When Loyalty Turns Overnight

Chris Norton 0:00

One message, one policy change. That was all it took for a loyal customer base to turn on a billion dollar brand. Early boarding vanished, promises of lifetime status quietly rewritten, decades of emotional loyalty reduced to one line in an email. The backlash was instant. Today you're going to hear from the neuromarketing pioneer who has spent 20 years studying exactly how moments like this go so badly wrong.

Roger Dooley 0:25

You know, you'd have that nice uh business class seat reserved for the last six months, and suddenly now you're you know in the uh backseat of economy by the laboratory. Uh this uh it no recognition of any of that. And uh it uh I ran through AI and the first recommendation was uh if this hasn't been done yet, don't do it.

Chris Norton 0:44

You know, this is a stupid idea. I'm Chris Norton and this is Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the show where senior marketers lift the lid on the bad calls, blown launches, and near disasters that reshape their own careers. Today I am joined by Roger Dooley. Roger spent around two decades teaching companies how to use neuromarketing and behavioral science to improve their marketing and even how they communicate inside the business.

Roger Dooley 1:06

Their problem isn't a lack of uh psychological principles, it's basic usability issues, user experience, customer experience.

Chris Norton 1:16

He is the author of BrainiInfluence and Friction, and his brand new book, The Persuasion Engine, shows how generative AI can put behavioral science in the hands of you and any other marketer, not just the big brands, with labs and nudge units.

Roger Dooley 1:31

The persuasion engine is very tactical. Once we get into uh the second part that's about using behavioral science to apply AI to your marketing problems.

Chris Norton 1:43

You'll also hear Roger's own mistakes as a founder and strategist and how they change the way he builds partnerships, launches new ventures, and challenges executive thinking. Let's get into this week's show. Enjoy. Roger Dooley, welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me on, Chris. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I'm thrilled to have this chat. I know we spoke a while ago about um your new book that's coming out. I wanted to start I wanted to start there because obviously you've written a couple of books before and you're on to a new one. And this one's fascinating to me because you're using um you've sort of lent into AI and neuroscience, haven't you? So do you want to explain the theory behind the book and why you've written it?

Why The Persuasion Engine Exists

Roger Dooley 2:34

Sure. You know, for about 20 years now, uh I've been teaching companies and both large and small businesses how to uh use neuromarketing and behavioral science uh in their business to market better, to communicate better, to uh even uh smooth things internally. Because at the end of the day, we're all human, right? And understanding how humans work and how human brains work is important. Uh the biggest problem that I had though is most of these tools for a long time were available only to relatively large organizations. They could afford behavioral science teams, sometimes called nudge units, or hire expensive consultants. They could sometimes even afford neuromarketing labs and conduct actual brain studies or other biometric studies on people reacting to their ads, their marketing, and so on. But for other size organizations, they were pretty much out of luck. They had to read the books, and there's some uh great books out there, uh, things like uh Robert Cialdini's Influence, sold millions of copies, 41 years old now, I think, and still totally relevant. Uh there are things like Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. Uh now there's a huge amount of knowledge there, many other good books too, but the problem is uh if you are a typical business person or business marketer, you don't have infinite time, you've got a lot of priorities and never enough hours in the day. Uh those are the two books I mentioned total over a thousand pages. And imagine, first of all, having to slog through all that. And actually, uh, they aren't really too much of a slog. Maybe uh Kahneman's a bit more than uh Cialdini's, but uh just trying to get through it and then remember what you read, and then of course try and consume some of the other great literature on the topic. You know, it's there's not enough uh time, and trying to remember it all uh is impossible. So what's excited me is that the advent of generative AI, just in the last few years, uh, has now created uh the ability for any size company, any size uh business to use these same tools and actually with great facility because you can use it to uh everything from create plans to analyze what you're doing, analyze your competition, uh, analyze your market. I mean, there are so many ways that you can use this, but in particular, uh you can use it to apply behavioral science in a variety of ways to make your marketing much more effective and also to gauge your communications for their emotion and their empathy. You know, we've seen so many examples of even huge companies communicating with customers in ways that go horribly wrong once the communications hit the customer and they don't land as intended. Uh, AI can help that in a big way.

