99. Consumer Behaviour: we don't think the way we think we think

Tas Tasgal
00:00:00

We've got to sort of understand that however much we want to think that we are in the business of transmitting information, that we're not too much of our communications. B2B, B2C. If you want to call it H to H, human to human.

Dom Hawes
00:00:12

Please don't do that.

Tas Tasgal
00:00:14

I won't. Did you see I was doing. We are unconscious most of the time.

That's what's upsetting for people in business, the fact that not just your buyers or your consumers, but we are all unconscious and mindless most of the time.

Dom Hawes
00:00:38

Hey you. You are tuned into the Unicorny Marketing show and I'm your host, Dom Hawes. So welcome.

You're in a good place because today we have an extraordinary person coming to the studio and that is Tas Tasgal, author of his latest book, The Consumer Behaviour Book. Now, I was lucky enough to go to the launch of this book and I asked Tas to sign five copies that I'm going to give away at the end of today's show.

So assuming you're watching this podcast in a timely manner, you might be able to win one of five. Now I said you're in for a treat today. Tas is the most eloquent speaker I think I've ever come across. He's extraordinarily educated.

He is an, he's a classicist, he's a mythologist, he's an etymologist. And I think you'll find this is a very, very entertaining way to spend the next half hour. Let's go straight to the studio. Tas, how are you?

Tas Tasgal
00:01:28

I'm good. I'm slightly jet lagged.

Dom Hawes
00:01:30

Where have you been? What have you been up to?

Tas Tasgal
00:01:31

I was in New York for four or five days last week. Speak. Actually I shouldn't say speaking keynoting as the Americans. I won't to call it at a conference which was wonderful but I'm slightly.

Yeah, what day is it and where are all my clothes? Sort of feeling.

Dom Hawes
00:01:45

I would like to say for those of you who are listening rather than watching on video that Tas is actually clothed. It's fine. Tas, why don't you tell us a little bit about you before we dig into your new book and in particular human behavior.

Tas Tasgal
00:01:57

I got into advertising in a slightly odd way through studying Latin, Greek and ancient history which is not the usual way but I'd loved Latin. I'm still ask anyone who knows me.

I'm still obsessed with Latin, Greek, Roman history, Greek history, etymology and then found myself looking as a job as a career advertising because I knew it was going to be media and I love movies and I still do. And I still a trustee of a cinema in North London.

So I made, as I say, the obvious jump between studying Latin, Greek and ancient history and working in advertising. And that's where I got my love of storytelling from.

Because I thought, why when you're talking about brands or any form of communication, why so much of it so dull when we have all these wonderful ways of communicating with human beings which are called stories. The other thing was also interesting. People say to me, how did I make that jump? A lot of what I study was actually really propaganda.

So when you look at the death of Caesar and Mark Antony, trying to talk about, actually that's what they're doing, they're doing propaganda. And I realized the propaganda was sort of communication. So I did that.

I worked in ad agencies as what's called an account planner strategist for many years until I realized that I got bored with the fact that the answer to every question was a 42nd television commercial. And I'd always wanted to train, I always wanted to write books. So for many years now I've been doing all those things on my own.

Training, writing, lecturing and speaking and just doing what seems to be interesting and available.

Dom Hawes
00:03:25

My introduction certainly to the content of this, your new book was during lockdown. You very kindly came and did a series of webinars for us to keep people amused while they were at home.

And some of that con that was on behavioral economics actually, wasn't it? So some of the content that is now in the book was presented to us there. So we're going to dig into the book today.

Let's just start by kind of setting the scene and getting a sort of, I guess a gentle introduction to behavioral economics. I think most unicorners will probably be, well, they should be aware of it because they tend to be very intelligent audience.

Tas Tasgal
00:04:03

Obviously.

Dom Hawes
00:04:04

Obviously in the book. I love your phrase we don't think the way we think. We think.

Tas Tasgal
00:04:08

Yes.

Dom Hawes
00:04:09

Can you maybe start by explaining this core premise and how it underpins then the rest of the book?

Tas Tasgal
00:04:14

The first thing I must say is to give you credit because there are a few expressions in this and my other books which I have coined. Not that one.

I traced it back to a really bright and annoyingly handsome neuroscientist called David Eagleman in his book Incognito, which is about the brain. And it is a beautiful expression. We don't think the way we think.

We think partly because it just trips off the tongue secondly, there is nothing in there that is more than a syllable long. And thirdly, it's just very eloquent and as you say, it's the core of really the book and all the stuff that I do and the training I do, which is.

I often ask this of my audiences, if I'm training or speaking, saying, how do we like to think that we think.

And the answers I usually get from people are logically, rationally, and perhaps less frequently independently, because we like to think, you know, we're. We're not influenced by. Of course we're. And depending on who's at this talk or training, you know, they'll know where I'm going with this, which is.

