Today I am so excited to introduce you to Patrick Fagan, author of the book Hooked: Why Cute Sells and Other Marketing Magic That We Just Can’t Resist. He is also the Chief Scientific Officer at Capuchin Behavioural Science.

As you’ll hear on the show today, Patrick has done all sorts of interesting research over the years, including a study for eBay and some for social media. He has such a great knowledge of the mind and how it applies to marketing and behavior. You can definitely say we are cut from the same cloth so I truly enjoyed chatting with him and I know you’ll love this episode as well.

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Show Notes:

[00:41] Today I am so excited to introduce you to Patrick Fagan, author of the book Hooked: Why Cute Sells and Other Marketing Magic That We Just Can’t Resist.
[03:16] Patrick shares how he developed his love for behavioral science and got into the field.
[04:55] Now Patrick is the Chief Scientific Officer at Capuchin Behavioural Science. They do behavioral science consulting and research.
[07:07] Patrick shares about the priming study he did for eBay. He looked at the effects of background noises on online shopping.
[07:54] He found that classical music makes people more likely to buy. He shares his findings on different types of music.
[10:32] Patrick shares about the papers he co-authored on Facebook psychology and facial expressions. His studies showed that Facebook can raise or lower your self-esteem depending on how you’re using it.
[11:56] Technology is not completely a force for good. It is harming our attention spans and our abilities to think and be conscientious.
[13:39] Patrick shares more about their study on facial expressions. On average, they found that people tend to lean back if they are bored.
[14:42] He gets excited to work on projects where he can understand people, why people behave a certain way, and how behavior can be influenced. He loves doing segmentations.
[17:42] Generally speaking when working with millions of people you have to segment them into groups.
[19:33] Heretics are important for society; they are generally quite influential.
[20:03] Melina shares some of Wendy Wood’s work with habits on running.
[22:35] Fitness seekers are influenced by commitment and consistency. Doing in the future what you have done in the past.
[24:10] Patrick shares about a study in Poland about traditionalism. He had a hunch there was a third group and this was completely validated with the data.
[26:01] He shares how you can send different messages based on the group of people. This approach helps you to be able to speak your customers’ language better.
[28:20] You can be marketing exactly the same product and if you're talking to one audience you would use different imagery than if you were trying to appeal to another group.
[28:56] He wrote the book Hooked because he thought it would be good for the world. He also thought he saw a gap in the market for how to use psychology for messaging.
[29:33] His book shares how to make messages work by grabbing attention, how to engage people, and how to nudge behavior.
[29:53] There are three steps that a message needs to take. First, it needs to grab attention.
[31:46] The second part is that a message needs to engage people emotionally.
[33:17] If you present people with puzzles, riddles, or anything where they have to think about it they will be more likely to engage with it or remember.
[34:16] The third thing is how to nudge behavior. You have to motivate people.
[35:04] Passion or emotion is the steam in the engine which drives behavior. If you want people to act you have to fire them up and get that energy going to drive them to act.
[38:10] Grab your copy of Patrick’s book Hooked (and all the other books mentioned on the show today) in the links below..
[40:17] Melina’s closing reflections.

Thanks for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Android. If you like what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes and share what you liked about the show

Thanks for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Android. If you like what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes and share what you liked about the show.

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Get the Books Mentioned on this Episode:

Hooked: Why Cute Sells and Other Marketing Magic that we Just Can’t Resist
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Indistractable
Good Habits, Bad Habits
Marketing to Mindstates

Connect with Patrick:

Past Episodes and Other Important Links:

Radio, Chatter and Football - The Sounds That Help Us Shop
NUDGES & Choice Architecture
Behavioural Science Club: Interview with Co-Founder Louise Ward
Loss Aversion
Interview with Will Leach
Interview with Wendy Wood
Interview with Nir Eyal
Why Our Brains Love Nostalgia & Traditions
Social Proof
Peak-End Rule

Check out (and preorder!) my upcoming book on Amazon, Bookshop, and Barnes & Noble.

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138. Why Cute Sells and Other Marketing Magic, interview with Patrick Fagan, author of Hooked

The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics