By Adam Povlitz , Edited by Carl Stoffers

Brands are always looking for new ways to impact and connect with their audiences. One strategy that has stood the test of time is storytelling.

Key Takeaways

• Crafting a genuine brand story rooted in purpose and values helps establish trust and connection with your audience, turning customers into loyal advocates.
• High-quality imagery, videos, and interactive tools like AR/VR elevate your narrative, making it more engaging and memorable in a crowded digital landscape.
• Understanding and leveraging audience emotions create meaningful connections, driving brand loyalty and influencing purchasing decisions.

As brands jostle for recognition in a crowded market, the art of storytelling gives them a distinct edge. Compelling storytelling is the key to setting your brand apart, creating a human connection, and building a loyal customer base that truly understands and values your brand’s mission. These stories will become the foundation of your brand, making it more memorable and relatable.

Crafting an authentic brand narrative

The narrative is the bedrock of a robust emotional bond with your audience. This journey begins with clearly articulating your brand’s central purpose and values. Understanding and conveying what your brand represents establishes a bedrock of trust and genuineness that strikes a chord with your intended audience. Through a carefully crafted narrative, you set the stage for a captivating story that’s also perfectly aligned with your brand’s spirit.

You must understand your audience’s needs, challenges and dreams to accomplish a strong, attention-grabbing narrative. It’s more than just knowing who they are or where they live; it’s about connecting with the feelings and motivations that drive them. When you can empathize with their struggles and celebrate their victories, you create a narrative that builds a profound emotional bond. This bond turns customers into champions, as they view your brand as a companion in their journey, not just a seller of products or services.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

By Stan Schroeder

There’s a new AI player in town, and you might want to pay attention to this one.

On Monday, Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek launched a new, open-source large language model called DeepSeek R1.

According to DeepSeek, R1 wins over other popular LLMs (large language models) such as OpenAI in several important benchmarks, and it’s especially good with mathematical, coding, and reasoning tasks.

DeepSeek R1 is actually a refinement of DeepSeek R1 Zero, which is an LLM that was trained without a conventionally used method called supervised fine-tuning. This made it very capable in certain tasks, but as DeepSeek itself puts it, Zero had “poor readability and language mixing.” Enter R1, which fixes these issues by incorporating “multi-stage training and cold-start data” before it was trained with reinforcement learning.

Arcane technical language aside (the details are online if you’re interested), there are several key things you should know about DeepSeek R1. First, it’s open source, meaning it’s up for scrutiny from experts, which should alleviate concerns about privacy and security. Second, it’s free to use as a web app, while API access is very cheap ($0.14 for one million input tokens, compared to OpenAI’s $7.5 for its most powerful reasoning model, o1).

Most importantly, this thing is very, very capable. To test it out, I immediately threw it into deep waters, asking it to code a fairly complex web app which needed to parse publicly available data, and create a dynamic website with travel and weather information for tourists. Amazingly, DeepSeek produced completely acceptable HTML code right away, and was able to further refine the site based on my input while improving and optimizing the code on its own along the way.

I’ll do all of that…tomorrow. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable / DeepSeek

I also asked it to improve my chess skills in five minutes, to which it replied with a number of neatly organized and very useful tips (my chess skills did not improve, but only because I was too lazy to actually go through with DeepSeek’s suggestions).

I then asked DeepSeek to prove how smart it is in exactly three sentences. Bad move by me, as I, the human, am not nearly smart enough to verify or even fully understand any of the three sentences. Notice, in the screenshot below, that you can see DeepSeek’s “thought process” as it figures out the answer, which is perhaps even more fascinating than the answer itself.

We get it, you’re smart. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable / DeepSeek

It’s impressive to use. But as ZDnet noted, in the background of all this are training costs which are orders of magnitude lower than for some competing models, as well as chips which aren’t as powerful as the chips that are on disposal for U.S. AI companies. DeepSeek thus shows that extremely clever AI with reasoning ability doesn’t have to be extremely expensive to train — or to use.

Feature Image Credit: DeepSeek

By Stan Schroeder

Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He’s got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.

