more thinking. But at least we get to see what happens without asking people what happened.

Dom Hawes
00:10:24

So while we're slaying dragons, let's slay another one. Left and right brain. Is that a thing?

Carmen Simon
00:10:29

No, that has been debunked for a while. And I'm glad that you're mentioning this, because I think for anyone listening, it will decrease the pressure of thinking.

I'm not a creative person, so therefore, how can I ever generate some materials that are creative enough, therefore build memories that are strong enough to therefore influence decisions? It's true that there are some functions that are modular and lateralized.

But for most part, the two hemispheres work together and in combination, and they're so connected with each other that it's very hard to say. A creative person is more of a right brain person, and an analytical and a logical person is more a left brain brain person.

So think of creativity this way. If you, first of all, mindset matters, if you think you are creative, you're more likely to come up with some creative ideas.

If you're already given up on yourself, then it's less likely that you'll come up with creative ideas.

But already we gave a very practical guideline in terms of that which is distinct, quite often will be associated with something that is a little bit more creative because it is deviating from a predictable path.

Dom Hawes
00:11:41

When you have someone wired up with the eegs and the ecgs and all the various devices, are you able to see the path that ideas take through the brain? I mean, do different parts of the brain fulfill different functions when it comes to grabbing attention, putting things in memory, or.

Carmen Simon
00:11:59

Yeah, it's a strong question because there's a handful of variables that we monitor. We can't use these devices as mind reading devices. I wish they were had that kind of access.

You and I will be sipping cocktails in the tropics right now because we would have the key that unfolds everything.

Dom Hawes
00:12:16

Well, you would be. I'd just be your servant.

Carmen Simon
00:12:19

No, because then we would share the knowledge. What's the use of science unless you share the results? The handful of variables that we monitor are these.

We can tell things about attention and that can be localized attention to a certain region through the visual signal, but also attention that expands over time. We look at cognitive workload or the brain's ability to hold some items online until it can completes a task.

Usually the task that we give people is related to. Would you choose this vendor based on these marketing or sales materials? We can also detect fatigue.

We can detect the motivation to keep going with the stimulus versus withdraw from it. We can also detect, by the way, mind wandering, which a lot occurs. So those are some examples of cognitive variables.

On the affective side, I can detect how much the brain and body enjoy the experience. Some things are more pleasurable than others. And we can also detect how alert and awake people are during that experience.

I'm sure that you've witnessed this, that there are some business content materials out there that put people to sleep. We can notice that. So those are some variables that we observe and many happen or unfold across time.

So, for example, something that you may have presented to your customers in the beginning of a sequence may trickle down and impact how people still react at the end of that sequence. So here's a practical guideline that anyone can extract from this. It comes from a phenomenon called priming.

Priming means that you can express a stimulus in the beginning of a sequence and you can impact how the next stimulus is being processed. So a type of priming might be an emotional one or an affective one.

So if you share with people something that is provoking a strong reaction, then the next stimulus will be processed a little bit more intensely as well, or at least the brain is ready to attend to that stimulus. So I'll give you an example here with us from in the Bay Area.

Every other billboard that you see next to one prominent highway that we have, which is Highway 101, is related to AI. What else? There are so many AI companies around us these days.

So, of course, to market those AI capabilities is one of the hardest things that you can do. In Silicon Valley. There's a company that I feel has been doing it really well.

And one of their most recent billboards that, that I saw was the lineup.

It mainly had text, which is already a distinctiveness, because usually you expect images, but the text said talk dirty to me, so already it's a bit more provocative. But the word dirty was crossed off and replaced with the word English. So talk English to me.

Now, though, they were alluding to the fact that as you use their tools, then you can apply natural language and you can interact with some of these very sophisticated algorithms, and you can ask them questions like, how is my car supply chain in North America compared to South America? So it's natural language. So you're talking English, you're not talking some other things.

So you see, as these companies are abiding by some of these elements, like priming, they're priming your brain with that very strong emotion, like talk dirty. To me, it's like, ooh, I didn't expect that in a business context.

