The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy

by Richard Shotton

Before you can influence decisions, you need to understand what drives them. In The Choice Factory, Richard Shotton sets out to help you learn.

By observing a typical day of decision-making, from trivial food choices to significant work-place moves, he investigates how our behaviour is shaped by psychological shortcuts. With a clear focus on the marketing potential of knowing what makes us tick, Shotton has drawn on evidence from academia, real-life ad campaigns and his own original research.

The Choice Factory is written in an entertaining and highly-accessible format, with 25 short chapters, each addressing a cognitive bias and outlining simple ways to apply it to your own marketing challenges. Supporting his discussion, Shotton adds insights from new interviews with some of the smartest thinkers in advertising, including Rory Sutherland, Lucy Jameson and Mark Earls.

From priming to the pratfall effect, charm pricing to the curse of knowledge, the science of behavioural economics has never been easier to apply to marketing.

The Choice Factory is the new advertising essential.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Psychology, Economics, Design, Sociology, Education

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2018

Reviews

[Ed Sellier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book review 📚‘The label improved the expectation and the expectation improved the taste.’
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In THE CHOICE FACTORY Richard Shotton pays homage to the intrepid pioneers of Behavioural Economics, exploring the psychological shortcuts we (as makers of 35,000 daily decisions) take. The book contains 25 tight chapters, each covering a cognitive bias from mood to confirmation, media context to price.
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Our long-term psychologies are shaped by decisions we make in auto-pilot and throughout the book you sense Shotton’s fascination with the seemingly trivial: why did you judge that sharply-dressed corporate for not giving a beggar a pound, before realising you only had a fiver and yet also averted the beggar’s gaze? Don’t be so quick to assume you have all the information required to decide!
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This is just one of many scenarios you could spend hours debating. Personally I found the chapter on Wishful Seeing right up my street as a comms strategist, diving into the push & pull around ‘brand purpose’ that is so divisive. The evidence just doesn’t stack up in its favour with just a fraction of leading brands truly benefiting – the real value is in the marketer’s peace of mind, elevating their self-worth beyond selling products or services. So take that, brand purpose.
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Meanwhile The Pratfall Effect was a memorable chapter (flaws increase the appeal of a brand), brought to life through some good old-fashioned 1960s dry copy: “WE HAVE A RATHER REPULSIVE OLD MAN who with his child-wife, are looking for an elegant town res. Pref Belgravia… price not important but must be realistic as he has, at least, his head screwed on the right way… Oh advertising, how you've grown(?)
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There’s an argument to be made that the book could cut down the number of chapters and focus a bit more deeply on some of the more significant – the Mood chapter’s ‘Consumers are more likely to be in a better mood at the cinema than commuting’ felt a bit light touch and 'word count fillery' for instance.
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All in all, I put THE CHOICE FACTORY down having had several ‘Oh yeah, I wish I’d thought of that’ moments.

[Pavel Annenkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

О ЧЕМ КНИГА:
Отличная книга о 25 главных психологических приемах, которые влияют на решение людей о покупке. Мануал из серии «бери и делай». Можно сразу применять эти подходы в своем бизнесе. Если эти приемы примените не вы, то их используют ваши конкуренты. Важно прочитать маркетологам и собственникам бизнеса. В принципе ничего нового из того, что уже написано Чалдини, Талером и Бергером, но всё теперь в одном месте.

ГЛАВНАЯ МЫСЛЬ КНИГИ:
Есть проверенные способы влияния на людей. Каждый бизнес должен их знать и внедрять в свою работу, чтобы победить конкурентов в борьбе за клиентов.

ЗАЧЕМ ЧИТАТЬ ЭТУ КНИГУ?
Чтобы найти новые подходы повышения конверсий и продаж в работе с клиентами.

МЫСЛИ И ВЫВОДЫ ИЗ КНИГИ:
- Все крупные и известные бренды применяют науку о поведении людей в своей рекламе и продажах. Уже давно не обсуждается применять или нет эти подходы. Главный вопрос, - какие подходы применять и где?

- Социальное доказательство. Заявляйте о том, что ваш продукт популярен среди других людей. Не думайте, что другим это очевидно. Люди ничего не помнят и всё быстро забывают. Кричите о своей популярности постоянно.

- Люди чаще всего меняют бренд поставщика чего-либо во время важных событий происходящих в их жизни(свадьба, новая работа, рождение ребенка и тп). Тоже самое относится и к компаниям. Например, поменяют подрядчика скорее всего при переезде в новый офис. Это событие называется триггер и каждая компания должна их искать.