Sourced from Mashable

Sourced from Futurism

Artificial Intelligence, Ai, Facebook, Facebook Ai

“Translation: ‘Our real users are quitting the platform, so we will fill our community with fake users instead.'”

Folks on social media are in an uproar after Meta announced that it’s planning to load Facebook up with AI “users,” better known as bots.

First reported by the Financial Times, this plan to populate the dying social network with these so-called “characters” is geared towards driving engagement — even though other platforms, including Meta’s Instagram, have been roiled by unauthorized bots for years.

“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Connor Hayes, Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI, told the FT. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that’s where we see all of this going.”

While it’s unclear when this plan will move forward, Hayes said that there are already “hundreds of thousands” of characters that have been created on the site — though most, for now, remain private.

Unsurprisingly, users on the r/futurology subreddit saw right through the ruse.

“Translation: ‘Our real users are quitting the platform, so we will fill our community with fake users instead,'” one user wrote.

As another aptly put it, “the advertisers buying space on [Facebook] won’t be able to tell the difference either, so it’s all just more clicks and more ad revenue.”

The potential implications for advertising on the platform overall seemed to strike a chord with the Redditors.

“With advertising being their bread and butter and pretty much the reason they still exist, how is this legal and not misrepresenting numbers to clients?” another user mused. “If they tell advertisers that they get X number of impressions, engagement, etc. but those aren’t real people anymore, that seems like straight up lying. Wild that they’re just coming right out with it and doubling down.”

For others, the prospect of fake users is yet another reason they’re ditching Facebook.

“I rarely check my FB feed at all anymore, and when I do it’s almost entirely made up of pages I don’t follow and have never interacted with,” another user wrote. “There’s no way to actually get rid of them, just briefly mute them. So now we can look forward to our actual contacts being even harder to see among a bunch of fictitious users too.”

Unfortunately, those left on the platform — the elderly and assorted right-wingers who are regularly duped by obvious AI slop — may not be able to tell the difference.

“I think the old people that use it the most are the least likely to notice,” one user concluded.

Feature Image Credit: Image by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Sourced from Futurism

By Andrew Hutchinson

Amid the rise of ChatGPT, and conversational search more broadly, Google is losing ground as the key discovery platform on the web.

Well, by “losing ground”, I mean that its share of the search engine market dropped below 90% for the first time in a decade last year. So it’s still by far the dominant discovery tool, but the AI shift is having at least some impact on its core business.

As you can see in this new chart, created by the team at Visual Capitalist, while Google has lost ground slightly, Bing has increased, which is presumably due to Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, which has led to Bing’s integration of more AI elements (while ChatGPT also displays Bing results).

Indeed, back in 2023, after Microsoft announced the integration of ChatGPT results into its Bing search engine, Bing downloads increased tenfold as a result.

Long considered the “other” search engine, generative AI has made Bing more relevant, though Google is working to counter that with its own AI elements.

Which, presumably, will ensure that Google remains the leader in online discovery, but it is interesting to note this shift, and to consider what the AI shift means for discovery moving forward.

Check out the infographic overview below.

By Andrew Hutchinson

Sourced from Social Media Today

By Stephanie McNeal

If it’s time for you to take the mic in 2025, this step-by-step guide will help you get set up.

The following guide that explains how to start a podcast is part of Glamour’s Smart Goals series, which explores reasonable, quantifiable, and—crucially—sane ways to embark on self-improvement objectives you’d like to complete this year. We all know traditional New Year’s resolutions are nonsense and designed mainly to make us feel terrible about ourselves and, as a result, spend money on things we think we need to live a more fulfilling life. Here our senior editor lays out how anyone can start the podcast of their dreams by asking established hosts and audio personalities for some of their best advice, from how to know whether your idea is a viable one to what equipment to invest in.

At this moment in time, it feels like literally everyone has figured out how to start to a podcast. We might roll our eyes when we hear about a celebrity, an influencer, or a vaguely notable human launching a new audio series because, yes, the space is saturated and not everyone’s voice urgently needs to be heard. But here’s the thing: Great podcasts can be truly great, which means there’s always room for more.