But because of that, now we're processing the rest of the billboard a little bit more differently. So, as you're listening to this, ask yourself, do you have the courage to go there and instigate a stronger emotion?

Dom Hawes
00:15:45

In practical terms, then, as you say, understanding how the brain processes and functions can help you not just make memories, but make them last longer.

Carmen Simon
00:15:55

Exactly. If you connect even the notion of emotion with memory, emotions is one of the strongest variables that you can use to impact memory.

We alluded to distinctiveness, for instance, emotion is yet another emotion is one of the strongest ones, because the electrochemical signal that you're then inviting somebody else's brain and body to engage in is now a lot stronger. So you're increasing the likelihood for a memory to be formed. What a science. But the increased likelihood that something is going to happen.

Unfortunately, what I'm noticing in business is that people stay fairly flat or predictable, and often they don't have the courage to go there, to provoke a little bit more, to create something that's either positive or negative. It doesn't always have to be on the negative side, by the way.

It can be on a positive or playful, just like this company was doing it with their billboards. But do you have the courage to, to do it? And there are some questions you can ask yourselves. For instance, am I willing to defeat the status quo?

Because sometimes people love the current situation. Status quo is very juicy to the brain because we don't have to exert so much cognitive energy.

So, for instance, if predictable business language is expected, then are you willing to not stay so predictable, linguistically speaking, are you willing to not abide by some social norms like they were doing this with the vocabulary? Am I willing to look for some trends that other people haven't detected just yet?

So you see how there are some questions you can ask yourselves to get to that stronger emotion.

Dom Hawes
00:17:27

I think we're going to touch on emotion in a minute. It's talked about a lot at the moment.

Everyone talks about how it's important to have emotion in your advertising and they deal with it, or in your marketing communication. It's talked about often as though it's like, imagine a shoebox in a warehouse. Oh, yeah, I've got some emotion here. I've got five of that kind.

I'll just put that in. But it's a lot more nuanced than that. I want to come back to it before we get there, though.

In the book, you talk about point a and point b, and there's a particularly interesting concept here that we all need to get our heads around, which is future memory or perspective memory, or are they different? Maybe you could explain the concept future memory and the concept perspective memory and talk about the implications to us.

Carmen Simon
00:18:10

I like that question a lot, because when we think about memories, our tendency is to immediately think about the past.

And it's the correct tendency, because retrospective memory, which means recalling what happened in the past, is very instrumental, because it can inform what is going to happen in the future.

In many instances, it's not always correct, but often that's how we know what to do next, by looking in the past, analyzing some things, and saying, this is what's likely to be happening. The brain is, by the way, the most advanced predictive engine on the planet.

I know that we, we welcome AI and the overlords are here, but the brain is very suited to predict the future, because a brain that doesn't have acute predictive capabilities is not a brain that can survive for too long. We have been designed to constantly be in the future for that reason. Then if you're asking the question, why do we have memory capabilities?

To begin with, it's not so much to recall the past, but is to recall the future. And that's what's called prospective memory.

And if you think about the memory problems that you may have had just in the recent two days, just in the recent week, for instance, I guarantee that most of them are not you forgetting the past, they are you setting an intention in the future and forgetting that. So, for instance, you may be at your desk and you may think, before I leave work, I'm going to send those two emails, and you forget to do that.

Or on my way home, I'm going to pick up the stuff at the grocery store, and that exit goes by, and then you're thinking, I was supposed to stop and didn't. So we set intentions and we forget to act on them. Your customers are not going to be any different.

Your internal teams are not going to be any different. They too will have prospective memory problems.

And one of the ways to deal with that is to say, what will happen in my customers worlds in the future when they're about to make a decision.

And a practical guideline that I've been using, even for myself, as we coach a lot of people how to create content, or we create content ourselves, in order to investigate it in these neuroscience conditions, is to pick up some cues that might remind people of what happened in the past. Because hardly ever will you have the luxury of customers sitting at their desks and then suddenly voluntarily recalling things.

Usually something happens in their environment, then that will be, oh, that reminds me. In fact, if I had to write another book, it might even be called that.

That reminds me, because if you connect your content to something that is very likely happening in people's environments, then that will act as a cue, it will ask, act as a trigger for memory. So, for instance, in a recent presentation, we were building for a company in the governance space.

Governance, not the sexiest topic that you have heard.

We knew that companies that had had some governance issues, especially with their boards had been companies like Uber, companies like Lululemon, companies like Boeing and United Airlines for us here and mainly in Europe, but they travel internationally or mainly in the US.

So, you see, we were building some case studies around these logos, these customers that are so widely recognized that if we did a really good job with an Uber story, for instance, next time you're taking Uber, you'll say, oh, that reminds me of what I read or what I saw in that presentation. Or next time you might be at a little lemon store, you might think, oh, that reminds me of something that I had read there.

So connect your content to something that is likely to happen or be present in your customers future experiences, and you will have some triggers for the memory.

Dom Hawes
00:21:50

There's a lot of literature now in marketing around mental availability, particularly Ehrenberg Bass Institute is talking about the importance of mental availability at the point of purchase and what they're really talking about from a neuroscience point of view. Is this right, prospective memory cues triggering.

Carmen Simon
00:22:06

Exactly. Yeah.

Sometimes we're not humble enough by the fact that somebody else's brain has to cognitively exert some energy in order to bring memories to mind. And the brain is a cognitively lazy organ. If you're giving us the choice to think or not to think, what do we prefer?

So that's why if you bring some of these visual aids into your content at point a, then at point b, when some of these recollecting has to happen, then you're helping out somebody else's brain.

Dom Hawes
00:22:34

And that's hard, Carmen, because at the top of this show, we talked about how good the brain is actually remembering, and you gave the figure of 10%, which you said, it's kind of an arbitrary number, sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes not at all.

But if we do only remember 10% of what we see in here, you need to make sure, if youre trying to embed future memories, that youre embedding the right bits. In the book, youve said people act on what they remember, not what they forget. So what theyre going to forget is not important to us.

But what they remember, of course, is how can marketers try and make sure their content, the right bits of their content, sticks in peoples minds?

Carmen Simon
00:23:13

Yes. So true. It's a position of humility.

And when you start creating your content, whether it's a new campaign or whether it's a formal presentation that then you give to a sales team, or whether it's a thought leadership file, anything that should be memorable, not everything should be memorable. By the way, we would get so much trouble if everything that you did was memorable. You could not have customers, you could not have spouses.

If everything that you did and said was that that memorable. So it's good that the brain forgets. That's another piece of the conversation.

But there will come a time when some things that you express must be memorable because they have to influence decisions. So first of all, start by asking, what is my 10% message?

A lot of people aspire at being memorable, but not that many people know what they want to be memorable for.

Dom Hawes
00:24:01

You got to be deliberate about what you're choosing, haven't you?

Carmen Simon
00:24:04

Exactly. So clarify. Clarify what you want to be memorable for. Clarify your 10%. That would be a major guideline.

The moment that you have that clarification, if it's clear to you, by the way, more clear to the audience, more nebulous to you, more nebulous to them.

So once you have that clarification, then you use the rest of the 90 not as something that you don't really care if people remember, but rather you're using the rest of the 90 as a reinforcer of the ten, as something that brings the ten to surface. So think about all of the elaborate stories, for instance, or some details that you bring in.

Something that is actually quite complex is more useful for the 90% versus the 10%. I'm noticing in a lot of neuroscience studies that I complete, by the way, that the brain synchronizes very well with that which is complex.

It's a counterintuitive topic, because sometimes we hear this adage simplifier complexity. Simplifier complexity. But with the exception of the 10%, which should be a simple message that we want you to remember this.

Like, for instance, even from this episode, I hope that you will remember this notion of control your 10%. If you control it and you're deliberate about it, then people are more likely to take that thing away versus if you leave it to chance.