It's ironic and sarcastic, which is great in New York because you just sound. Your English sound as though you're English and people know you're being sarcastic. So that.

That became one of my sort of go to expressions for really understanding what behavioral economics was in a really simple way, which is too much of our communications. B2B, B2C, if you want to call it H, human to human, Please, please don't do that. I won't. Did you see I was doing.

But also in our personal lives, frankly, because that's again, part of my feeling for doing this is it's not just in our work, it's in our normal lives. This is how our brain works. We like to think because it makes us look good. It flatters us as individuals, as a species.

My daughter, who's vegetarian, always reminds me that it's a good way for us to elevate ourselves above animals because we are rational.

Dom Hawes
00:06:03

Yeah.

Tas Tasgal
00:06:04

Therefore we can slaughter them and eat them. But it's clearly a myth or a delusion that we are we or we do process, or we do behave and think in that way. Or at least if we do, it's.

It's vanishingly small part of what we do. So that's sort of the expression that I will, as you can tell, use as a launch pad for saying, okay, this is what baby economics is about.

Dom Hawes
00:06:25

Brilliant.

Well, you put me on to David Eagleman, actually, when, when. When I very first met you. And I've read his. Most of his books now. Yeah, they are fantastic. A very strong rec for anyone.

Tas Tasgal
00:06:36

Yeah. I mean, seriously, if you want to look at. He wrote a book called Sum S U M, which might be some in Latin, I don't know, but it's a series.

I think it's a series of short stories, but which is also brilliant. So not only is he annoyingly bright, irritatingly handsome. He's a novelist as well.

Dom Hawes
00:06:50

Okay. I'm not going to promote him anymore than that. Don't, don't.

Tas Tasgal
00:06:52

He doesn't need it.

Dom Hawes
00:06:53

He doesn't need it.

Tas Tasgal
00:06:54

Yeah.

Dom Hawes
00:06:54

Now, one of the examples you gave in your book, and this talks. This is basically talks to how the brain works, is the incredible story of Phineas Gage.

Tas Tasgal
00:07:04

Yes.

Dom Hawes
00:07:06

Why don't you tell us his story? Because I think that's gonna help us understand. We're gonna look at System one and System two later, but before we get there, it all started with Mr.

Gage, didn't it?

Tas Tasgal
00:07:16

It is. It's one of those stories. And again, if we get on to talk about storytelling, as I say, that's my other sort of interest.

Stories to me are fantastic ways of often articulating or finding human truths in a way that don't feel like they're sort of heavy.

And the story, Phineas Gage, is extraordinary because he worked on the railroad in the States and had a terrible accident where a tamping rod, I think it was an explosion that went wrong and the tamping rod literally went through his brain. And if you want more details, if you're the sort of person that likes this, you can look at pictures of X rays of it. Yeah, it's there. It's there.

And it was written up in a wonderful article. And I wish. I might need to check it again later in the book, but it's something like the effects of a tamping rod going through the brain.

Something really. I wonder what they might be. But the fascinating story which is written, Antonio Damasio talks about it in Descartes Era. Descartes era.

And it became a sort of one of the great subjects that gets into behavioral economics and psychology. The fact was, it changed him. And he. His complete. His. His temperament and his attitude and his behavior changed completely.

He became irritable, he became difficult, he became awkward, he became unpleasant.

But the fact was he could still make rational decisions, but all the decisions he made were wrong and they were affected by the part of the brain, because the part of the brain that had been affected by the rod was the fact. The bit the brain that had affected his emotions.

So the way this was sort of explored by neuroscientists and behavioral economists was to say it's the emotional part of the brain. If that's affected, that's what changes all our decisions and makes us unable to make good decisions.

Because even though his rationality was still operating, he couldn't make normal, human, empathetic decisions. And it was very. He did actually survive a number of years bizarrely after having this accident. But it was a terrible, terribly sad life.

So it became the sort of cause celebra for neuroscientists saying this is the importance of emotions. We think we can't deal with rationality without rationality. We can. What we can't deal or do without is actually emotions.

So that's why the story is so. It's so poignant and so sad. But also obviously a great example of what it means and also gives us.

Dom Hawes
00:09:41

A pointer to why the traditional model of economics probably doesn't work. Because that's all about rationality and optimizing and the sensible stuff. But human beings are just not like that.

Tas Tasgal
00:09:53

Yeah, I mean if there are any classically trained economists listening, look away. Now I have to be honest and blunt.

And again I think if you look at, because I mentioned the book and I think certainly my training, not only is Daniel Cardman, who I'm sure we'll talk about, who sadly passed away recently, he won the Nobel Prize for Economics. The first psychologist too, but so did Richard Thaler who wrote Co wrote Nudge. I don't get to tell you my Richard Thayer story.