The podcast industry has taken on new life over the past decade. According to Pew Research, in a 2023 poll 42% of adult Americans said they’d listened to a podcast in the past month. Comparatively, in 2013, just 12% of Americans over 12 years of age said the same. That’s a massive increase, and the industry and ecosystem surrounding the medium has grown right alongside it.

One of the most radical things about a podcast is it’s an egalitarian form of broadcast media. A radio show requires a station and a license, but really anyone can make a podcast. All you need is a computer, a mic, and—if you want listeners—a captivating idea.

This may seem simple in theory, but for aspiring podcasters it’s hard to know where to begin. So ahead of the New Year, Glamour (which, in case you didn’t know, has had three successful podcasts: What I Wore When, in which we talk to influential women about a pivotal outfit in their life; Broken Harts, a chart-topping true-crime investigation; and She Makes Money Moves, a series that examines personal finance) went straight to the source, successful podcasters from across genre and industries, to help you get going.

With their advice and your ideas, 2025 is totally going to be your year.

Some podcasters come to the medium with experience in audio recording, but many do not. Journalists Emma Gray and Claire Fallon, hosts of the reality dating show recap podcast Love to See It, were working for HuffPo in 2015, when they were encouraged by their then editors to submit ideas for a podcast.

“We were interested in creating a space for people like us, people who loved watching reality dating shows, but also had some fundamental critiques of the messages that these fundamentally conservative, arguably antifeminist, cultural products were sending viewers,” they tell Glamour. “So we decided to try creating a pilot and see where it went.”

While Fallon and Gray were seasoned storytellers, they had no experience with podcasting.

“We had absolutely zero experience hosting, producing, or editing audio before diving in head-first,” they say. “Like so many things, you can learn on the job.”

Other hosts come to the space from a variety of other paths. Fletcher C. Johnson initially got into podcasting as a way to promote his music career, after a friend suggested releasing his new album through a podcast as a way to promote it.

“That was a hit, so then I started releasing my short stories through the podcast and that also really worked,” he says. He now shares short stories on his podcast, Listening to Fletcher C Johnson.

Comedian Eric Williams, host and creator of That’s a Gay Ass Podcast, decided to create his podcast after finding success with his video series of the same name and having a work slowdown during COVID-19. He also had never worked in audio production before.

“I had edited tons of videos, so I had a bit of a framework for how editing works, but everything else was new,” he tells Glamour. “I did a lot of googling.”

Like so many other things in life, when in doubt, turn to the internet. Sophia Myszkowski and Jonathan Zelinger did just that when they decided to launch their matchmaking and dating podcast, Paired Down, earlier this year. They both work in media—Zelinger is a writer and Myszkowski a producer—but they had the same question when they first started out.

“We talked to friends and colleagues who had more experience in the audio field to get their advice on budget or mid-price-range recording equipment, but also did some googling and read some Reddit reviews,” Myszkowski tells Glamour.

When influencer and writer Ayana Lage started her podcast, Asked by Ayana, she also took to social networks, both online and IRL, for help.

“I feel really lucky that I have friends who let me ask a million questions in the beginning,” she says. “I took their advice along with posts on Reddit and things I’d seen popular podcasters share.”

The podcasters say you need two key things: a good pair of headphones and a recording microphone. Lage recommends these headphones and Johnson this microphone (“Tom Petty always used the Shure SM-57 on his recordings, so I figured, if it’s good enough for Petty, it’s good enough for me,” he says). Myszkowski also recommends this recording device, and you can also record audio via an online program like Riverside or Zencastr.

By Stephanie McNeal

Stephanie McNeal is a senior editor for Glamour with more than a decade of experience covering pop culture, internet trends, social media, books, lifestyle, and women’s political and social issues. She specializes in in-depth analysis and reporting on the cultural zeitgeist, whether that’s profiling people from Bravo stars to… Read more

Sourced from Glamour

By Tiernan Ray

This new approach, based on natural selection, dramatically improves the reliability of large language models for practical tasks like trip planning. Here’s how it works.