Not only do people forget that much, but the little they remember is random.

And if you have to convince the masses, if you have to convince a large group of people, you want all of them to take away the same thing, not random things. So control your 10% is a major principle to abide by.

Dom Hawes
00:25:35

That's really interesting.

If you think about your average business to business environment, where, as you say, there's probably a high degree of complexity and an enormous amount of sophistication in the solutions that are being suggested, that's 90% stuff, right?

What you need to do is hone in on the 10%, make sure that hits home, and then you stand a more of a chance of some of the messages of sophistication and complexity being remembered, but all acting as cues, maybe?

Carmen Simon
00:26:04

Exactly.

So thank you for bringing that up, because the moment that your 10% message is clear, and it's a simple one, usually one main message, no more than three or four supporting points, then use the rest of the 90 to bring credibility to that 10%, and that's where your complexity is going to be very useful. Do not diminish that. Do not simplify it, but rather help somebody's brain make sense of it. So how do we make sense of it?

For instance, I did a neuroscience study a while back where I was looking to see whether the brain processes simple versus complex information better. And I noticed that when we managed a complex signal well, through animation, for instance, so there was a gradual distribution of information.

We didn't bombard people all at once with it. We built enough contrast between some concepts so people didn't get confused.

We had enough image, style, variety so that people knew these things belong to this category. These things belong to this category. We also balanced some emotional language versus some very irrational analytic language.

The brain needs both, by the way, in order to build memories.

And when you go through these types of contrasts and through this gradual display of information, then the brain will stay with you as long as we know that there's a pattern through all of this.

And the pattern comes from that 10% message being reinstated and saying, by the way, all of these complex things are in the service of this one main message that would be very important for you to take away.

Dom Hawes
00:27:32

Fun. If we have an agency I'm involved with, their strapline is simple ideas for complicated work world. And they do. I mean, that's what they do.

They do that kind of. That ten, that nugget of information, and they do that very well. It's a difficult thing to get right, I might say.

Carmen Simon
00:27:48

Just keep in mind that it's not complexity that will get you in trouble. It's randomness.

Dom Hawes
00:27:52

Randomness.

Carmen Simon
00:27:53

The moment that people cannot detect a pattern through your complexity, and the 10% will bring you the pattern back, will say, this is what's essential.

Dom Hawes
00:28:01

Hence the important importance of that thread or the story that takes people through the journey.

Carmen Simon
00:28:05

Yes.

Dom Hawes
00:28:05

Well, you mentioned emotions. You said emotions and rational.

They're both important in making memories, which I was pleased to hear, because we're over indexing on emotion at the moment. Everyone in b two, B is talking about how it's essential to have emotion if you want to be noticed. We know it's a big part of retention.

You talk about it a lot in your book. Why are emotions so vital in marketing? Is it just the chemical thing?

Could you give us maybe an example of a campaign that you think really effectively encapsulates the mix of triggering emotion against motivation to enhance memory?

Carmen Simon
00:28:44

Emotion is a very strong principle to abide by, because, yeah, when you get it right, it's exactly what you said. The electrochemical signal that we experience is much stronger. And when you have that, then the increased likelihood happens for memory formation.

You're essentially stamping this moment as worthy of remembering. Unfortunately, what happens in business is that we're a bit wishy washy with emotions.

Things are not always as strong as we think we are for other people's brains, because if we get that, the brain that creates content is not the same brain that processes content. So we just have to be careful there.

Here's a campaign that still sits in my mind, and it's ironic because it was associated with Alzheimer's, since we're talking about memory.

And when it comes to Alzheimer's, I mean, already the field itself, the condition itself, is so infused with strong emotions, but after a while, it's just, you've seen it before, you've heard it before. And this campaign wasn't dedicated to those people who are experiencing that unfortunate condition.

It was dedicated to those who take care of Alzheimer's patients. Sometimes we forget that there are some other segments or entities that are just as important in an equation.