Chris Norton 5:26

Yeah, I mean it's it's interesting to me because I thought AI, we're talking about something that's hu very, very human is you know human behavior, neuroscience. But but using AI to interpret that and interpret that data without having to um engage in a human. So basically what what you're saying is like perfecting your messaging before you even get it in front of your perfect customer, your ideal customer profile.

Prompting That Makes AI Useful

Roger Dooley 5:51

Yeah, definitely. It's uh you know, you clearly uh you can't just turn AI loose and say, hey, uh figure this out for me. You know, it takes uh some effort. It takes uh very detailed prompting, it takes creating the context, creating the role for the AI, the role that you want it to perform. I think certainly having as much of your own company information and your market information as you can muster, your A B test results if you have them, uh, your ideal customer profiles if you have those things. Uh if not, AI can help you create those. But either way, the more specific you can be, the more detailed, uh, the better the results you're going to get. Because it's just like if you ask AI to write a blog post about increasing conversion rates, it'll write one for you, but it's not going to be very good. It's going to be very generic and uh not uh not well done at all. But when you can give it a whole bunch of information about uh who your target audience is, what you've written about in the past, uh what you think the emphasis should be, and so on, and even what expertise it has specifically, then you can really get some great results.

Chris Norton 6:59

So, okay, so how are you how how how are you expecting um a business owner to use the book? Is it like more like a Bible, like a playbook of what to do? So like if I'm saying I'm a business owner now listening to this, they can literally just pick it up and is it like they can dip in it? Because I've I've had I've skimmed skim read some of it and um they can sort of dip in it and and it you talk about iteration and how to use iteration to get the right result. Is it is it sort of like is that how you think of you people using it, like a like a playbook to get the best out of what they're trying to do in in terms of their marketing?

Roger Dooley 7:33

Yeah, you're exactly right, Chris. This book is uh far more tactical than either of my previous books. Uh the other uh Brainifluence actually was quite practical, had a hundred short chapters, uh, each with sort of a business concept and idea that marketers could employ. Uh Friction was a big picture book about uh how taking the any unnecessary effort out of customer experience and even employee experience uh can lead to better results. But the persuasion engine is very tactical. Once we get into uh the second part that's about using behavioral science to apply AI to your marketing problems, it really delves down into uh detailed prompts that somebody could type right in, or actually one thing that when the book launches will be available, I'll have a space in my website with copy and paste prompts so somebody doesn't not have to type it all in or scan, some I'll scan the page and OCR it. They can just go there and not only get the uh copy and paste text, but if I've got some additional updates, uh those will be in that same place too. Because, you know, one thing that really scared me about this book, when you write a book about ideas, it can be sort of timeless. When you write a book about detailed tactics, uh then suddenly you realize that it's going to be obsolete very quickly. So uh me creating this little piece on my website uh for readers of the book uh to not only make it easier to apply the ideas, but even to get what has changed uh since the book was written, uh to me, that's my way of keeping it relevant and actionable.

Chris Norton 9:09

That's good. I mean, yeah, that was the one of the things that would concern me about writing any sort of book on social, because I I'm from the era of social media and social media marketing, and and now we've become I mean we're still in the social media marketing era, I suppose, and now it's AI. Um, and I always worried that if as soon as I wrote a book or wrote something, it would become obsolete and not be relevant, especially with, you know, like we're on what are we on now? I think I think the other day um ChatGPT launched 5.3, and then the day after it launched 5.4, and it's like, when's number six coming out? It's literally, it's like a space race going on right now. So the fact that you've written something that is written in text that you can then refer to. I like the idea of having a link that you can refer to and go back, and it's even an updated version of a prompt. It feels to me like you've given yourself a load of extra work to do there, though.

