We just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who came and helped make our second Chinwag Psych Conference a success.
So just in case you missed the day, we have a round up of the activities and keep your eyes peeled on PsychMatters for the slides from our speakers presentations.
Anticipate
We began with an intro from Toodle pip himself, Sam Michel before kicking off the day with Anticipate.
First up was Ed Weatherall from VisualDNA, with his talk on how to predict customer behaviour by understanding their personality. Taking us through the ‘Big Five’ personality traits;
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
We all know our own personalities but do we know our customers? Finding out their personality type can help us to predict what they want to see, and what will provide click throughs when they visit the landing page.
Prediction of online behaviour aided by known personality types increases accuracy by 300% in the 1st min
Want to know what personality type you are? Take VisualDNA’s fun (and free) personality test.
Next up, we had Mark Adams from the Audience who’s provided some great procrastination for those slow Mondays in the form of the Facebook page – Condescending Corporate Brands.
His talk, delved into the similarities between Social Media and a living organism. this is how we should look at it, so when a new one comes along…we’re not scared of it.
See that giant green ball of fire and all those big dots? Well the big dots, those are Beyonce, or The Kardashians or Russell Brand, and the teeny dots in the middle. Those are brands. If you’re a brand, you’re competing with all the user generated content on Facebook, and you don’t have much chance of winning. And so The Wolf of Old Street (Mark’s genius Twitter handle) advises to think about the content, the community and the story BEFORE you think about the platform.
Rounding off Anticipate was Global Head of Neuroscience at Millward Brown, Sarah Walker, considering the neuroscience of stories. However they don’t need to be about you (substitute you with your brand)
With an example of a BMW ad for how not to do it, stories are powerful tools but only if used in the right way. For example, a Fiat advert for a US audience promoting it as a sexy supermodel…in the land of Chevys and Cadillacs, it’s probably not going to be seen in that light. The story has to be credible, relevant and worth listening to. Effective brand storytelling focuses on brand as reward, brand as character or brand as hero. Not just your company history!
Optimise
Kicking off round two, after some nibbling and networking, was infamous PR genius Mark Borkowski with his teachings on communication.
Following on from the theme of Sarah’s talk, we know PR works because it believes in the power of stories, a famous quote from the world of PR;
It was true at the time
But is the story more interesting than the truth or is it ‘Idea Porn’?
Next up, on his first trip to London was Brian Massey, flown in all the way from Texas, complete with lab coat which he later goes on to explain.
Looking at addiction centres and what language encourages folks to call…
A – We can help. Call *****
B – Speak with a Compassionate Rehab Specialist. Call ******
C – Ready to start healing? Call ******
D – Ready to stop lying? If so, we can help. Call ******
And which encouraged the most calls? Well B created 32% more calls while out in front is D, having encouraged 43% more calls. Why? Because our brains let in the information that is unexpected, unbelievable and just plain wrong.
Next up, was optimisation expert Craig Sullivan and his teachings how to, “Wear the magical slippers of customer experience” and take a walk in our customers shoes.
Another great tip from Craig was to think of a website like store owner, you can’t refurb the whole store all the time, it’s the same on a website, so make improvements where can you make an impact.
Last but not least in our Optimise section, jetted in especially from Germany is Andre Morys from Web Arts, teaching us the why emotional optimisation has the highest ROI.
Analyse
Back from lunch and having been well fed and refuelled we kick off our Analyse section of the day.
Following this, is Leigh Caldwell, partner at The Irrational Agency, on the value of intangible products. 80% of product value is from intangible stories. For example, a suit without a Valentino label will cost a lot less than one with, a customer won’t pay a lot for a beer from a corner shop but they will from a 5* hotel.
Next up is Dr Paul Marsden with his presentation and what a fascinating one it was. The power of suggestion is a very powerful thing – think Sharon Stone in Basic instinct, or when you go to see a horror film, you’re far more susceptible to be frightened of those bumps in the night.
For example, a storyline on Casualty involving an overdose, saw hospital admissions rise. However, when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, the media guidelines put in place meant there were far less copycat suicides.
Paul’s research found suicide bombings more likely due to way they were reported with the power of suggestion.
Use cue words to prime minds and build strong positive associations around desired behaviour of consumers.
Our final Analyse speaker, Stephen Pavlovich from the Conversion Factory took to the stage to tell us how personas can increase conversion rate. And what is a persona? It’s a framework for understanding customer behaviour.
It’s hard to tailor our landing pages to encourage click throughs for every different kind of persona that lands on our page. For example, a World Of Warcraft fanatic is going to be different to the owner of 4 Chihuahuas (not that we’re stereotyping of course). So if we’re selling a product online, it’s important to get in users’ mindset. Buy it yourself, sell it and interact on forums as customer.
Persuade
Batteries recharged with a nice cup of coffee and then the final section of the day.
Beginning with Web Psychologist, Nathalie Nahai on the secret psychology behind persuasive content.
1. Know who you’re targeting
2. Communicate persuasively
3. Sell with integrity
And some secrets for writing a headline that packs a punch,
Next up is Psychotherapist Dr Aaron Balick, using Freud’s Id, Ego and Super Ego as very interesting concepts to understand how we use technology.
Particularly looking at the selfie and what we are trying to achieve from these? Well essentially we’re saying;
‘This is the view I have of myself and how I would like the world to view me’ and all for those likes and retweets to gain what we view as recognition.
Want a 230% uplift in clickthrough on the ad selling your house? Put the picture upside down and it will wake the brain up says Bart Schutz, Chief Persuasion Officer at Online Dialogue.
Using 3 bullet points of information, no more, means that even the laziest of users won’t lose focus meaning there’s more chance they’ll take action.
And that’s a wrap.
Thank you’s
We want to say a particularly special thanks to our sponsors Visual DNA, City University, Lumen, CrowdEmotion and Millward Brown, all our fantastic speakers and The Museum of London, without you, we couldn’t have done it!
Thanks again to all who came along and made the day so special. For all info on our upcoming events, don’t forget to sign up to the PsychMatters newsletter, follow @ChinwagPsych on Twitter & join our G+ community and we hope to see you again very soon.
See what others had to say about the conference.