One of the big trends in artificial intelligence in the past year has been the employment of various tricks during inference — the act of making predictions — to dramatically improve the accuracy of those predictions.

For example, chain-of-thought — having a large language model (LLM) spell out the logic of an answer in a series of statements — can lead to increased accuracy on benchmark tests.

Such “thinking” has apparently led to breakthroughs in accuracy on abstract tests of problem-solving, such as OpenAI’s GPTo3’s high score last month on the ARC-AGI test.

It turns out, however, that LLMs still fall short on very practical tests, something as simple as planning a trip.

Google DeepMind researchers, led by Kuang-Huei Lee, pointed out in a report last week that Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPTo1, the companies’ best respective models, fail miserably when tested on TravelPlanner, a benchmark test introduced last year by scholars at Fudon University, Penn State, and Meta AI.

Tasked with formulating a travel itinerary to meet requirements such as cities visited, time spent, and travel budget, the two AI models were successful only 5.6% and 11.7% of the time, respectively.

Given the weak results of top models, Lee and team propose an advance beyond chain-of-thought and similar approaches that they say is dramatically more accurate on tests such as TravelPlanner.

Called “mind evolution,” the new approach is a form of searching through possible answers — but with a twist.

The authors adopt a genetically inspired algorithm that induces an LLM, such as Gemini 1.5 Flash, to generate multiple answers to a prompt, which are then evaluated for which is most “fit” to answer the question.

In the real world, evolution happens via natural selection, where entities are evaluated for “fitness” in their environment.  The most fit combine to produce offspring, and occasionally there are beneficial genetic mutations. The whole process leads to progressively more “optimal” organisms.

Likewise, Lee and team’s mind evolution causes the multiple answers of the LLM to be evaluated for how well they match the prompted question. That process then forces the LLM to modify its output to be better — a kind of recombination and mutation as seen in natural selection. At the same time, low-quality output is “retired,” like bad entities being culled from the species via natural selection.

The point of such an evolutionary approach is that it’s hard to find good solutions in one stroke, but it’s relatively easy to weed out the bad ones and try again. As they write, “This approach exploits the observation that it is often easier to evaluate the quality of a candidate solution than it is to generate good solutions for a given problem.”

The key is how best to evaluate the AI model’s multiple answers. To do so, the authors fall back on a well-established prompting strategy. Instead of just chain-of-thought, they have the model conduct a dialogue of sorts.

The LLM is prompted to portray two personas in dialogue, one of which is a critic, and the other, an author. The author proposes solutions, such as a travel plan, and the critic points out where there are flaws.

“We leverage an LLM to generate an improved solution by organizing a critical conversation between a ‘critic’ character and an ‘author’ character,” write Lee and team. “Each conversational turn is structured as a prompt-driven process, where solutions are refined based on critical feedback,” they write.

Quite long prompts are used, showing the LLM examples of proposed solutions and where they ran into problems. The prompt gives the model instructions as to how to play the two roles, such as, “Jane, remember you’re the best in the world at analysing flawed travel plans,” and, “John, remember that you’re the best in the world at writing budget travel plans based on Jane’s analyses.”

The Gemini 1.5 Flash is tested on multiple planning benchmarks. On TravelPlanner, Gemini with the mind evolution approach soars above the typical 5.6% success rate to reach 95.2%, they relate. And, when they use the more powerful Gemini Pro model, it’s nearly perfect, 99.9%.

The results, Lee and team write, show “a clear advantage of an evolutionary strategy” combining both a search for possible solutions very broadly speaking, and also using the language model to refine those solutions with the author-critic roles.

The bad news is that mind evolution requires much more computing power than the normal Gemini approach. The Flash version with mind evolution makes 167 API calls to the model versus a single call when Flash is operating normally. Mind Evolution also eats up three million tokens because of the very long prompts versus 9,000 for normal Gemini.

The good news is that while it demands more compute, mind evolution is still more efficient than other kinds of search strategies that inspect many possible answers from the AI model.

In fact, mind evolution gets steadily better the more possible outputs it evaluates, as you’d expect from something that’s supposed to be evolving to be more fit. It seems the repeated critical dialogue is contributing in some concrete way.