- При распродажах нужно не только показывать размер скидки, но и рассказывать историю, объясняющую причину распродажи. Истории продают лучше чем цифры.

- Контекст сильнее влияет на покупку, чем качество и выгода предложения. Лучший контекст - это хорошее настроение клиента. Надо разобраться, когда у наших клиентов самое лучшее настроение и делать продажу именно в этот момент. Это касается В2В и В2С. В субботу вероятность хорошего настроения на 40% выше, чем в среднем по неделе.

- Не надо забывать про самые простые и примитивные приемы, которые работают всегда: девятки после запятой в цене, относительность большой и маленькой цены рядом друг с другом.

- Презентация продукта важна также, как и сам продукт. Вспомним Apple.

- Небольшие недостатки продают. Надо найти изъяны в бренде или продукте и честно заявить об этом клиентам.

ЧТО Я БУДУ ПРИМЕНЯТЬ:
- Надо провести сессию по поиску триггеров принятия решений о покупке в моих компаниях и понять, как выходить на клиентов в этих ситуациях.

ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ:
Ноа Гольдштейн, Стив Мартин, Роберт Чалдини «Психология убеждения»
Йона Бергер «Заразительный»

[Avnish Anand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a lot of interest in behaviour science, cognitive biases and psychology. I have read most of the popular books. But I have struggled to put them to use. In my life as a marketer and product and business leader.

With Choice Factory, I know much better now. It has 25 small chapters covering one cognitive bias each. Most of the biases are well known. I knew the theory and the research. But this book gives you relevant examples from the marketing world. And tips on how to put them to use.

I am part of DTC jewellery brand. Many of the chapters are not relevant or not useful. Some are weak or not fully convincing. But there are enough gems in there. I usually highlight when I read. But this time I made notes. Of stuff I am going to use. And I have atleast 8-10 good ideas. That’s usually more than what you can get in a good book.

Disclosure - The book was slightly expensive and I waited for the price to fall. For more than a year. I was such an idiot.

Some of my favourites are the chapters on Goodharts Law, Pratfall Effect, Fundamental Attribution Error, Variability, Danger of claimed data, negative social proof, distinctiveness, the curse of knowledge, mood, habit and a couple more.

Will finish this review with this amazing quote from David Ogilvy which says so much about biases.


“People dont think about how they feel. People dont say what they think. People dont do what they say”

Must read for everyone who works in the consumer space.

[Dancall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A guide to the psychological tricks our brains play that influence our opinions, behaviour and spending, with specific advice on how to take advantage of these biases when creating advertising. Well written, and clearly split into 25 different biases, this should be essential reading for anyone in advertising or communications. I wish the author was not so negative about the potential of programmatic advertising - this bias comes through clearly - but I agreed with almost all of his other points.
Quite rarely for books like this, it’s also very well designed and marketed - I can see this leaping off the shelves in bookshops around the world!

[Axell Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Califico "The Choice Factory" con 5 estrellas ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

Este libro, que aborda 25 sesgos cognitivos y cómo influyen en nuestras decisiones de compra, podría haber sesgado mi opinión, ya que es precisamente el tipo de lectura que disfruto.

Su estructura es impecable: cada capítulo comienza con un ejemplo cotidiano que ilustra el sesgo en cuestión, seguido de un contexto histórico y científico. Además, el autor replica cada sesgo para demostrar su relevancia actual y ofrece consejos prácticos para aplicarlos.

Lo que más destaco es cómo cada capítulo termina con un intrigante avance del siguiente, al estilo de una serie de Netflix.

Un ejemplo particularmente impactante es el caso Genovese de 1964, que se utiliza para ilustrar cómo podemos ser engañados y la importancia de mantener un espíritu crítico, especialmente en temas como los sesgos cognitivos y la economía conductual.

El libro no solo es informativo y bien estructurado, sino que también aborda la ética de manera general, lo cual es esencial en estos temas.

Además, tiene el mérito especial de ser el primer libro en inglés que he completado.

[Ryan Barretto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm from the world of HR and Learning, not advertising. I deliberately bought this book, to understand more about biases that move people to action. I feel that the curriculum in the HR course was not sufficient in this area.

I loved the simple language used to explain the biases that all humans have. The examples were extremely apt, and definitely added insight. What makes the book powerful is that the author tells us how to apply the biases to move or nudge people in the direction that is required of them.

