Advertisers would do better to fear indifference than alienating consumers

When it comes to ads, though, remember that real people don’t much care about them. So negative effects are rare.*

We know of no evidence of any advertising that has had a negative effect on sales. Don’t worry about ‘alienation’. Negative effects among existing buyers but not new buyers or vice versa won’t happen; we can’t think of any examples.* So don’t hold back from bold, provocative ideas through fear of alienation. You should be much more fearful of indifference - and that’s wonderfully liberating creatively.*

Behavioural principles

Behavioural ideas at play in this post

Short, plain-English explanations of the principles behind this post, with links to related books and examples in the archive.

Affect heuristic

We lean on how something feels when making a fast judgment.

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Scarcity effect

Limited availability makes things seem more valuable or urgent.

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Curse of knowledge

Once we know something, it becomes hard to imagine what it feels like not to know it.

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Advertisers would do better to fear indifference than alienating consumers

Behavioural ideas at play in this post

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