“Mind evolution is consistently more effective than the baseline strategies with respect to the number of candidate solutions needed to achieve a specified level of success rate (or average task performance),” the authors note.

In a fun twist, Lee and team add to the mix their own novel benchmark, called StegPoet, which tests the ability of Gemini to perform steganography, the practice of hiding a message in a block of text. (Not to be confused with “stenography,” the practice of transcribing speech via shorthand.)

In the authors’ version of steganography, a series of two-digit numbers each have to be assigned to ordinary words, and then the words have to be composed into a poem to conceal the numeric code. The problem becomes more difficult as the string of numbers becomes longer and as each number is repeated more often.

Interestingly, StegPoet turns out to be pretty challenging even for mind evolution. Gemini Flash using the evolution trick gets it right only 43.3% of the time, less than random chance. And Gemini Pro only achieves 79%. Both, however, are vastly better than either unaided Gemini or the typical search strategies.

The most important observation of Lee and team’s mind evolution is that inference is a rich field of invention that is finding new ways to get better results beyond simply crafting better prompts.

One important omission in the authors’ work is how to take the very large computing budget of mind evolution and slim it down. Every new approach that builds complex prompts with millions of tokens only increases the cost of getting better answers. At some point, putting all that on a budget becomes important.

Feature Image Credit: bymuratdeniz/Getty Images

By Tiernan Ray

Sourced from ZDNet

By Douglas Van Praet

The science of seeing.

By Douglas Van Praet

Douglas Van Praet is the author of Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing. He applies unconscious behaviourism, neurobiology, and evolutionary psychology to business. Online: Website, Twitter

Sourced from Psychology Today

By Aman Gupta

The year 2024 was nothing short of exciting, with several events that may dictate the world’s future, such as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government coming to power for the third time in India and the USA choosing its president after an electrifying election. Amid the shifting geopolitical scenario and rise in technology, what are the challenges and opportunities companies face in 2025?

Consumer behaviour has undergone a massive shift, leaving businesses at a critical juncture as technological advancements, shifting expectations and the increasing demand for ethical practices are reshaping the market. In 2025, consumers expect and demand more from their favourite brands, and companies will have to rethink their strategies to align with the former’s expectations to retain loyalty and boost business.

Successful companies will be those that can anticipate these changes and respond with ingenuity and innovation. The following strategies will be pivotal in redefining how businesses grow in the new consumer era.

Hyper personalizing Experiences At Scale

Today’s consumers do not prioritize quality alone when choosing a product. Many also expect an experience tailored to their individual needs and preferences. With the rapid development of tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, companies today have access to a vast tranche of data, allowing them to customize offerings. These digital tools can give brands the power to predict customer needs with accuracy, from product recommendations to customized marketing campaigns.

However, while delivering what the customer wants is important, it is also important to deliver at scale. Companies must be able to analyse consumer data to create meaningful and personalized interactions. This helps in building an emotional bond with customers, fostering loyalty and increasing brand value.

Seamlessly Integrating Omnichannel Experiences

By the end of 2025, omnichannels will become a mainstay of the consumer experience, evolving into a thriving and integrated ecosystem. As consumers increasingly interact with brands through a multitude of platforms, from mobile apps and social media to brick-and-mortar stores and voice assistants, they will come to expect a cohesive and smooth journey.

As they shift between different touchpoints, whether making purchases online, visiting a store or interacting with a brand via social media, they will expect their experience to be consistently exceptional at every point. Technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and smart devices will likely be a part of this change. Brands will need to consider investing in technology that ensures a smooth flow of information across all channels to increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

Creating Purpose-Driven Business Models

Consumers increasingly engage with brands that align with values such as sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and transparency when they purchase products. It is no longer just a passing trend but a matter of survival for brands to focus on these principles. Brands that reinforce their commitment to environmental sustainability, social equity and fair labour practices, as a few examples, are likely to experience stronger consumer loyalty.

