One day you begin to notice how others use consumer psychology tricks on you. And most of all, of course, you see the huge successful brands do these tricks.

The rise of social media marketing, the phenomenon of fake users, the unprecedented success of influencer marketing - all have been attributed to the power of social proof. So let’s not stay behind, and talk about the phenomenon of social proof. 

When predicting the future, we heavily overestimate the probability of positive events happening to us and underestimate the probability of negative events. The bias is self-serving: we’re quite realistic when predicting events for other people. They might get divorced, get into a car accident, suffer from cancer. We, most likely, won’t, no matter what statistics say. We’ll live longer than national average, earn more money, and don’t even get me started on our children. They are special - much more talented than all other children.

Intrinsic social norms, such as reciprocation, are not that obvious. Here, someone does you a favor: for example, they buy you lunch. You haven’t asked for it, they just did it out of their good heart. Sometimes, you’ll feel a conscious need to reciprocate. Sometimes, you’ll reciprocate unconsciously. Find out how marketers and other professionals use this for their benefit.

Adults aren’t much different from kids: turn anything into a game, and suddenly we’re more attentive, hard-working, willing to exercise, or whatever it is that the grownup world requires us to do. And, of course, we’re willing to use a new shiny app or another service as long as you get us hooked. 

Cognitive biases are repetitive mistakes your mind makes when judging, evaluating, remembering, or making a decision. These mistakes are not unique to you, nor are they simply common. They are built-in our minds the same way our instincts are. They are the shortcuts that evolved so that we think less. Not because nature is cruel like that, but because it takes too much energy to think, and it would take so much more if we thought things through the way we do when trying to answer a math question. Also, we’d probably go insane.

Have you heard the term "neuromarketing" thrown around often enough in the past years to start wondering what in the world is it? Just another buzzword or have these psychologists (marketers? neuroscientists? charlatans??) come up with something different and worth looking at? Or maybe, all companies are already using the method and you're running behind, desperately late for the party? Let's find out.

This post explores the meaning of the focusing illusion and how so much of what makes you and your customers happy depends on it. 

This is going to be one of the most eye-opening blog posts ever. You’ll realise, at least I hope you will instead of disregarding all of this and moving on, that so many of your judgements regarding your business, your buying behavior, and indeed the world you live in are terribly wrong.