I mentioned, I think that one of my hats is a trustee of a cinema in North London called the Phoenix where I was for many years. And there was a film called the Big Short which was about the crash in 2008. Good film, very good film based on a sort of fact based book.

But they turned it into a sort of fictional film with Steve Carell, Christian Bale, I think. And what was interesting about that film was directed by man called Adam McKay, he used to work with Will Ferrell and that's another story.

But intermingled with the, the fictional stuff, they have real celebrities just telling the audience. So there's a scene for example with Margot Robbie in a bath which for some reason I seem to remember.

But there's another scene in a casino and there are two people explaining the nature of gambling and how gambling again works in the brain. One is Selena Gomez, the Disney actress and singer who's currently in Only Murders in the Building, which is brilliant series.

The other is Richard Thaler and I'm in the Phoenix cinema, my cinema. And there's about 200 people in the cinema. And this scene comes on with Richard Thaler and selena Gomez.

So 299 people go oh look, there's Selena Gomez, the famous Disney actress and singer. I'm the only person who goes, oh look, there's Richard Thayer Professor OF Playful Economics so that's the first part of the story.

The next part of the story is I go on Twitter and say the Big Short was really great film, especially for the surprise appearance by Nobel Laureate, which is they love. And he replies to my tweet, oh. And he says, yes, but you've got to thank Adam McKay, who was a director who did this. So I got an.

I got a tweet from a Nobel Prize winner.

Dom Hawes
00:12:04

Blimey.

Tas Tasgal
00:12:05

And that's my only my first Nobel Prize winner story, because I met Daniel Kahneman. He did a talk just after thinking fast and slow. Came out in 2008, I'm saying. And he came to, I think it was the IPA in London. And we have.

It's not exactly family, but we have people in common that we know. I just bumped into him and said, you know, I happen to know people who live near where you used to live. And we had a lovely cook. He was delightful.

I think he's. He was probably in his late 70s or 80s, but he was absolutely sweet, absolutely delightful. And you'd never guessed he was a Nobel Prize winner.

Sadly, he died very early because again, for your viewers and listeners, Carloman Tversky wrote the stuff together in the seventies.

Dom Hawes
00:12:46

Yeah.

Tas Tasgal
00:12:47

I think seven mid seventies. And they called it Prospect Theory. Didn't have a name for it, they just gave it a generic term, Prospect Theory.

And then, yeah, Tversky died really early. And Carmen's always say, look, that we did this together, everything.

Dom Hawes
00:12:59

He was very vocal about it, wasn't it? But these days when people talk about it, they just talk about Conor.

Tas Tasgal
00:13:04

Yeah, yeah. But as I say, he's very honest and sincere about sharing the credit.

Dom Hawes
00:13:09

As I said, I think most of our audience will be aware of what it is, but maybe not how it impacts. And in the book, you've got a couple of case studies that I really enjoyed. Both cars fun enough. Peugeot and Volkswagen.

Could you maybe take one of those and talk about what the behavioral nudges are and kind of why they stand out as examples that might help teach the rest of us something.

Tas Tasgal
00:13:31

Yeah. What I wanted to do in the book. So this magic number three, always in story setting, is three parts.

So Veni, Vidi, Vicki, Liberty, Galati, fraternity, three wise men, three blind mice. Number of times you're a lady.

Dom Hawes
00:13:43

Three is the magic number.

Tas Tasgal
00:13:44

Three is the magic. Magic numbers, someone once said. So the first part is sort of why behavioral economics and the theory.

The second part is case studies, and the third is sort of, okay, what does this mean next implications. So there's a whole, as you say, there's a whole series of case studies. The Volkswagen one goes back to sort of Bilber.

Again, I come from sort of classic advertising background and it was really about reframing. So one of the key things for me, and interesting you said, Dom, that your audience.

One of the things I find a lot people say, I know all this stuff I've heard about. Then I say, okay, show me your comms, show me your website. And I go, really? You do know it, do you? Because you're still all system 2 biased.

But the Volkswagen one is a famous classic sort of brand reframing. And Bill Burnback, who founded ddb, Joel Dane Birnbach and isn't as well known as he really should be, I think.

And what Volkswagen did was to say, look, we are a small German car that no one's ever heard of in the US. This again, I think is late 60s, early 70s. And at that time every car ad looked the same. Pretty much hasn't changed actually in 50 years.

You know, here's the car, it looks great, here's some numbers, miles per gallon, whatever. And also look how fantastic it is.

Dom Hawes
00:15:00

Here's a film of a car driving up a windy road.

Tas Tasgal
00:15:03

Can you just see what you did with that? Can you just do that? Every time when I do a workshop, I'll say to people, describe me a typical car. And they do that and people will do that.

It is literally ingrained. Why? Because it's a cliche. So again, somebody that comes from a comms world, saliency is everything. How do you stand out? How do you differentiate?