For instance, consumers increasingly want to know the origins of the products they use, from sourcing of raw materials to manufacturing. Companies should consider making their products traceable so that consumers can track and monitor the product’s journey from raw materials to end users. Consumer trust in many sectors will hinge on maintaining transparency about supply chains, product origins and labour practices. As the demand for ethical business practices grows, organizations that fail to adapt face the risk of becoming irrelevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Leveraging AI To Reshape Consumer Experiences

AI has played and will continue to play a pivotal role in reshaping the consumer experience in 2025. From predictive models to automation, AI can better enable businesses to understand consumer behaviour with remarkable accuracy and streamline operations to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Companies will increasingly rely on AI tools to disseminate vast amounts of data, uncover trends and forecast future demands to usher growth. Moreover, AI-based automation will streamline customer service and other operational functions, ensuring faster response times and effective service delivery.

For instance, AI-powered chatbots can provide 24/7 support, answering some customer inquiries instantly and resolving other issues with minimal human intervention. In the future, these systems will become more sophisticated, creating experiences that are more personal and more human-like.

In 2025, consumer experiences will be filled with opportunities and challenges. At this point, companies must formulate strategies that prioritize personalization, seamless integration, ethical practices and the innovative use of technology. Consumers today expect nothing less than tailored, smooth and ethically responsible experiences.

Businesses that succeed in aligning their growth strategies with these expectations will not only drive customer satisfaction but also better secure a competitive advantage in an increasingly complex and digitalized marketplace. The next five years will be marked by an evolution in consumer expectations, and companies ready to lead this transformation will shape the future of consumer engagement for decades to come.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Aman Gupta

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Aman Gupta, Managing Partner, Health Practice Asia Lead at SPAG FINN Partners, a leading global Integrated Marketing & Communications agency. Read Aman Gupta’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

By Hunter Thurman

This is the tenth instalment in a series that unpacks the decision-making factors behind shopper and consumer behaviour. A series that focuses on the four drivers of behaviour and five barriers that hinder decision making—all factors based on a wealth of knowledge from the worlds of psychology and behavioural science.

Together, these foundational WHYs provide a framework with which to reliably assess what’s driving your business, what’s hindering your results, and what you can do to dramatically influence people’s real-world behaviour.

This instalment unpacks one of the almost cliché words used daily in marketing circles the world over: emotion. And while brand advocates everywhere nod in agreement as to the importance of understanding consumer emotions in decision making, the word is often used to describe the vague notion of “feelings”.

But the concept of emotion—and more specifically, emotional barriers—is much more tangible than many recognize.

“Marketers really underestimate the ‘mental work’ consumers have to complete in making decisions… There’s real power in reducing this mental friction to enable effortless decision making.” – T. Sigi Hale, PhD

There’s a scientific foundation dedicated to not only understanding what drives consumer decision making, but also what prevents a given decision from being made. The academic discipline is called Cognitive Ergonomics which, in layman terms, means reducing the perceived barriers to making decisions. But you can also call it “sludges”, the inverse of the celebrated concept of so-called “nudges”.

We’ve delved into others via previous articles, but this fifth barrier (the emotional one) is what we’re focusing on here. And it relates to both shopping and consumption considerations. Think of them as the emotional consequences weighed during a purchase decision.

There are essentially two forms of the dreaded emotional “sludge” that can slow or derail consumer behaviour:

• Mental effort—Brand use hindered by the sustained attention or thought that it demands
• Fear of disappointment—Brand use hindered by the fear of being disappointed by the product, service, or overall experience.

First emotional barrier to brand use: Mental effort

Each day comes with a constant barrage of attention-demanding stimuli from our environments and screens. And while most people recognize this overwhelmed feeling, nowhere is it more pronounced than in the context of something as mundane as grocery shopping.

Many retailers have ramped up their eCommerce programs, ostensibly to make shopping easier—faster, more convenient, and so on. However, many category experts have concluded that shoppers concerned with these “convenience” factors actually prefer bricks over clicks. They perceive walking through the physical store as being easier.

Why?