And I felt like the emotion for that ad was so strong. Strong because it gives your brain this notion of, ooh, I haven't looked at this from that angle, from another person's perspective.

So one of the ways, then, what we can learn practically from this is, as you're seeking the stronger emotion, ask, can I do a perspective switch?

A reference switch or a perspective switch often will get somebody else's brain and body to react a little bit more strongly, because what you're telling their brain is look at it from a different angle. And sometimes we don't do that.

I remember some other ones where if you have a campaign, you may not necessarily look at it from the person's perspective, but rather an object's perspective. Like, there was a McDonald's campaign for a while where they were allowing the cheese to speak, okay.

And not just the customer to it, to say, hey, you're going to enjoy this, or speaking to your voice. The cheese was doing the talking.

Look at any entity involved in the receiving of your content and say, whose perspective can we, can we relay this from? Maybe it's the server that's doing the talking when it comes to AI.

Maybe it's just a cable in that equation that has had enough of all this traffic and is just tired and wants to take a nap. Obviously you can get on the bizarre very quickly.

That may not necessarily be part of the final campaign, but then create the next idea from that mindset versus the predictable mindset. Oh, you're the customer. You're going to enjoy all these AI capabilities.

Dom Hawes
00:31:40

By linking those ideas and using bazaar, again, you're connecting effectively different parts of memory to trigger future events.

Carmen Simon
00:31:50

You definitely can trigger some future events, especially if there are many cables in people's lives. It may not necessarily be that one, but cheese, for instance, you see cheese all the time, so I felt like that was a clever one.

Dom Hawes
00:32:01

Cables or cheese? Both. I mean, they're not what you think of immediately, but they're all around us, right?

Carmen Simon
00:32:05

Exactly.

And I also want to say from a practical perspective, when it comes to emotion, if you do hone into one, and as you mentioned earlier, sometimes they're not easy to come up with or the strategy is not easy to create. Reserve it for the end of a sequence.

So let's just say that you're creating a marketing presentation or a sales presentation or even a campaign that has multiple instances and at some point things do end.

Reserve that emotionally intense moment for the end of the sequence, because science has been showing us very frequently, and especially lately, that the moment that something happens and it's intense at the end of that sequence, then the memory stamp is even stronger and longer lasting.

So you and I were talking before this show about this trend that happens these days, about the cold water exposure, that you wanted to remember things for yourself. Because memory is also an individual process. You don't always have to just leave people memorizing people's minds.

You want to leave some memories for yourself to remember your own content.

And what we're noticing is that if you're exposed to some learning events, and let's just say you're reading something in a book and you're learning and you're learning and you're learning.

And at the end of that you go and do a cold water dip or take a really super cold shower, or even in experiments, for instance, people will dip their hands in ice cold water because of that emotionally intensive experience. The memory stamp is a lot stronger for that event.

Dom Hawes
00:33:34

Oh, blimey, you're putting me under pressure here, colm, because now I've got to come up with a big finish to this episode or people are going to forget it. Well, I've got a few minutes left to work on that. Let's move on to something else very quickly while I try and come up with a strong finish.

Repetition, another key theme of the book. And we know, I think, from behavioral psychology about things like mere exposure and recency bias and all those sorts of things.

We know that repetition improves mental availability. Can you maybe give us some pointers of how people can other than just repetition?

Because most people, especially in b two B, don't have the budget to advertise on primetime all the time. Are there subtle ways that you can use repetition to try and improve mental availability?

Carmen Simon
00:34:25

Well, even within the same segment, let's just say that you only have one chance to have an exposure to the brain within that segment. Make sure that you have enough repetition of your 10% message, because sometimes people will identify their message to control the 10%.

So they say, well, it's now clear, but they only mention it once or twice and often that is not sufficient.

So, for example, in the neuroscience studies that I conduct, we are noticing that within a five minute window, let's just say that you create a five minute presentation for an AI vendor. In that five minute window, you have to repeat your 10% message at least four times. It's the exact same message that comes up again and again.

You increase the window. So for instance, in a ten minute window, you have to repeat that 10% message at least six times.