And what was so clever about Birnbach, was he some people called the soft sell. But he said, look, it's not just about beating people over the face with facts. It's not just about what we would now say. System two.

Yeah, he realized you have to get to system one. You have to engage emotions. You have to find a way of creating something that has an emotional response.

So the whole thing about VW and especially the Beetle was about it being small and ugly, which contravenes several of the sort of laws. One was it's not glamorizing, it's not saying how wonderful it is.

Because one of the other things which I think I mentioned in the book, can't remember is something called the pratfall effect, which is a lovely bit of psychology.

So again, brands and brand owners, and again, listen carefully, folks often want to make sure that their brand is, or their company or services Seem designed or seen as perfect. Yeah, don't. Human beings actually don't respond to perfection. We know that nothing is perfect. But again, often in comms we say, look, how wonderful.

Second, one of the things he did was to use the pratfall effect. So again, this is a famous experiment. It's done loads of different times. But one example was somebody who was asked to go on stage and give a speech.

They give a speech, they come off stage, and then the audience asked to rate it in a second condition. They are told deliberately to slip and fall. And all the audience go, oh, no. And again, the audience are asked to rate it.

Dom Hawes
00:16:51

Yeah.

Tas Tasgal
00:16:51

Now, rather than rating them lower for, oh, that was terrible, people rate that person higher.

Dom Hawes
00:16:56

Okay.

Tas Tasgal
00:16:57

More and more highly because they empathize with them. So a bit of etymology. I haven't had any etymology yet.

We talk about the word error as errors being a mistake, but for etymologists out there, error comes from Latin word erra, which we see in the word erratic.

Dom Hawes
00:17:12

Yep.

Tas Tasgal
00:17:13

Erratic means to wander. So error actually means to wander.

So, again, one of the things that comes from the Volkswagen case study, and I'll say to clients is, it's okay to be wrong, it's okay to be fallible. And again, there have been many brands that have done that. Yeah, there's a. Again, I was in the States last week. Somebody mentioned this.

I come with the brand name. It's an American cough syrup or whatever. He says it tastes disgusting, but it works. Be honest. It does taste.

So the thing about Volkswagen with the famous lemon ad, and there was a. An example I use in the book, which is after the moon landing, they literally just had a picture of the. The moon landing vehicle with.

It's ugly, but it gets you there. So how brilliant is that? And also, it didn't show the car. You know, everyone go, we have to show the product. Why?

So part of the way that I use the case study and reframing is to say, look at the frame and the conventions that you have within your brand or within your market and find a way to reframe it.

And I think it works especially in B2B, because, again, very often there are all sorts of conventions and assumptions, and if all you have is the same conventions and assumptions, you're going to look the same as every other service in the market.

Dom Hawes
00:18:24

One of the things that we do in B2B, and an author last year did try and change that by introducing a new framework, but it was still a framework, is we assume that the way that we make relationships with people and businesses is very logical and there's that whole kind of Aida framework and I know you don't like these things, but I know, oh my beating heart. We're going to come on to those very quickly.

Whether it's a linear or a framework or swim lanes, we like to assume that everybody behaves in the same way and of course they don't. Unless you're averaging out. But average never got anyone anywhere. Why these models are outdated, we know that.

But how can businesses be more flexible in how they work rather than just adopting one of those frameworks?

Tas Tasgal
00:19:10

I'm glad you said flexible, not agile, because agile is also a word that I hate.

Dom Hawes
00:19:14

Yes.

Tas Tasgal
00:19:14

For any of you out there, I'll say this now. The only time you should ever use expression lean and agile is to describe gymnasts. So please don't use agile.

One of the things again that I mean a lot of things get my go as you can tell. One of the things that again is in the book and I think is fascinating.

Fascinating because one of the things I'm, I've been trying to do in the book as well is to sort of look at almost like the psychology of behavioral economics and the psychology of why we end up thinking the way we think we think especially in the sort of comms world.

Dom Hawes
00:19:44

Yeah.

Tas Tasgal
00:19:45

And the single biggest motivation of human behavior is inertia is confirmation bias because we know the brain wants to avoid things that conflict with what it already believes. Again, look at any political, you know, issue that you look at.

So the reason why I think it's taken so long for behavioral economics to get bedded in is it disrupts a lots of things that people in our business have held onto. So for example, linear what called linear transportation models. You go from this box to this box to this box.

Awareness to interest to desire to action, which I'm afraid to get technical is nonsense. Who says you have to create awareness first, then interest, then desire?

What behavioural economics in my world suggests is desire is often the most important thing you create. David Ogilvy talked about we need to find excuses to justify our behavior. That's why we use post rationalization as a word afterwards.

So for me, often I'll use Aida as a way of saying maybe actually it's D that comes first. You create the desire and then system two, you then give the rationalizations. Why do I want to feel like this?