There's loads of learning here for marketing, advertising, sales and HR professionals.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro expone 25 preferencias/ inclinaciones que tienen los seres humanos al interactuar con circunstancias, productos / servicios y sus anuncios publicitarios. Habla de la importancia de la economía del comportamiento en el marketing, lo cual en todo momento lo refuerza con estas investigaciones. Encontré la lectura interesante con información muy útil para las personas que venden productos y servicios, ya sea para mejorar su marca o publicidad, incluso para crear la misma marca. Es una lectura medianamente ligera porque lo leí en inglés británico, pero fuera de eso me gustó

[Insyirah Amirul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first marketing book that I read voluntarily (the other one I read was a boring university textbook) and it intrigued me. All the strategies mentioned are based on human psychology. Recommended!

[Chiara Cokieng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Influence, applied. I listened to the audiobook. It is good, but now I need the cheat sheet!

[Hepsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kitap yerine bir blog sayfası ile de aynı iş görülebilirdi. Yine de 1-2 ilginç fikir aldım hakkını yiyemem.

[Ondra Král · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skvělé, plné praktických příkladů a bez zbytečného bulšitu. Pokud se vám nechce číst Kahneman, zkuste Shottona.

[Mindaugas Raguotis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patiko knyga tuo kampu, kad galima prisiminti ir pakartoti esmines tendencijas pagal kurias žmonės daro savo sprendimus ir elgesį. Autorius puikiai apibendrina viską ir paprastai išaiškina su pavyzdžiais.

Nepatiko knyga, nes dauguma tyrimų daryti kur kas seniau ir labiau tinkami tradicinėms medijom. Kai kurie dalykai sunkiai pritaikomi šiandienai ir negaliu įvertinti ar vis dar aktualūs.

[Srikar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good collection of consumer biases and how they can be harnessed to sell/market your product. The usual caveats about social sciences studies' experiments being non-replicable apply.

[Vitor Buonavoglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good tactics that can be tested for different brands.

[Alison Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, well written, and super-practical: Shotton walks us through a series of cognitive and behavioural biases that leave us in no doubt that we are not the rational beings we like to think we are. It presents rigorous science and evidence lightly, with an accessible style - I particularly liked the device of the 'everyday in the life of the reader' story that introduces each chapter, showing how the bias in question plays out in familiar contexts.
It's written for marketeers and advertisers with a strong focus on applicability - so strong that it almost tips into cynicism at times, but it's rescued by Shotton's cheerful and practical style. His examples are fascinating - and drawn not only from research but from his own extensive practice in the field: in explaining the Veblen goods effect, for example, he tells how he and a colleague doubled the price of a perfume bottle from £40 to £80 and watched the sample ratings for the exact same perfume skyrocket.
Behavioural science is one of the most exciting areas of business writing, and this is one of the rare books that makes it not only accessible but usable.
A worthy winner of the Business Book Awards Sales and Marketing Book 2019.

[Umesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Shotton, takes many of the well know Behavioural Biases theory and puts into a practical test and validate it. The book came in as highly recommended one but I was quite disappointed, as there is no original theory proposed rather it focus only on the applications of existing theories to product marketing. If you already following researcher/authors like Daniel kahneman or Richard Thaler (both of their work were mentioned in the book) you will find this book less interesting.

The intended audience are beginners in Behavioural science but if you’re already working in that field, you will find this book less interesting or insightful

[Chris Esposo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written for those who are not well-read in the behavioural sciences subject area, either formally or the pop-sci stuff you can get at any bookstore. As such, if you've ever read just a handful of books, say one from Thaler, one from Chialdini, and you'd be aware of much of what is written in here, perhaps in better detail. The book is maybe written for those who need some kind of background in a real hurry. If that's you, picking up your book may be worth your while. Otherwise, it is not. Conditional recommend

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this book and appreciated the structure, in terms of the different chapters and supporting experiments.

Thought the closing section was beyond weak - not the concept, but the brief argument. I find this slightly concerning because this area deserves more thought and consideration.

Another frustration was the lack of statistical grunt behind some of the more recent testing, sample size being a simplistic an obvious flaw.

However, overall I appreciated the information and certainly gleaned some new facts and methods of approaching decision-making.

[Patrick Probably DNF · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique and contemporary merger of cognitive distortions and advertising maxims. While I've seen these two subjects covered at length in other works, I loved the pithy combinations and examples presented here. This book is a perfect introduction to these topics or a Cliff's Notes reminder of strategic advice you've garnered throughout your career. Highly recommend to anyone in marketing or advertising.