A Tactical Book That Stays Updated

Roger Dooley 9:57

Well, that's true. But uh, you know, to me, I think if it serves the reader, it's worth it. Because uh putting a book out there that just uh I knew would be uh somewhat dated by the time it hit the shelves uh didn't appeal to me. But at the same time, there are businesses that are looking for specific advice and how to do things right now, today. And uh so this was my compromise. You know, put the book out there. And the basic ideas will certainly work. You could you could use those ideas and apply them, and even uh today they'll be valid, they'll be valid six months from now. Will they be optimal? Well, maybe not optimal, but they'll definitely be better than doing nothing. But by having that updated information available, I feel that I can really keep it relevant and also you know, stay in touch with my readers. One thing that I really love hearing is when I'm speaking at a conference and somebody comes up and says, Oh, you know, Roger, I read your book and I applied this idea and it really helped my business. You know, that's there's there's no better feeling for an author to hear that kind of thing from a reader.

Chris Norton 10:54

Yeah, exactly. So, okay, so what's your top tip then that you could offer people if they listen to this? Obviously that you want people to go and buy a book and and do that. But what's the sort of top top one or two tips that you can give people that where they could really get um make a make a difference with using using your thinking um to get a better result in their marketing?

Behavioural Science Starts With Usability

Roger Dooley 12:38

Right. Well, I think that first of all, if you are not using uh behavioral science or if you want to call it consumer psychology, or you know, there's different terms that uh broadly uh uh cover the same area, applying how customer brains work to improving your marketing. If you're not already focused on that, then now's the time. And the good news is that you no longer have to read all of those books, although I do recommend them because to me, you know, uh Chris, with AI, you still have to be the final arbiter of what you're going to put out there. You know, as good as it is, there it still makes mistakes. It still doesn't always come up with the optimal thing. And often the best thing you can do with AI is have it iterate different suggestions for you. And uh, you know, then you have to be the one that chooses. And if if you're flying completely blind, you're not going to make as informed choices uh as you would if you've got some idea. And also, of course, if you uh aren't careful about checking things, uh you can end up making mistakes. We've all heard the horror stories about the uh lawyer who submitted a case brief to the judge that was full of very impressive case references that actually were just hallucinations from the AI. Uh that issue is getting better now, but still, it it isn't always right. And so uh so I guess for my one tip, uh if you uh aren't using behavioral science psychology in your marketing, then certainly now's the time to do it. But assuming that you are, uh use generative AI, whether it's Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini, uh, and use it to uh apply different principles. Have it look at your web page if you're working on your website. Uh have it analyze it for what kind of uh psychological triggers it's using already. Uh, you can have it analyze your competition to see what kind of triggers they're using, and then come up with a plan for you to improve what you're doing. And the the one caution I have there is you know, I've often been called in by businesses to sort of sprinkle some uh behavioral science dust on their website or their operation saying, oh, hey, yeah, we really need to apply these ideas. And what I find when I get there is that uh their problem isn't a lack of uh psychological principles, it's basic usability issues, user experience, customer experience, where uh the customer gets lost at a certain point in the process, you can't find the buy button, or there's something that's confusing, or there's uh things that are off-putting to the customer. And it's important to do a look at those things before you say, okay, let's really up the sophistication of our psychology. But AI can help you with that too.

Chris Norton 15:20

Yeah, so obviously you've written three books. What do you do in your what do you do in your day job then, Roger, to help what sort of services do you provide?

Roger Dooley 15:30

Uh actually, most of what I'm doing today is uh writing, speaking. I've got a YouTube channel and uh the I do very, very limited consulting. Uh to me that uh is not uh my ideal lifestyle. And often I found that uh consulting gigs end up creating a uh big old report that uh somebody puts on their shelf and never uses. Uh, you know, to me, uh I prefer uh working on the content side of things, and content sounds pretty sterile, but uh really getting ideas out there that are going to help people maybe sometimes be provocative. I write a Forbes column that uh usually I've got uh probably four or five articles a month at least, sometimes more, sometimes less. And so uh to me, I really enjoy getting ideas out there in the marketplace and seeing which ones fly.

Chris Norton 16:15

Okay. And um and so what would you say has changed like in in neuroscience in the last because it the brain doesn't change, does it? I mean, we're seeing all these stories about the fact that you know, you seem as we're talking about uh artificial intelligence. I've seen stories now breaking out that you know that um people aren't thinking for themselves, and um because the AI is thinking that we might be we might be turning off neural pathways in our brain and getting getting more stupid, which is that is that is that a reference? I think I think that's what the people how people are talking about it. Is that true, or is that just media hype? And what do you think?