How do I create the product or the delivery or the service which allows a customer to say, yeah, I really like, I like, like you. But so this is why.

So rather than just only concentrating on rational facts, firstly you need to concentrate on emotions first and then find out what rational facts support those emotions.

Dom Hawes
00:21:16

And then of course, you need to avoid buyer's remorse afterwards. So there's another layer of behavioral psychology probably to apply in.

Yeah, so I think, I think one of the other challenges, and we use the word disruptive and it is genuinely disruptive because we've got whole remuneration programs and job titles and hierarchy is based around this linear way of working. So yeah, it's a mind fright.

Tas Tasgal
00:21:40

There's a lot of stuff, again, which I probably didn't even mention in the book, about sticks and carrots.

And again, in terms of companies, I've done some stuff with companies where I've just looked again, as you say, they're incentive scams and it's what are called extrinsic or intrinsic motivations. So extrinsic motivations, I pay you or I give you free gifts. And all the research is very clear.

And again, please think about this in your normal lives. What seems to matter more and linger more is intrinsic motivations. Does it make me feel good? Does it make me. Does it give me a sense of meaning?

And again, there's loads of psychology that suggests that. So as you say, that remuneration thing, think about intrinsic motivations as much as extrinsic.

Dom Hawes
00:22:24

Brilliant. We're going to move on now because in the book you give us a model, a six part model comprising six principles.

And when you read the book, you will discover these principles. We're not going to give them all away today.

Tas Tasgal
00:22:37

Of course not, no.

Dom Hawes
00:22:38

But I would like to look at a couple because we don't want to give away the crown jewels of the book. And very reasonably priced it is too.

I want to explore two of those and I'm going to choose two that I think maybe for our audience, the Road Less Traveled. So I think most of our audience will, as I've said, will be aware of the work of Kahneman and Tversky.

They may not know, however, that System one and System two weren't actually.

Tas Tasgal
00:23:00

Yeah, it is an interesting detail. I mean, I'm fascinated by the whole history of behavioral economics. And again, Thaler wrote a book called Misbehaving which was about that.

So a man called Keith Stanovich wrote. He's a very, very well known psychologist within the industry and he wrote many papers, one of which I think was with Richard West.

And if you look at the different models, there were many, many models of implicit behavior. Intuitive behavior.

But what, what Kahneman did, and again, it's fascinating as somebody who works in comms, was effectively he turned system one and System two into a meme. So Stanovich came up with let's call them a System one as a simple way of saying system two is rational and conscious and one process.

System one is a series of processes that are unconscious and implicit. And I do think I mentioned it in the book because I have to do this purely for egotistical reasons.

One of the things that Stanovich called it originally, before he called IT System 1, System 2 was the HE as an acronym, the autonomic series of systems which spelled out tas. So I'm sorry, what can I say? But yeah, so he came up with it, but it was thinking fast and slow that popularized it.

And again, but Kahneman's very honest about saying that.

Dom Hawes
00:24:15

And why do you think it is. Important for marketers to understand the systems firstly, but also how they work and how they relate to each other?

Tas Tasgal
00:24:22

I think it's really important because as I said, this sort of confirmation bias and default, all the many, many centuries I've worked in this business, all the people I've trained, people even I've lectured at university, our brain seems to have a sort of default understanding which may come from classical economics, that we are rational, that we make rational decisions. And again, as economists are wont to say, we maximize our utility.

I often ask people to put their hands up how many you woke up today and decided you were going to maximize your utility. And as I say, what's interesting is even when I lecture sort of 18, 19 year olds, they still seem to come equipped with that as the default.

So I think it is actually almost like my job, my vision to say this may be the system that we've inherited, but it isn't right. And I think as we said with Aida, it might be simple, it might be comprehensible, but it's wrong.

It isn't actually how people in any decision making process seem to work.

So part of what I'm doing is to say let's explore why we seem to have absorbed these attitudes and let's explain why the research and the science seems to say that they're not right. And the way I try and do it within companies is to sort of work top to bottom.

So rather than just talking to marketing or comms people to get the people at the top table to say this permeates all of our thinking. So let's look at what it a if we hold those views.

And B, if we say maybe there are alternative views, and my way of saying it, to say these alternative views, I think will lead to you doing something different and better. That's always my goal. Not just this is some theoretical stuff.

It will make your brand positioning, it will make your comms, it will make your behavior change programs more effective. So that's the angle I sort of try and come in on.

Dom Hawes
00:26:11

Okay. In the book you talk about mindlessness.

Tas Tasgal
00:26:13

Yeah.

Dom Hawes
00:26:13

Is that the refusal to accept or talk to me about mindlessness?

Tas Tasgal
00:26:17

Mindlessness is again, one of those words a man called Robert Wan Wan sink. And he's done a lot of mindlessness studies to do with food.

