neuro web design

Thumbs Up: Credo mobile email hits 5 Persuasion hot buttons

Posted in neuro web design, unconscious on December 12th, 2008 by Susan Weinschenk – Be the first to comment


I get plenty of marketing emails, and this one that came the other day really stood out. Credo Mobile… it’s a cell phone service provider that also promises political change! They use 5 different persuasion techniques, all on one page:
1. The word “Free” is very powerful and they use it several times
2. Scarcity — “Offer Expires…”
3. Association — They are a politically active company, and they talk about Barack Obama on the page… they are associating themselves with Obama… like Obama, then you will like them
4. Consistency — The message is: If you are someone who cares about being progressive, then you want to (be consistent) and use a progressive cell phone service provider.
5. Social Validation – -The bottom ofthe page has a customer testimonial, with a name and photo.

Good job hitting persuasion marks Credo!

Sexy Product Needs a Sexier Web Site

Posted in neuro web design on December 8th, 2008 by Susan Weinschenk – Be the first to comment

PNC bank has created a unique offering for people in their 20s (Generation Y). It really is different, and it’s getting a lot of press. But they seem to have missed the boat at their website.

This is a great example of the concept of “the home page is dead”. At their home page (first picture) you’d be hard pressed to find the link to virtual wallet, (it’s a small item in one of the lists) and they sure haven’t used Neuro Web Design techniques to persuade people to go there. They’ll tell you that they designed a special web site for the product and that their marketing takes people to that website. You’d think they would give it a little play on the home page, using a picture of a 20 year old who is happy with a link there to the product.

If you do make your way to the special virtual wallet site (second picture) you’ll find a site with moving graphics and a lot of text. It looks like it was created by Gen X people for Gen X people… again, no principles of Neuro Web Design… where are the pictures of 20 year olds? Where are the stories of real people with real photos of them talking about how virtual wallet has changed their life? Where is the social networking? PNC will create a big splash with their marketing, but eventually it will fall short. They need to use make use of unconscious persuasion techniques for Virtual Wallet to stick.

New York City Stabbing a Hoax?

Posted in kitty genovese, neuro web design, social science, urban legends on August 8th, 2008 by Susan Weinschenk – 3 Comments
I was just doing some research on a murder that happened in Queens NY in 1964. You may have heard of it. It’s the Kitty Genovese murder. It’s the crime that led to an entire branch of social psychology research.
Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death on the street while 38 witnesses watched and did nothing to help. Social scientists became fascinated by what they called the “Bystander Effect” and a whole series of research studies began to study why it is that people will take action to help when they are by themselves, but not if they are part of a group.
I’m writing about this in a book I’m working on (Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click, PeachPit, due out in Jan of 2009). I found online the original New York Times article about the murder, but then I found online another New York Times article written 40 years later in 2004 that casts doubt on some of the data and its interpretation of the original event. 
Apparently it’s now believed that several people probably heard something and maybe saw something, but they probably couldn’t have figured out what they were hearing or seeing (based on where the crime occurred and the lighting on the street etc), and it probably wasn’t 38 people either. So the truth is that a few people heard some noises and saw someone staggering down a street.
The question I have is: If it took me about 5 minutes to find this updated information on the internet, then why does the original version of events still show up? In research articles, in slide presentations, in books, people still talk about the Kitty Genovese event without mentioning the later update. 
Is it the sheer number of references to the earlier, incorrect version? Or is it that everyone is lazy and they take the first reference they come across?
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