Do We Outsource Our Brains

Roger Dooley 16:52

Uh there is an element of truth in it, and I think we can look at an example of uh navigation in automobiles. You know, uh now uh if I'm gonna go someplace, uh I don't map it out, uh, I ask Waze or Google Maps, okay, how do I get there? And it tells me where to turn right, where to turn left, and so on. And when I get there, somebody says, Well, oh, which route did he take to get here? And I'm I don't know. Uh I followed the directions that she was giving me on my phone. Uh and uh the I'd contrast that with uh some uh studies of London black cab drivers. Uh these were done some years back, but they found that uh, of course, London black cab drivers are required uh to get their license. They are required to uh have this extensive knowledge in their head of London streets. Uh, they have to be able to uh find all these uh nooks and cranny alleys uh and purely for memory, no uh uh no navigation units. And uh what they found was that uh actually there were parts of their brain that uh grew from having all that sort of spatial memory required. And of course, the same thing happens with uh musical instrument players like violinists, uh part the parts of their brain that are uh attached to uh, say their their fingers that are constantly uh uh fingering the strings, uh those parts of the brain uh change and grow. So there are brain changes that take place, and I have not too much doubt that if you consistently use a tool for something, whether it's AI or something else, uh, that that that part of your skill set may atrophy a little bit. You know, because uh when I was in my younger days, uh I was actually a uh a rally navigator uh on uh uh automobile rallies where you're flagging cars uh through the woods and whatnot, and uh you're telling the driver where to go. And so my navigation skills are pretty good, but I guarantee you I uh with the advent of uh nav nav systems in the last uh five or ten years, uh that uh uh that part of my brain is definitely atrophied.

Chris Norton 18:57

I I usually think, I mean, that's fascinating. Uh first point, I was in London this weekend and um I actually saw the a lot of black cabs. Most of them are electric now, which fascinates me. Because I used to live in I lived in London a few years ago now, but obviously everything's everything's changing with the cabs. They're all they're all most of them are electric now. Um and then uh also on the roads while I was in London, I thought I saw the first, and I don't know how long they've been there, the Google Waymo cars, you know, the AI AI cars driving around, which I didn't think I've seen them in LA, but I didn't realize they're already um I haven't seen them in the flesh in London basically. Um so and I have heard that.

Roger Dooley 19:35

We have them here in Austin.

Chris Norton 19:36

Are they?

Roger Dooley 19:38

Yeah, we have we have both uh Waymo and actually Tesla uh autonomous cars here in Austin.

Chris Norton 19:45

Yeah. What do you think of them?

Roger Dooley 19:48

Uh you know, uh I have yet to take a ride in one because I live in kind of a suburban area that is not in their current range. Uh they are um working uh only uh for the limited part of the city uh where they're uh they've got it well mapped and everything. So they they haven't yet uh penetrated out into our area yet. And I I keep saying, oh yeah, I've got to go drive in, drive it myself into uh their range somewhere and then take a ride just for the experience. But uh they're they're doing very well. Uh they've had a few accidents, but usually it turns out that uh when there's uh some kind of a problem, uh it was actually some human error other than uh the Waymo thing itself.

Chris Norton 20:30

Yeah.

Roger Dooley 20:31

There's an issue where Waymo drove around a uh school bus that had its uh arm down and its flashers on, which is illegal to do. It's a traffic violation if you do that, because obviously it's very dangerous for the kids. And it turned out that uh the bus had been stopped for a long time, and the the car contacted a human uh at headquarters, wherever they monitor these things, saying, is this actually a stopped school bus? And the human told them no. So when it drove around and it triggered a camera that caught it driving around the uh arm, uh it turned out that it was actually a human error, not the Waymo error. Not that they never make mistakes, but I think if you compare the accident rates to uh human accident rates, uh it's there's no comparison there. The autonomous cars are much better, much safer.