It's amazing how much behavioral economics is to do with food, by the way, to do with soup or to do with even. Michael Bloomberg did a thing in New York where he was trying to get restaurants to have smaller containers of soft drinks.

So he did this experiment where there was a 32 ounce container, which by the way, for the UK listeners and viewers is not big in the States. But if you have it with a 36 ounce container and then a 28, 24 and see who chooses the 32 ounce.

But then if you have another condition where the 32 ounce is the biggest, what happens? More people will choose it if it's not the biggest. Because the brain goes, actually it's big, but it's not that big, it could be worse.

So again, framing is about the choice that you give people. So he did loads. He's got this laboratory where he gets people to do all these experiments and things.

And one of my favorite examples is this sort of table. And he says to people, this is an experiment about crackers.

We want you to taste these crackers, and by the way, we want you to dip them in some soup. So can you have some soup, dip a cracker in and tell us what you think about the cracker?

And as with all these experiments, you learn very quickly they all involve deception.

Dom Hawes
00:27:38

I love this one. I love this one.

Tas Tasgal
00:27:40

The clever thing is all these soup bowls are rigged up so underneath the table there's a tube that goes back to a sort of central reservoir of soup, which is not an expression I ever thought I would say. And basically what happens is as the people drink the soup, it's refilled.

So they get asked the question about the crackers, but they also get asked questions about how much soup did you have while you were doing the experiment. People say, oh, I had like a couple of spoonfuls. And of course they eat like Three or four times more and the same with a pop.

There's a popcorn experiment where they give people a whole sort of amount and no matter what container of popcorn you give them, people will finish it. So the sense is a lot of our behavior is literally mindless. And there's a great headline for the Time magazine.

I can't remember if I quote it in the book, which is why we are most. We are unconscious most of the time.

And again, that's what's upsetting for people in business, the fact that not just your buyers or your consumers, but we are all unconscious and mindless most of the time. Why? Because the brain hasn't got time or more interesting, more importantly, energy to make every single decision anew.

So most of the time it just says, you know, we did that last time, I'll do it again.

Dom Hawes
00:28:56

So there is an experiment in your book which I really like and you've done it on me once before and I now do it on friends of mine. It takes a while to explain. We're talking about Shane Frederick Matrix reflection test with the baton ball.

Tas Tasgal
00:29:08

You've got to be honest, people listening and watching. So what?

The way this is done, and it's about understanding the power of system one and how our decisions or how we come to our decisions so quickly and automatically. So people are told, as I will tell you, that you have a bat and a ball and together they cost £1 10.

And I tell you that the bat costs a pound more than the ball. And I ask people immediately, what do you think? What does your gut say that the cost of the ball is? And we will pause and write it down.

Now I will tell you is that 90% of you will say 10p. And perhaps more alarmingly, about 60% of maths graduates will say it's 10p. Why? Because your system 1 jumps in and says 10, 1 pound and 10 10.

And you go off and you think, right, good job, well done. On. Except it can't be. It can't possibly be because if I tell you the ball is 10p, I told you as a condition, the bat costs a pound more.

So the bat must cost £1 10, giving you a total of £1 20.

So either you felt slightly awkward or embarrassed and you're digging a deny, a lot of you will deny it or said a lot of people actually say to me, that's not what you said. And I'll say, actually the reality. And of course, pause. Now, what is the real answer?

Dom Hawes
00:30:31

Well, let's not give the answer, okay, let's okay. It's at the back of the book.

Tas Tasgal
00:30:34

It's at the back of the book. And you can, you can tell me or you don't cheat. Don't cheat. But again, that's, that's the power of the mindless unconscious system.

One saying it's 10.

Now the fact is our brain is incredibly clever and fantastic, but occasionally it will jump to decisions like that which we know, we, we feel are intuitively right. But not so again, that's one of those things. There are many other examples in the book.

Because one of the things I say, if the book doesn't make you feel uncomfortable and weird, I've failed.

Dom Hawes
00:31:02

Well, it does. And that's a really good example. The Professor Shane Frederick's test. Because actually I personally feel really stupid. I got it wrong.

Of course I did.

Tas Tasgal
00:31:12

But most people, because you're under time.

Dom Hawes
00:31:14

Pressure and as you say, it's a mindless reaction to it. And then when you think about it, it's like, oh my God, it's so obvious. How could I been so stupid?

Tas Tasgal
00:31:22

Also, for what it's worth, I don't know if anyone will be watching or listening this because I've done it, obviously many years I've had people literally shouting at me in a room saying, no, it's not. It's 10p. And I've had other people sitting, no, it is. And some just let me get on with it and I do a writing of wall 10p. 1 pound 10. No, it is.

Okay, let's move on.

Dom Hawes
00:31:41

Calm down, everybody. It's, it's just a test. It's just to illustrate mindlessness.