You increase the window more than the repetition rate has to go up even higher. And when that doesn't happen, then you're still then abiding by randomness and not by a very clear 10% message that comes up again and again.

And it's that, by the way, that gives the brain the ability to detect patterns, because we can only detect patterns if things keep happening.

So first of all, start with the neuroscientific humility that if you only mention an important message once, it's very unlikely that it will stand out for people.

You have to have the courage to go back there again and again, because what will happen in real life is you'll say something once and then you say it again and say it again and then say it again and then say it again and then say it again and then say it again and only then maybe people will notice it for the first time. So even after that you have to keep repeating it so people can say, oh, so now I get it. That's the essence of this entire complex thing.

Now, you have helped my own brain detect the pattern. You know the pattern because you created it. But I need enough exposure to this to detect the pattern.

Dom Hawes
00:36:18

For our listeners today, it's very important they remember that it's all about the 10%.

Carmen Simon
00:36:22

Control. Control your 10%. And we can also summarize a few of the points.

So we talked about make sure that it is distinct enough against a background of similarity. So don't put too much pressure on yourselves.

We also talked about creating some strong emotions for people's brains, and, if possible, reserve those strong emotional segments toward the end of a sequence. And we also talked about repetition.

So make sure that that 10% message appears again and again and again so that you can be in control of what people remember. And don't leave that to chance.

Dom Hawes
00:36:56

That's the summary I'm going to ask at the end of this show, a question related to that summary. You're not allowed to go back and listen to it again. You have to remember the thing. Now, you talk in the book about portability.

Carmen Simon
00:37:08

Oh, yes.

Dom Hawes
00:37:09

What is portability? Maybe you can help the listeners understand what it is and help marketers understand how they can use this concept of portability.

Carmen Simon
00:37:19

I like that concept so much, which is why I included it in the book, because from a brain science perspective and obviously studying memory, I kept getting this question of, why is it that we remember jingles so much, or some messages that were part of some classic campaigns? And I started looking a little bit more into it. And the main phrase of a jingle has specific criteria, one of which is cognitive ease, by the way.

So as you're thinking about your messages, make sure that they have words that come to mind easily. Like, even for us, for the show today, we said, control your 10%. We didn't.

We didn't say, be in charge of the management of the small percentage that tends to stay on people's minds long term. Control your 10%. It rolls off the tongue, so it has cognitive ease.

But another characteristic that some of these classic messages have that can endure even through history, not just for a few weeks or months while customers make decisions, is this notion of portability, meaning that you come up with one main message that tends to hold true in its meaning across contexts.

So, for example, if you say, Houston, we have a problem that was initially iterated within one context, but now you might be at the grocery store and they ran out of milk, and you may call your friend and say, houston, we have a problem out of milk. So you can see how you can change the context, but the meaning of that phrase still stands.

I'm very impressed, and I don't know if you guys are fans or if she's just as popular in Europe as she is here in the US, but you cannot possibly go anywhere unless you hear Taylor Swift. And if you really listen to her lyrics, she's a master in terms of creating some of these messages that are so portable.

Like, for instance, take a classic like shake it off. It's one of her songs.

You can use that at the gym, you can use that phrase at work, you can use that when you're having a personal argument with someone. That phrase is so portal.

So I know that this will not be possible for all of your messages, but whenever you can come up with one, that can take place in many contexts, and if those contexts should be familiar with people at point b, then now you have a really powerful intersection between not only portable but acting as a cue to trigger memories.

Dom Hawes
00:39:33

The swifties had a treat because Taylor Swift came over here and all the newspapers had headlines of how much she had boosted our gdp just by being here. So she seems to be able to appeal to an enormously wide demographic. Taylor Swift. And now we know why.

Carmen Simon
00:39:48

You heard it here first, one of the reasons, yes. Portable messages.

Dom Hawes
00:39:51

You stress importance in the book of balancing cognitive and perceptive elements.

Carmen Simon
00:39:56

Yes.