[Iván Rico · Rating 1 out of 5]

Useful if you don't have ethic to use humans' biases to your own benefit

[Joel Francis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not detailed enough to be of any real use

Good if you’re new to behavioural science or blissfully naive

[Amin Sukhiani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to implement ideas 💡

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book focuses on applying the findings of behavioural science (specifically, biases) to advertising. I'm not an advertiser, but my undergraduate was in marketing and I could see that the field was rife with untested assumptions (and a whole lot of BS), which is what put me off the field. This book presents empirical findings to improve communication campaigns. It was a little repetitive at the beginning but the ideas were thought-provoking and insightful.

It's a little short, but concise, when it finally gets started. I can say there's nothing in here I didn't cover in my undergrad in some place or another, and nothing that won't be known to experienced marketers, but they're good reminders of the 'basics' and each serves as an entry point into a much deeper well of research.

Overall, unlike a lot of marketing books, there's very little anecdotal BS, pointless fluff, and self-serving aggrandisement. The points are concise, and each point is supported with the evidence from which the idea was anchored, any supporting marketing-based evidence, clear examples and practical advice. Every business book should be written like this. Convince me why I should believe it to be valid, generalisable and applicable to the field first and then tell me how I can use it.

However, if this was twice as long, with twice as much/many evidence and examples, it would not have gone amiss. Some sections (such as 15: Media Context) were a little lacking in support. Another problem with it being so short and information-dense is that you frequently have to stop and think about, or make notes on, what was said, increasing the effort required to gain insights. The short sections do make frequent stopping easier though.

The other thing that could have been considered is the heavy referencing of British brands, government parties and social phenomena, which limits understanding outside of Britain. I purchased this book on a US site, for example. More international examples would have provided a more general understanding and less ethnocentrism in appeal.

What did this book leave me with?

* Prioritise attentive audiences. Avoid communicating when people are in a rush to avoid 'narrowing of the cognitive map'. Aim to have your ad seen for at least a second. Use mediums that permit longer view times. Use 'time spent' as a metric over CPT.
* Target contexts as well as target audiences. Use experiments to support your assumptions about what the 'right context' is. Ensure your message is distinctive in that context. Avoid mimicry and 'safe' norms.
* Social proof: State the popularity of your product regarding the specific niche or region to ensure relevancy to the audience. Don't assume your audience understands your popularity.
- Avoid 'negative social proof': flip negative statistics to highlight the popularity of desired behaviour.
* Price relativity: Clever branding, communications and POS adjustment can impact the comparison sets that define price relativity. Be the 'rich person's' not 'poor person's' alternative (eg. video conferencing), to demand a higher price. A higher-end line can make your current line look more affordable.
* Expectancy: Clever packaging impacts presentation and expectations. Descriptions and names also impact the 'quality' in which is expected and experienced. But expectations for a 'counter-balance' to 'positive actions' such as 'eco-friendly' can reduce perceived quality or effectiveness.
* Wishful seeing: Be cautious of sweeping claims that brands with 'ideals' (or brand purpose) perform better (eg. Stengel). Any 'grand theory' to universal advertising success should be treated with doubt and suspicion.
* Media context: Context shapes how information is interpreted. Contextual cues can have a marginal effect on the value applied to the brand. Waste and abundance of resources project into perceived quality, impacted by where and how the communications message is located.
* Consumers do not give full attention to ads, nor attention for more than milliseconds; keep them simple. Change the context of evaluation to ensure you're in 'listener mode' not 'maker mode'. Consider 'method planning'.
* The Pratfall effect: Admitting flaws may increase appeal if presented in the right light. The tangible evidence of honesty increases the credibility of other claims. But the effect is multiplicative: strong brands appear stronger, while weak weaker.
* Veblen goods: increasing price can create the perception of higher quality and increase demand. Discounting can therefore be harmful to the long-term image of the brand. This type of anchoring is also seen in scarcity.

[Samuel Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our understanding of cognitive and behavioural biases originated in the field of psychology. Since then, their frequencies have grown steadily more encompassing, like broadcasts from a tumbledown radio tower. Solomon Asch. Baddeley and Hitch. And what ever happened to good old Starsky? These biases are what the seventies marketing executives would have told you, from behind the cigar haze of a Fleet Street pub, that they’d always known… People copy one another. They are the blind automata of their habits and contexts. And oh, first impressions count, do they? Whatever next, they sneer. However, as Richard Shotton claims, we should be wary of claimed data. We know of these biases, sure… but do we know when, where, and to what extent they apply? Sometimes people copy and yet at other times they value what is distinctive. Grey-suited investment bankers probably look quite attractive on Tinder but then so too do flannel-shirted, lip-studded musicians.