Chris Norton 21:18

I know it it's crazy because I mean the American roads are much bigger. In Europe, obviously London's uh narrow, narrow streets. I used to have to I used to have to drive, I used to work on a nighttime in in London. Um when I lived down there, um I used to DJ in in Soho, which is like the West End, and I used to have to drive through all the streets, uh, which was at 9 p.m. I mean, I saw some right sites, I can tell you. But so I I'd learned the way to get round the West End bits, but I didn't don't know the whole of London. I mean to to know every bit of London is is is is insanity. I don't know how how anybody could learn all those different streets. I used to spend my whole time looking at A to Z, but now we've got Google Maps, like you say.

The Loyalty Change That Backfired

Roger Dooley 21:59

Right. Well, the black cab drivers do it. And actually, what you know, part of my I I have two views on that. First of all, I keep thinking, okay, uh you no longer have to spend uh two years training and practicing and studying uh to drive a cab. You know, if you're an Uber, you can get behind the wheel and fire up uh the Uber navigation app and you're good to go. Uh but uh that's that's one side of it. The other side is when I have taken a black cab in London, uh the drivers have also been very knowledgeable. If they're taking you to a particular venue, uh they will say, okay, uh, I'm gonna drop you off here. Uh you want to go around to the side uh uh because there's an entrance there that uh will be convenient and won't have a line. You know, things like that that the your Waymo or even Uber drivers are going to tell you.

Chris Norton 22:46

Yeah, and the stat the stats are like the the Tesla, I think Tesla, and I'm gonna be probably quoted wrongly here, but I swear somebody said that Tesla's uh autopilot is the safe the the the the Tesla uh model three is the safest car on the road, apparently, which is because it's got the the autopilot, but I bet I'm I I I need to check that statistic. So um okay, so if you were if you were looking at the marketing landscape today, then where do you think organizations are still misunderstanding how people actually make decisions? Because do you think people um make decisions differently to what to what we Expect them to.

Tone Deaf Comms And The Fix

Roger Dooley 23:24

Well, I think they do, at least for the certainly there are savvy marketers and leaders who have a pretty good grasp of uh human nature and human behavior. But you know, I see so many examples of even uh really high-level executives uh making decisions or sending communications, changing policies, that uh they clearly don't understand uh how real humans are going to react to those. You know, one of my uh favorite examples, just uh last year, uh Carnival Cruise Line, they're a big corporation, uh, and they're they've got about half a dozen brands of cruise uh cruise ships, but the biggest one is Carnival itself, uh, and they had a problem to deal with. They have loyalty levels like many companies do, and the higher loyalty levels uh where you've cruised uh maybe hundreds and hundreds of days uh get better benefits. Uh they may get early boarding, they may get too invited to a captain's party, uh, they get uh uh special things like luggage tags and pins they can put on their chests and so on if they want. Uh and uh Carnival had a problem though because they had so many high-level loyalty members, so many elite members, that uh it was starting to um not work properly. You know, if half the ship gets early boarding, then there's nothing special for early boarding. Uh same thing if you can't fit uh any everybody in the room for the captain's reception, uh, then you know it's not not very special. So uh they decided to revamp it and they uh sent out uh uh their new policy, which said, okay, uh our lifetime diamond members, these are people who have been cruising in some cases for 20, 30, or more years to earn this lifetime diamond status. And they were told it was lifetime status. Uh, you know, we we weren't really uh we were just kidding about lifetime. Uh we're going to keep you at your status for the next few years, but then uh you'll have to spend $32,000 every two years to retain that status. And that's far, far more than the average carnival cruiser would spend. Uh they're they're kind of an entry-level cruise line, a budget cruise line. And uh so basically they were saying uh after uh this grace period, uh then you're done. You're dead to us. And not only that, they uh basically said we're not gonna do uh pins anymore, we're not gonna do luggage tags, you know, we don't need that uh froo-fru stuff, I guess. And uh, you know, the blowback was enormous. I posted about this, I wrote about it at Forbes, I uh posted a couple of YouTube videos about it, and the feedback that I got from actual carnival customers uh was really uh very heartfelt and sometimes painful. Like, you know, my wife and I have cruised this line for 35 years. We finally achieved this, and now they're kicking us to the curb. Uh another person said, you know, it's like my wife of uh 30 plus years uh suddenly said, okay, hey, it's been nice, but uh, I'm leaving it for somebody who can spend more money on me. And this is the emotional reaction that what the executives who uh instituted this policy change fail to recognize is that loyalty uh is an emotional thing. It's it's not just a transactional thing, like, okay, you do this for us and we give you these specific benefits. Uh, you know, people identified with it. They were they were carnival people. Uh it was uh part of their own identity. They they wore their little pins proudly. And so just to um say you know goodbye to all of that, uh it really uh uh caused them a tremendous problem. Ultimately, a few months afterward after that, uh they ended up uh reversing course and they at least changed some of the policies. They let their uh most elite cruisers retain their status and uh kept some of the other little benefits too. So uh, but I mean they could have avoided that whole thing. When I ran that announcement through AI, uh uh it predicted what the customer reaction would be or what some customer reactions would be. And I've done that with other communications, and they executives often don't realize how what they say or what they're going to do is going to land with real human beings. And often, too, there may be somebody in that room who knows in that when they're making the decision. But you know, often once uh a leader uh gets it going that okay, this is the the course we're gonna take, uh people don't necessarily feel empowered to speak up and disagree. And I think that's you know, in addition to AI, it's good to take advice from humans too. You know, when when you're uh even even sort of the lower uh maybe lower rank people uh in the back of that conference room, uh, you know, ask them what they think, what how they think customers are going to react, because they may have be closer to it uh than the CFO, for example, who's focused on the numbers, uh CEO who's focused on uh shareholders and the investment group that's pressuring them and everything else.