But what lessons can we learn as communicators and marketers from the concept of mindlessness and that exercise, not just the.

Tas Tasgal
00:31:52

Mindless exercise, but so much of what the book is about is about just redrafting some of the assumptions that we have about how we change behavior and the sort of communications that we put out, whether it's website marketing, whatever.

And we've got to sort of understand that however much we want to think that we are in the business of transmitting information, that we're not or we're not primarily, I think what we are about is engaging that system. 1.

So again, in the book, I spend a lot of time talking about fun and playfulness, which again, is something that many clients more in B2B, I don't know, will think, no, no, we are a serious business. Right? And I get that. I mean, if you work in financial tech, I get that. I get that. But if you look at education, I lecture.

I'm interested in how education works. You don't educate children or for anyone just by giving them facts. You have to get them involved.

And so for me, the biggest sort of lesson overall is it's okay to be playful. It's okay. It's more than okay.

I would say it's actually imperative that you are emotional and that you don't just rely on the sort of bare transmission of facts and data and information. Again, even when I'm doing storytelling stuff and I talk to people about their presentations, the same applies.

You're not here just to put 50 slides up with numbers. If that's what you think, you know, forget it. It's the same. The same principles apply.

Dom Hawes
00:33:24

Good. We're going to move on to the second principle that I want to explore, which is one close to my heart.

Actually, it's your principle number four, some questions for market research, particularly because we're living in an age where synthetic market research is being touted as the future. I know you're skeptical of some market research methods.

Maybe you could explain why and maybe give us pointers as to what businesses, especially maybe smaller to medium sized businesses, should be keeping in mind if they're trying to learn about their customers.

Tas Tasgal
00:34:01

If anyone's watching, listening, who works in market research, sit down now because. And have a. Whatever is your favorite tip.

I've just come back, as I said, from a conference offline in New York and I was talking about this to a thousand market researchers and I've done many talks and the books and stuff about market research and people know where I stand on this and it's not just me.

I think anyone who operates in behavioral economics, behavioral science, needs to really sit down and think what it means for market research at its, at its basis level, if we are doing market research.

So again, if your company is conducting market research into your customers, into your ultimate audience, your stakeholders, whoever, if the research that you are conducting is primarily or exclusively talking to System Two, forget it would be my answer. As I say, somebody who is a member of the Market Research Society. I'm married to a market researcher.

My daughter's a market researcher, which makes for interesting dinner time conversations. But too much market research. I would say this again.

I can't quantify it ironically, but I would say 80% of market research is useless because it's only talking to System two. And System two is basically the interpreter of what System one is up to.

And again, the whole theory of what I talk about is that System one is as Kahneman says the secret author of our choices, but by definition we're unaware of it. And System two can make sometimes educated guesses. Yeah, but often they're going to be that, they're going to be guesses.

And the real levers of human choice are unconscious. So we need to think probably about three things. One is, are we only exclusively talking to System two?

And if so, bear that in mind because the results you will get, I suspect, are either going to be bland beyond definition or possibly misleading. Again, look at political polling. Look at so many.

Again, we know in our behavior, don't we, that we don't often do what we think or do what we say we're going to do. Why? Because we don't often know. So there are all sorts of other areas that I touch in the book, as you say, about trying to research System One.

I'm not saying it's easy. And there are at least some research companies now that are grappling with that task. How do you get System one?

Dom Hawes
00:36:25

The challenge is though, I mean, I can think of a couple who are, who are surveying system 1. But you have to then create a methodology for measuring emotion.

Tas Tasgal
00:36:35

Yep.

Dom Hawes
00:36:36

And firstly that's hard because people have, will then have to basically self certify the emotion they're feeling and they may have bias. But, but also, also I think there's a, there's a challenge because we talk a lot about emotion, but we know that it's not just emotion that leads.

As a marketer, we can put emotion into our material, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to score a goal because that emotion has to trigger a motivation.

Tas Tasgal
00:37:03

Yes. Yes.

Dom Hawes
00:37:05

Talk to me about how businesses can therefore survey or try to understand System One better.

Tas Tasgal
00:37:11

Well, there's a number of points you made in that last question, Dom. The first one is I think what you have to do is understand what it is that you can get to System one.

So one of the things that has been used is based on what's called implicit attitude test.

Dom Hawes
00:37:26

Okay.

Tas Tasgal
00:37:27

Which has been used a lot, primarily in the States. Doesn't seem to have done that much here. And it's used primarily by companies looking at unconscious bias amongst their staff.

I will give this is a serious warning.

Dom Hawes
00:37:39

Okay.

Tas Tasgal
00:37:40

If anyone asks you to do it, I would say no, because we all come out as evil, nasty racists. And I'll give you just an example of what this is.

So people are shown in this, in these tests, for example, a degraded picture which becomes clearer and clearer after various sorts of showings. But in between that picture, people are channeled unconsciously with different racial stereotypes.