I’ve some read brilliant books about marketing and psychology. From Alchemy by Rory Sutherland, through to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, not to mention the legend and leviathan himself, David Ogilvy. I can well imagine Ogilvy in one of those pubs, teeth clamped on his pipe, being handed a copy of a book – not necessarily Shotton’s – that detailed all of the relevant behavioural biases. He’d laugh, drop a tip for the barman, and be up out of the door. What better way to improve your ‘batting average at the cash register’? Of his thirteen predictions, many were hopelessly optimistic – ‘Candidates for political office will stop using dishonest advertising’. Fortunately, he didn’t live to see Brexit. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around to see his first prediction borne out: ‘The quality of research will improve, and this will generate a bigger corpus of knowledge as to what works and what doesn’t. Creative people will learn to exploit this knowledge.’ I believe that Shotton’s book is that corpus.

First off, the book is simple. All of the biases are listed, and yet it avoids taking on an unreadable, catalogue-like quality. Part of this is down to Shotton’s narrative ability. Each chapter is threaded with stories and studded with anecdotes. In many ways, Shotton’s work is a kind of distillation – books within books – all skillfully bookended by the story of Kitty Genovese, a woman apparently murdered in full view of many witnesses, all of whom stood by and did nothing. In a book about behavioural biases, Shotton even manages to shoehorn in a twist at the end. In less than 200 pages, this is truly a feat of brevity.

One of my favourite anecdotes from the book is his illustration of the Pratfall Effect, or ‘How flaws make a brand more appealing’. As a copywriter, I consider myself quite ‘up’ on this literature and yet I was entirely ignorant of this bias. Shotton conjures an interview scenario in which a candidate ‘catches his foot awkwardly on the table leg, upending the dregs of his coffee over the new floor.’ Who could hire such a person? Yet we soon learn how quirks can be so endearing. And who really were our favourite candidates on The Apprentice? Was it that infuriatingly precocious woman who’d graduated as a doctor before she was even out of her teens? Or some other brushed-aluminium corporate-clone type? As Shotton explains the bias, I realise how blind I’d been to it. Probably my least favourite contestants ever on Couples Come Dine With Me were a pair who printed Excel spreadsheets timetabling their everyday activities, and who boasted that they would win because they would chop the carrots at 1.05, marinade the salmon at 1.08, and presumably plug themselves into a wall socket to recharge overnight. It’s quite obvious to me now. We want the cheeky bloke who served potato smileys with ketchup to win on Come Dine With Me, just as we hug our pillows and sob when that immortal buffoon, Stuart Baggs ‘The Brand’, is fired in the semi-final – everything he touched turned to sold, for crying out loud!

My recommendation is to do what I did. Keep the book by your bedside and read a new bias every night. They are not hacks, exactly, and as Shotton cautions we need to mindful of variability – which biases work in which contexts – nevertheless, I contend that knowing these hacks will make your personal, professional, and, hell, probably even your love life, much more fruitful and multiplicative.

[Mustafa Alhubail · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was very well organized and rich of evidences and counter arguments, throughout the whole book, whenever you sense a weak evidence or a flawed experiment, the author will be addressing these concerns in the upcoming paragraph. The examples, stories and the experiments themselves are quite delightful to read, as not only marketers or psychologists would be of interest, any individual will enjoy the book as it is relatable to our everyday actions and events, matters that we are most likely never think of them or know the real motives behind why we made those decisions in the first place.

Furthermore, Shotton was very careful to state that there is no grand theory that can always be the answers. People vary in the way the make decisions. So he always advises to not take these experiment at face value, and find what is fitting for your business and conduct these experiments in a way that suits your domain and concerns. Especially when certain experiments took place more than 70 years ago in the middle of last century.

My only critique about the book is that twenty-five biases feels a bit overwhelming, as throughout the book when you are going from a chapter to another, you often ended up recalling another similar bias you had already read in earlier chapters, perhaps because you perceived it as redundant or it could have been explained by the same bias. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, the social experiments were fascinating and just putting yourself in these situations to confirm with these biases was like a reality check. I would recommend to anyone that is interested in any form of advertising or interested in psychology to read this book.