Chris Norton 28:19

Yeah, I mean I mean it's it sounds really, really obvious now that you can just create a you know a customer uh customer profile, so your perfect customer profile, or your current customer with all your data that you've got on your customer, pump it in and say, we are act as the marketing team, you um this is a message that we're gonna put out um and uh score which of these messages is best, that sort of that sort of thing. You could really, really stress test everything that you're doing. That's what you're basically recommending, isn't it?

Customer Service Without Ego

Roger Dooley 28:49

Absolutely. Uh I another example, also from the cruise industry, oddly enough, a Royal Caribbean is another giant cruise company, uh Carnival's biggest competitor. And uh somebody at headquarters had a brilliant idea. We're gonna bring together three ships, one from each of our brands uh in the middle of the ocean and do a photo op. So uh, you know, we're gonna have to reroute uh ships a little bit, uh, but uh they said, okay, well, we're we're gonna do this. It ended up that uh of the three ships, one of them, the smallest ship uh was Silver Sea Nova, which uh is a six-star luxury cruise line, only 700 passengers, uh, but these people spend tens of thousands of dollars a year, uh, many of them, even occasionally even hundreds of thousands a year on cruising. They're not cruising for a week a year or two weeks a year. Uh, they're going on month-long cruises, they're going on world cruises that take half a year, and so on. Uh these are by far their highest revenue customers, their best customers. Uh, they rerouted this ship uh in a way that uh it delayed its arrival at its debarkation port where everybody gets off the ship and goes to the airport to get their airplane home by four to five hours, which basically screwed up everybody's travel schedules. And uh so in the middle of their cruise, these people were suddenly having to figure out okay, uh, how am I going to change my flights? You know, can I make my flight? No, probably not because I'm arriving four hours later. Uh and uh in the middle of their cruise, and this is luxury cruise, they've got every suite has a butler uh who'll deliver you champagne and caviar, and instead, you know, they're on their phones uh trying to connect a ship's Wi-Fi to contact their travel agent or their airline or whatever. Uh so uh this and you know, the marketing asset they got out of this was about an eight-second video uh where uh you see uh it was from a helicopter, which I don't know what flying a videographer in a helicopter out to the middle of the ocean cost, but that couldn't have been cheap. Uh uh they sort of sweep, they pan across, first the big Royal Caribbean ship, uh then behind it uh in the distance is a celebrity ship, and then finally, way back in the distance, there's this tiny little uh Silver Sea ship. Now, you know, I don't know who thought that was a great idea. The the duration of the video was about eight seconds. Uh you know, I don't know that they were actually able to make any good marketing use out of that. I don't know why. It seems like a vanity project, but uh you couldn't they have done that with AI or Photoshop or something? You know, it's it's really wild. Uh and uh the so I ran that, uh I ran the communication. The the worst part was the what the way they communicated this uh showed no empathy uh for the customers who were having to suddenly uh interrupt their cruise to fix their travel plans. And uh it just uh, hey, we're gonna be doing this cool photo shoot. It's gonna be fun. Well, we're gonna have a celebration on the pool