Retention Edge E33: The psychology that will still work in 50 years

Quick question. How much of your marketing strategy from two years ago still works today?

Half of it? A quarter?

Things evolve. Platforms, algorithms, things like AI come along that (it seems) completely change the game.

But in reality, most of the core principles in marketing are the same as they were 5, 10, 100 years ago (and they’ll still be the same 50 years in the future - if we’re all still here).

This week on the pod I was joined by Phill Agnew, host of the Nudge podcast and behavioral science marketer, who's spent years translating academic research into practical marketing tactics.

Phill's thing is simple: learn the psychology that drives human behavior, and you'll never be scrambling to keep up with the latest platform change.

This episode is a timely reminder that the classic marketing and sales playbooks are not obsolete - and likely never will be.

Now let’s jump into the top takeaways from the episode.

Technology changes. The brain doesn't.

Your LinkedIn and X and Bluesky feeds are full of people saying AI will revolutionize your job. And we can't help but click on it.

But a psychologist would tell you the human brain takes millennia to evolve. It hasn't changed in 20,000 years.

We still follow the crowd. We still value things that look like they took effort. We still make snap decisions based on shortcuts our ancestors developed to survive.

As a marketer, you have a choice. Either learn the technologies that affect your job this week, or learn the psychology that will affect your job in 50 years.

One is a bit more future-proof than the other.

That doesn't mean ignore AI. It means build your strategy on the stuff that doesn't expire.

Social proof is ancient. And still works.

Phill referenced a study from Richard Shotton's book The Choice Factory.

A pub in East London put up a sign saying "This is our best-selling beer" next to London Pride (a warm ale that, for the record, Phill does not like). The result: sales went up 2.5x, just like that.

And the interesting part: sales of other beers didn't really drop. People were just adding London Pride because it seemed popular.

This is the same reason McDonald's used to put the exact number of burgers sold on their signs. The same reason Aperol Spritz succeeds partly because it's visually distinct, so you can see other people drinking it. The same reason Apple's white iPod headphones worked.

The practical takeaway for ecom: you're probably sitting on social proof you're not using. Best-seller labels, real-time purchase notifications, loyalty card walls (like Katz's Deli in New York, where completed loyalty cards cover an entire wall behind the counter).

It doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to be visible.

Show your work, and people will value it more

In the episode, Phill walked through a series of studies on what researchers call the "labor illusion" or "input bias."

The core finding: if people believe more effort went into something, they value it more. Even if the output is identical.

• Presentations: Participants were told one presentation took 8 hours to prepare and another took 30 minutes. Same presentations. People consistently preferred the one they believed took longer.

• Real estate: Agents gave clients the same house lists. Half were told it took 8 hours to compile; half were told 30 minutes. The "8-hour" group went on more viewings, made more offers, and bought more houses.

• Starbucks: Head office trained baristas to do "parallel pouring," making four lattes at once instead of two. Faster service. Customers hated it. Satisfaction dropped. They had to ban the technique. The coffee was the same; it just didn't look like enough effort went into it.

• Kayak.com: When the travel site showed a loading screen that listed everything it was searching ("checking British Airways flights... checking Delta... scanning hotels within 25 miles of Zagreb"), people valued the results more and were more likely to book, even though the search actually took longer than the plain loading wheel.

Phill tested this himself. He ran two Reddit ads for his end-of-year episode. One said "Learn the 6 best marketing insights from Nudge this year." The other said "I've spent 480 minutes listening to marketing experts this year. Here are the 6 best lessons."

The effort-showcasing version got a 15% higher click-through rate.

For DTC brands, this is gold. If your product takes time to source, make, or curate, say so. If your team hand-picks every item, show that. Don't optimize for speed when you should be optimizing for perceived quality.

As Phill put it:

Stop gaming for clicks (and destroying trust)

Like any tool, behavioral science can be used for good or bad.

On one side: Guinness's "Good things come to those who wait" campaign. That's leveraging input bias and the labor illusion in a way that builds the brand over time.

On the other: those fake "accidental internal email" campaigns that DTC brands keep running, where a founder "accidentally" sends their whole list an email that looks like a private Slack message with a coupon code.

Both use psychology. But one builds trust and the other burns it.

Phill pointed to research showing that short-term sales coupons give you a boost, but in the long term push people away from your brand. The fake email campaigns do the same.

Opt for an alternative: campaigns that show thought and creativity.

Danny Zane's research found that consumers can tell when a marketer has put real effort into a campaign, and they value it more. A dog wash company giving 50% off for "International Pet Day" will get some clicks. The same company giving 50% off because it's the founder's dog's birthday (the actual company mascot) will generate more sales, because there's a real, thoughtful connection to the brand.

Behavioral science as creative guardrails

Phill doesn't see behavioral science as replacing creativity. He sees it as giving creative people useful constraints.

Painters are more creative with a smaller canvas. Bands develop their sound because they only have certain instruments. Marketers have an overwhelming number of options, and behavioral science narrows the field to approaches that are backed by peer-reviewed research.

You learn that social proof works. Then you get creative about how to show it. You learn that effort signals quality. Then you figure out what effort to highlight. The science gives you the guardrails. The creativity happens within them.

The biggest takeaway for me: stop chasing the tactic of the month.

Trends and hacks constantly change, but the principles behind why people buy, trust, and come back don’t.

You can spend all your time and energy chasing the latest thing, or you can learn these basic principles once, apply them everywhere, and you won't have to reinvent your strategy every time an algorithm updates.

You can catch the full episode on YouTube or Spotify. Wherever you watch or listen, be sure to like, comment, share if you found it useful.

I’ll back later this week with more to help you grow & scale your brand the right way.

— Pietro

PS - Want to see what your store would look like as a mobile app? Get a free preview here, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.