[Mohammed Alogaili · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always believe Marketing is an art, but there is always science behind it, now I have to say that all business-related skills and interaction are arts based on science, we do not realize it till someone investigate it, it is there but we don't know how to formulate it but Richard Shotten did.
The choice factory book has briefed the most aspects that had impact on our actions whether it is personal or business related, the book is structured on 25 sequenced chapters for cognitive biases, explaining how and why we make decisions toward buying or selling, what is really the driving force for these decisions, how psychological short-cuts form our behaviours, based on practical application and real life experiments Richard Shotten show how our behaviours that we always thought it is rational, now it is programmed and driven by factors in simple language and explanation.
all these biases mostly practiced in our daily life at home and work. The beauty of this book is the link and relationship between each chapter and you will discover more biases that you do in your life as much as you get deeper in the chapters which are simple for all readers.
After reading this book you will understand how the world of marketing is working.
one thing I would like to highlight is that there is a possibility to have correlation between these biases which might influence the results of the study, if tow samples had been conducted on the same tests for one bias measurement, the status, conditions, personality, habits might influence the behaviour in certain level.

[Khaled · Rating 5 out of 5]

The choice factory is a powerful book combining behavioral science with a practical approach on implementing it in marketing especially advertising. Few other books in the literature have achieved this feat. Behavioral science books typically present the findings in a rigorous scientific way which presents a major challenge for marketers to apply the science and achieve notable results. The book is engaging and fun as the author narrates the reader’s journey throughout their day and shows how we experience unconscious biases in routine encounters. This led me frequently to ponder: “Why didn’t I think of this?”.

The book is relatively brief in each of the 25 cognitive biases with a total page count below 200 pages, it could use more elaboration and research into why the biases exist. The author cites some weak studies when presenting many of the biases, the studies have small sample numbers N<100 and are therefore unrepresentative of wider audiences. The claim that behavioral science in marketing is proven with replicable studies should be enforced and the author should present multiple studies proving a bias.

Overall, I highly recommend the book for marketers and advertisers who have no prior knowledge of behavioral science. The book will be a valuable reference and I believe all marketing campaigns will benefits from at least one of the lessons learnt from the book.

[Catalina Brinza · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can you make sure your marketing campaigns are effective? Most of books, videos and blogs will tell you that you need:
- Research & data
- A sound strategy, targeting your audience
- To listen to your customers, etc.

While not necessarily contradicting these universal marketing truths, this book suggests to:
- Look only at the relevant data. Not all data can make a difference in marketing campaigns. Knowing how to choose and interpret the right data is crucial.
- Find new, interesting ways to target audiences. Information overload makes us more selective in terms of what we choose to read or watch.
- Listening to customers to craft marketing campaigns is not always a good thing. Reviews, quotes, and discussions are not necessarily coming from impulses, they are already filtered by our reason to serve a certain purpose. Ideally, a marketer wants to go beyond this filter layer.

Of course, these suggestions need to be applied depending on the context of each campaign, team, resources, etc.

The 25 biases sum up these suggestions and many more others. Supported by various research, they are a good starting point to understand customers' behaviours and decision-making.

[Mawadda Samkari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally, I liked how the book is structured. The way that it’s simple and to the point. I liked that for each bias there is a story or example that is related. Most of the concepts we already practiced in our practical life.
The book is interesting, well-written, and quite useful. The author demonstrates several cognitive and behavioral biases that make it clear that we are not the logical beings we would like to believe we are. I really loved the idea of the story that starts each chapter, showing how the bias in the issue plays out in familiar circumstances.
Written with a significant emphasis on applicability for marketers and advertisers, it helps startups & SMEs in developing great advertising strategies and uses biases practically to assuring success and attracting customers. He uses examples that are based on both research and his own extensive experience in the field.
This is one of the books that make consumer behavioral science easy to understand, and have an eye-opening on our behavior interpretation.

[Huma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every choice we make is a reflection of who we are.

THE CHOICE FACTORY explains how behavioral science influences our choices, especially in marketing. The book breaks down 25 cognitive biases that shape our decisions in everyday life.

It explains how things like social proof 'SEEING WHAT OTHERS DO' heavily impact our choices. For example, if a product has a lot of positive reviews, we're more likely to trust it. It also discusses how highlighting negative behaviors can unintentionally encourage them, making it crucial to frame messages carefully.

Another interesting concept which I like is 'personal relevance.' The book shows that when something feels personally connected to us, we're more likely to pay attention and engage.

Overall, this book is insightful for anyone curious about why we make the choices we do and how understanding these biases can improve decision making in various aspects of life. If you’re looking to gain a deeper understanding of how choices are made, this book is worth checking out! 🎯