CHAPTER 15 | HEURISTICS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

WHATSA HEURISTIC?

This chapter, ironically, is a heuristic because it’s taking a component of the big, broad, psychology/philosophy of cognitive science, Epistemology, which is about the nature, origin and limits of knowledge, truth and perception, and boils it down to a LinkedIn character count.

Heuristics are mental short-cuts your brain makes. You believe them more than you believe facts.

Heuristics make up the foundation of all advertising, marketing and living in the world without the oppression of knowing every little thing about every little thing.

There are many definitions, clinical and technological. When heuristics are activated, the subconscious mind takes over the rational mind. The subconscious mind wins 85% of the time. True.

All the secret advertising and marketing cheat codes are heuristics.

Visual symbolism

Irrational biases

Economic trickeries

Fallacies of logic

Recognition preferences

Gestalt pattern recognition

Brand personality archetypes

Too much info on the first page of your website? FAIL.

Store shelves with too many SKUs of the same-ish product? FAIL.

Thinking people will buy something from you without context? FAIL.

Heuristics and its cousin, simplicity, have made great, memorable advertising and have built all the enduring brands.

"Data" is just measuring the effectiveness of the heuristics in the wild. Don't be fooled by data. It's an outcome, not a driver.

Strategic advertising messaging is…you’re standing on a busy street corner. You are yelling above the traffic to someone standing on the diagonally opposite street corner. What do you say?