Dom Hawes
00:39:57

Why is that balance crucial? If we're designing a campaign, how would we go deliberately about balancing cognitive and perceptive elements in our communication?

Carmen Simon
00:40:06

I'm so glad that you're mentioning those pillars, because sometimes when we have marketing campaigns, especially things in b two B that, that sometimes are fairly esoteric and not necessarily available to the senses, like large language models, and everybody's speaking about AI these days, or we're talking about the company with governance processes. Notice how much you're taxing someone's cognition.

If you're talking only about the data analytics or predictive analytics or governance processes, those are not immediately tangible to us. And the brain is often mobilized by specifics like, tell me what you mean by the world becoming more digital.

I was just looking at a picture these days just the other day where the initial version was, the world is becoming more digital, and it just showed some very random fingers touching some sort of a tablet of sorts. I mean, that kind of sort of seems tangible because it is a tablet, but it's still.

You're visualizing the abstract or something that is still abstract, whereas the after version showed somebody, like a view from the top of a plate, fork and knife on each side, and there was a mobile phone right in the middle of the plate. People are consuming more digital content. So, see, now that's almost taking a metaphor and visualizing it literally.

But it's now that's something that's available to the senses and you can relate to. By the way, that's a good cue, too, because later on at point b, you two will be faced with a plate with a knife and the fork on either side.

So you see how, how, how it works. So anytime that you're reflecting on your content, wonder, is this available to the sense?

And the reason why you want to ask that question is because from a neuroscience perspective, we're noticing more and more that the way your customers form perceptions, and ultimately they will form memories, and ultimately, if you're lucky, they will decide in your favor. All of those are born not just on some mental representations that the brain builds as it's interacting with reality.

All of those are formed at the intersection of brain, body, and environment, reacting all together. This is why embodied cognition is one of the hottest trends in neuroscience.

So try to, anytime you can, link something that is quite abstract and generic with something that is specific and concrete, just like having that plate with the fork and the knife and the phone in the middle of it, consuming digital.

Dom Hawes
00:42:25

Content, impossible to ignore. Excellent read, Carmen. You very kindly sent me a copy of your new book called made you look.

And when I was speaking to Carmen before in the pre interview, you, like, Carmen said, how are you going to buy it? And I said, well, I'll probably buy it online. Don't. She said, this is not look, it's better for someone to read it on Kindle than not at all.

But I would say if you're going to go out and read made you look, or if you want to buy it, you need to buy the physical book. It's an amazing coffee table book, isn't it?

Carmen Simon
00:42:58

It is coffee table meets science type of book.

And just if we're talking about this notion of embodied cognition, I think looking at the physical book and the picture would be a more visceral example experience than flipping through pages on Kindle.

Dom Hawes
00:43:12

Thank you very much. Carmen. If people wanted to get in touch with you, I know you have your own business. How would they contact you?

Carmen Simon
00:43:18

If they need some help, yes, send me an email at csimon sive.com and also join me on this platform where I post various principles that are practical for creating memorable content and the platform is memorable. Dot locals.com.

i think you'll enjoy the before and after examples in particular that will show you a few things about how to improve your own content.

Dom Hawes
00:43:45

Wow, that was amazing, wasn't it?

Thank you so much to Carmen for coming into the studio to talk to us, and I hope you got as much from that show as I did. Now, don't forget, you can buy her books on Amazon or in any good bookshop.

They are extraordinary and I thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly recommend them to you. But all I've got left to say to you today is thank you very much for taking the time to watch or listen to this episode. Episode.

We know that getting attention is really hard and I genuinely appreciate you spending the time with us and still being here. Now, if you want to talk to me about any of the content you've heard today, you can find me on LinkedIn.

And there's a link to my LinkedIn profile on the show notes which you can find at unicorny Dot co dot UK. And if you did like the content and you want more, please give us a thumbs up or even better, subscribe.

And if you're feeling really, really kind, I'd love you to write us a review. But today, that is all we have time for. So thank you very much again, and I will see you next week.