The pratfall effect: How flaws make advertising more appealing

Examines how marketers can make use of the pratfall effect, where flaws make a thing more likeable, to improve brand image.

Many findings from behavioural science can be applied to marketing. Richard Shotton outlines one relevant bias that shows how admitting your flaws can be good for your brand.

Behavioural science, the study of decision-making, is an important topic for advertisers as it provides a robust explanation about why people buy particular products. It's robust as it's based on the peer-reviewed experiments of some of the world's leading scientists – academics such as the Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Herbert Simon, as well as respected psychologists such as Elliot Aronson and Leon Festinger.

It recognises that people are overwhelmed by the...

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