Imagine you’re grocery shopping on Walmart’s website, for example. You type “snacks” into the search bar or navigate to the dropdown, and you end up seeing something like this:

For better or worse, the page proceeds to scroll indefinitely, bringing you snack after snack after snack to browse. The assortment is impressive, sure, and it seems every snack in every packaging imaginable is available.

Even if you know exactly what you’re looking for, choice overload ensues. Take Oreo cookies, for example. Type that into the search bar, and voilà! Oreos aplenty.

This might seem like a shopper’s dream, but anyone that’s tried it knows that it’s actually A LOT of work. In fact, trying to navigate this shopping experience for every product on your list would take all day. And it’s exhausting because, while the human brain comprises only about 2-3% of our body mass, it uses roughly 20% of our energy. It’s an extremely inefficient organ, so thinking actually makes us tired.

So, while having all the snacks in the world at our fingertips might sound like a good idea to retailers, it actually requires the kind of mental effort that can stop purchasing decisions in their tracks.

Resolving this emotional cost is not only an opportunity for online customer experiences, it applies to in-store experiences, as well. It’s a barrier both manufacturers and retailers are wise to recognize and work to minimize in their strategies and activations.

Second emotional barrier to brand use: Fear of disappointment

Will I get rejected for the job? The date? The loan application?

Will my food be cold? My order wrong? Not as good as I remember it?

Doubts like these are known to creep into life’s big decisions (be it career, finance, or relationships), but they’re just as potent in dictating behavior during everyday situations, such as purchasing a consumable. While purchasing fast-moving goods like snacks and drinks isn’t as tolling as purchasing from a more durable category (what if I don’t like this car???), both decisions can be hindered by emotional hesitancy all the same.

Looking at the psychology behind purchase decisions, there’s much more at stake than just a product’s mere utility. If you think about the average grocery store, for example, the reality is that shoppers don’t NEED the majority of products sold in them. They simply WANT the products.

After all, what does a human need to survive when it comes to food and beverage? Water and basic nutrition. It’s pretty spartan when you think about it, and yet, grocery stores in developed countries are filled with desirable options ranging from cookies and chips to coffee, soda, you name it. All things people WANT.

And when we’re let down by something we desire, it has strong emotional consequences.

Imagine the last time you were served cold pizza.
Or your coffee order wasn’t just right.
Or your laundry detergent didn’t get that stain out.

All relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of life, but you remember them because they created outsized disappointment. They’re life experiences that seep into your subconscious and prevent future purchase decisions, particularly for newer brands or innovative products.

And so, with all the products available today and an infinite combination of shopper preferences, how do we mitigate the fear of disappointment?

ALDI in the USA has probably the best remedy for this that I’ve seen in modern marketing. They call it the “Double Guarantee”. The gist? If the shopper isn’t 100% satisfied with their ALDI product, the store manager will not only replace the product, but also refund their money.This is obviously a very solid approach—an “unbeatable” one, according to ALDI—and, at first glance, it strongly reassures the customer that there’s no reason to fear any kind of disappointment.

But there’s deeper cognition at work here, as well. Three established psychological principles explain exactly WHY a guarantee like this is so attractive and effective when making purchase decisions.

• Loss aversion—We know people are highly risk-averse because the pain of a loss (being disappointed) is worse than the pleasure of a gain (trying something new and having it taste OK).
• Free overvaluation—We are irrationally drawn to “free” things. Just think of all the things you’ve happily taken over the years (e.g., swag at a conference, complimentary products), even though you had no use for them and really didn’t value them at all. You attributed oversized value to them simply because they were free.
• Zero risk bias—We tend to opt for situations where we can completely eliminate risk (e.g., the ALDI Double Guarantee) over alternatives that may actually offer greater risk reduction (e.g., choosing a brand you’ve used before).

Understood and harnessed properly, emotional barriers can be recognized and addressed. The brands that embrace this psychological reality will enjoy significant advantages, both on store shelves and between shoppers’ ears.