deck where you can uh uh you know watch it. And they made it sound like it was something uh really good. They said uh there will be a course, uh, you know, a course deviation that will delay our arrival by uh four hours. And if you if your travel agents uh travel arrangements need to be adjusted, you'll have to do that. And if you incur additional airfare cost, if it's reasonable, and if you let us know in 30 days, we'll reimburse that additional cost. But there is no recognition at all of the emotional impact of that uh, hey, uh it's not that these people don't want to be reimbursed for the additional airline tickets. Uh plus, this is in the middle of Florida spring break when all the airplanes are full, all the hotels are full. Uh so uh trying to redo your travel plans then, you know, you'd have that nice uh business class seat reserved for the last six months, and suddenly now you're you know in the uh back seat of economy by the laboratory. Uh this uh it no recognition of any of that. And uh it uh I ran through AI and the first recommendation was uh if this hasn't been done yet, don't do it. You know, this is a stupid idea. I'm paraphrasing here. But this is like the this is the worst idea ever. Uh and uh but uh then I did have a craft better letter, and it the letter was really, instead of the tone-deaf thing that the cruise line sent out, uh it was very uh empathetic. It recognized uh the disruption in their travel plans and the disruption uh in their experience. Uh it offered some additional uh compensation, which of course there's a business decision made. You know, they can't just say uh, well, we're gonna give everybody a free cruise. But uh that that's the business part of the decision. But it uh went beyond this uh sort of uh very sterile, uh, we'll reimburse your additional costs if they're reasonable, uh, to something, you know, we'll uh our people are standing by to assist you. If should you need help uh rearranging your travel and uh you know a modest future cruise credit, and most of all, just recognizing uh the uh impact uh on these customers and saying, hey, we you know we get it uh that this is disruptive to you. And you know, that that applies to any kind of communication. That that's a um a moderately important communication, not as not as big as say changing your entire loyalty policy for a big brand, uh, but even very small communications, like uh everybody has uh who has customers has some standard templates for, hey, your order is delayed, sorry, uh, you know, or uh your order shipped, or uh, thanks for the order. You know, you can run even those templates through the same kind of process to optimize them so that they really land well emotionally. I mean, especially if they're transmitting bad news, like uh, you know, you're uh you're gonna have to cancel your order because the product was uh out of stock and isn't available. Uh, but even just positive things like uh, hey, thanks for your order, you know, just really make it land well. And AI is very good at that. Uh when uh just boy, not too long ago, maybe uh eight months ago, uh last year, uh, scientists ran an experiment where they gave an emotional intelligence test uh to humans and to various AI models. And this is even models that aren't even as good as today's. Uh the AI models uh scored in the 80s uh on the test, where humans were in like the 50s and 60s range on the test. So uh AI, uh you know, AI doesn't have emotion, it can't feel empathy, but it is studied so much, it's read so many uh nonfiction uh resources, it's read books, uh uh you know, fiction books. Uh it understands human emotions uh better than most humans.