And one of those racial stereotypes is a black person. And what this, on this, this test has shown the picture, once it becomes obvious, is a picture of a gun.

And people will get to that picture more quickly if they have been shown certain racial stereotypes. Yeah. Another one is people are shown certain words and they say, do these associate more with women or men?

And again, depending on what you're shown, people will say are, those are very powerful and very dark. I mean, let's be honest, a lot of this is quite dark.

But the way that market research has taken that is to say, okay, can we do something where we show words or pictures at very, very quickly? I think 5 milliseconds. So for example, a market I know very well because I used to work in chocolate, 80% of my blood is chocolate. It's Twix.

So if you show a picture of Twix and you show a word, hungry, yes or no? Tick or cross, Literally. The idea being that the response circumvents system 2. You haven't got time to sit there and think.

So when I'm in a sort of midday snacking situation, these alternative confectionery items will I choose System. The idea is that you go, oh, yeah, yeah, I love Twix.

The second thing I do again is not just quality, especially qualitatively, but not just if I'm doing focus groups, is get people to do things with images or pictures and say, okay, you've got 30 seconds, there are 100 pictures or 20 pictures. Choose five. That make you sort of, I don't know, fit how you feel a Peugeot is or how the Guardian is or how.

So again, you're talking more a sort of image based feeling.

Dom Hawes
00:39:44

Mood boardy.

Tas Tasgal
00:39:45

Mood boardy.

Again, because I love stories, often I'll try and get people to talk about stories, not what do you think about this company or its benefits or what it's making. Tell me a story about how you deal with insurance. Tell me a story when you're online. Because often those stories are more real and true.

Now, I'm not giving you a comprehensive answer, but my point is, firstly, acknowledge what the problem is with System two and then at least try and see some of these other options because I guarantee they will be more insightful.

Dom Hawes
00:40:15

Well, you heard it from the author himself and as I mentioned at the, at the beginning, the book is new. I was very pleased to go to the launch. Thank you very much for the invitation. We've got five copies of this book that we're going to give away.

If you go to unicornly.co.uk and find this episode's page, there will be a form on there for you to submit your name and address. Submit it and if you're one of the first five, we'll send you one of the books. If it's not there, you're not one of the first five.

Tas, thank you very much. Before we wrap up, I just want to know if there's one takeaway from this book that you hope every business leader gets. What's that?

Tas Tasgal
00:40:50

I might bring it back to why we don't think the way we think we think because it's just one of those expressions that is so easy and so memorable and you can put it on your wall. But I think it is one of those things. It is a mantra, I think that you can live by.

And I think especially in B2B and especially in certain elements of B2B, we just need to realize that we are not talking to computers. We're not talking to people whose brain processes in a very logical, rational, sort of multi human beings are.

And I think we are, let's be honest, we are chaotic, messy, unpredictable and emotional. So I think for me, if, if people took that out, I'd be moderately happy.

Dom Hawes
00:41:31

Thanks very much, Tas. Really good to have you in the studio. And we didn't do much on storytelling.

Tas Tasgal
00:41:36

There are two storytelling books.

I'm writing book seven at the moment, which my publishers generously allowed me to write because of my classical background, which is going to be called the Classical Marketing Book. What the Greeks and Romans Taught.

Dom Hawes
00:41:47

Oh, fantastic.

Tas Tasgal
00:41:48

So it's going to be about myths and vocabulary, new ways of doing segmentation, and new ways of making our storytelling and presentations just a little bit more lively and memorable.

Dom Hawes
00:41:57

That sounds fascinating. I'm on the wait list for that.

Tas Tasgal
00:42:00

I'll let you know when the next year, another book launch.

Dom Hawes
00:42:02

Cheers, Tas. Thanks.

Tas Tasgal
00:42:04

Thanks, Dom.

Dom Hawes
00:42:07

How good was that?

I told you Tas was worth listening to. I love spending time with Tas. He always just kind of broadens my mind somehow. Anyway, thank you, Tas, for coming to see us.

I really appreciate the time you spent with us and I hope you recover. From your jet lag.

Now, I mentioned at the beginning that I've got five signed copies of his book, the very one we've just been discussing to give away.

All you need to do to be with the chance of winning a copy for yourself is go to unicorny.co.uk find the show notes for this episode and you'll find a link on there. You fill out your details.

You have to fill out a I will admit it slightly biased tiebreaker, but fill out the tiebreaker and we will select five winners from our entries. Well, that's all we've got time for today, apart from me to say thank you very much to you too for watching and or listening.

I know your time is precious and every moment you spend with us means a lot. If you did enjoy what you're seeing or listening to, please give us a thumbs up or write us a review.

And of course, if you subscribe, you will never miss another show. Thank you so much. See you next week.