Cover source: Rytis

By Hunter Thurman

Hunter Thurman is CEO of research firm Alpha-Diver, and founder of the Psych-PulseTM database which continually measures consumer psychology at a large scale since 2018. He and his team of PhD decision scientists and strategists share findings from the database in the Bev50, Snack50, Quick50, and Tipsy50 reports, and work with leading brands, retailers, and the Wall Street analyst community to explain, measure, predict, and drive consumer behaviour.

Sourced from Brandingmag

By Charlie Coombs

Welcome to the latest edition of The Gen Zer. This week, we take a look at how brands are creating unique experiences to appeal to younger demographics. Plus, TikTok hosts a Trump inauguration party for influencers and new studies suggest Gen Z are burnt out at work.

As any digital content manager is likely to tell you, successfully marketing your products to Gen Z can be an uphill battle.

Thanks to the rise of social media, they are digitally-savvy consumers with little incentive for brand loyalty and are a hard demographic to resonate with. They’ve entered an extremely competitive workforce amidst pandemics and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis that is affecting everything from housing to grocery shopping. To put it bluntly, living isn’t cheap; especially when you’re only just beginning to find your footing as an adult.

So, how do brands cut through the noise of an increasingly cluttered advertising market and leave a lasting impression?

A recent campaign by Glossier called the ‘Black Cherry’ has seemingly struck gold, having sold out twice over of its latest family of ‘cherry’ products, which include a free padlock alongside a collection of beauty items. The company is also launching a pop-up photo booth experience called ‘DotWorld’ in Bloomington at the Mall Of America this coming weekend. This campaign will include plenty of opportunities for social media snaps, countless free samples and customisable charms.

The success of this launch makes clear that experiences and personalisation are key pillars of successful Gen Z marketing. If brands want to genuinely compel younger customers to take note, then they need to demonstrate a thorough understanding of their consumers and offer them exactly what they want. It isn’t enough to run a few targeted adverts across Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat – companies must offer pop-ups, shows, and tangible reasons to talk about their products.

Research from SAP Emarsys in 2024 found that almost half of Gen Z customers have abandoned a brand because they grew ‘bored’ of them. The study also mentioned that 28% of Gen Z seek out companies that aim to provide ‘memorable experiences’, which is an 11% increase over older generations. The numbers are clear; brands must innovate, entertain, and distinguish themselves from others in the market.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on TikTok. Many companies have dropped any pretence of professionalism across these channels, instead adopting a playful, authentic and socially-savvy approach that is primarily designed to stir conversation and increase brand awareness. Think companies like Ryanair, Duolingo and KFC. All of these brands have let their Gen Z social media managers run amok, posting nonsensical memes and content that is neither traditional nor corporate. The result? Engagement. Tons of it.

All these different campaigns share a single key similarity. They’re attempting to be personable and specific, reflecting the attitudes and experiences of their target demographics by dropping the traditional ‘professionalism’ of yesteryear. This content is not about direct sales, but rather brand recognition. In the age of busy advertising and constant information, becoming a memorable name is invaluable, regardless of how you get there.

This approach can even be felt across the political spectrum. Trump’s recent re-election can be partly attributed to a similar mentality of noise and recognition. When attention is the most valuable form of currency it needs to be obtained in any way possible. In 2025, being the loudest in the room is to be the most heard, the most thought about, and ultimately the most likely to retain the support of your audience. Information is constant and overwhelming. Gen Z are swimming in it – and many voted Trump.

Now, we’re not saying that brands need to be as abrasive as the Trump administration to be heard. What we are saying is that marketers should be paying attention to how Gen Z perceive content, both online and in person. Personability and a unique brand voice that speaks to consumers in authentic ways is the most effective approach to retaining their much sought-after interest. Keep them watching, chatting, and engaging with your brand by any means necessary.

And if Glossier’s success proves anything, it’s that you can never go wrong with a freebie.

Feature Image Credit: Thred

By Charlie Coombs

I’m Charlie (He/Him), a Remote Writer at Thred. I was previously the Editor at Thred before moving to Bristol in 2024. As a music and gaming enthusiast, I’m a nerd for pop culture. You can find me curating playlists, designing article headline images, and sipping cider on a Thursday. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn and drop me some ideas/feedback via email.

Sourced from thred.