Chris Norton 35:18

I mean, that's amazing, isn't it? Really? I I literally traveled on Royal Caribbean um just last year. Um and unfortunately, yeah, we had a helicopter come out to us because somebody somebody it was a nasty accident actually. Um I think somebody fell off one of the decks onto the next one down. Uh I don't know why. Uh I didn't see it all, and it's a big, big ship. I think it was Anthem of the Seas we were on. And we had um a helicopter. They they they they they did do an announcement where they said we're gonna have to go in close to the uh to land. Um so the boat sort of sort of because it you know it goes around the outs, the coasts and things, it came in close to the coast so they uh the air ambulance could come out, and they they literally flew in down and then c landed it and then got somebody off uh this patient and and took them off. I mean that that car have been cheap, and I had they I hope they had holiday insurance because that would have been an inexpensive expedition out into the middle of the sea, like you've said. But but you're right. I mean, having some sort of it's sort of stress testing um I mean, because I I've been in crisis management since I've started my you know my career um 25, 28 years ago. I've been in cr this is my bag is is crisis management, and some of the things that we've had to put out, like statements to the media. I mean having AI to test statement testing is is just something that w is an absolute game changer in in that you can just test things and see how it looks and how it feels, and and the other the other thing to go back to your emotional side of things, we've got a we've got a brand in the UK called Octopus Energy who do a lot of um uh that do like electric and gas. And I've actually got Octopus Energy, and I heard the the head of customer service talking about the fact that they were using AI in their customer service emails, and because there's no emotion involved in the ego side of oh this email's getting on my nerves, or whatever it is when you get a nasty email or a complaint, it removes the emotion and analyses the emotion and and appeals to that person. It said it had includ improved um customer service satisfaction by something like 14-15% from the 60s to the 80s. So yeah, it was really it's really interesting because there is no ego in in AI yet. Anyway, uh there isn't yes, is there? But um, it's brilliant at that. So if you can use it for some sort of emotional intelligence, it's a it's a massive tool in your toolbox as a marketer, isn't it?

Roger Dooley 37:40

Definitely. And I I love that uh example that you gave. The uh just you know, changing these routine emails uh to make them uh take uh negative human emotion out of it and hopefully you know add a little bit of empathy where necessary, where somebody is is having a problem and maybe they're blowing up at you, but uh it's they're mad because they have a real problem and it hasn't been fixed yet. So uh by taking the emotion out, as you say, of uh the response, but putting the right emotion into it, uh, you know, that uh that's really a huge benefit. And I love the fact that they actually have the statistics uh to show the improvement and satisfaction. I'm not surprised by that, but that's really good to know.

Founder Mistakes And Hard Lessons

Chris Norton 38:16

Well, yeah, it uh it they were saying that it's just had a phenomenal effect. And actually I I can see why. Like sending if you've especially if you're a if you work in customer service, any anybody that works in customer service, getting RC emails all day is is quite grinding, isn't it? Because people just complaining. I I had one recently, my mobile phone. I um I've I've got a Samsung phone and I ordered it's three years old, so I ordered a new phone the other day from this company, Who Shall Remain Nameless, and um I ordered it and um it was getting delivered by DPD. I don't know if you have DPD in America. Do you have DPD in America? Anyway, they they they've they've released recently in the BBC, did a big in investigation on DPD uh and things going missing in DPD. Anyway, ironically, I'm getting the new mobile, the mu Samsung phone. I'm delighted because my battery's knackered on my Samsung, and um it yeah, it it got lost, and then um it got well it got lost, and I didn't realise till five weeks I still haven't received it. So they didn't talk contact me. I contacted the company and they were like, Oh, have you not received it? No, so then I had to wait three days while they checked it with the delivery company, and they said they've said they've delivered it. I said, Okay, can you can you ask them for evidence? They couldn't find any, and he said we get this all the time, and so the I the the uh the it was missing, and now I haven't got my phone. I've paid for it, I haven't got my phone, and I still haven't got it seven weeks later. And the customer service customer service team said, Oh, sorry, the new one's just come out last week, so we haven't got any other one that you've ordered. I said, Well, can you send me the new one then? Oh no, we can't do that. So I was like, I'm quoting a rock and a half place. So I've paid all this money, I've signed a two-year contract for their phone, and I was like, they were like, Well, all I can do is allow you to make a complaint. I was like, Yes, I'd like to make a complaint, and then uh two weeks later I've still not got a resolution, and it's like things like that is where surely AI can help and and solve problems that because I I'm not that angry, I just want my mobile phone because the one I've got is is knackered, and I I I ordered a new one, it's not arrived, and and it's I've had to ring them eight or nine times. It's just like oh, life admin is painful, but their customer service, to my point is their customer service wasn't very like oh, sorry about that. They still haven't told me that they're if they're gonna sort it out yet. I'm still waiting, so yeah, I think AI can definitely help with that. Um, Roger, it like mistakes, this show's about mistakes, and we ask people if they've ever made a mistake in their career and what have they learned from it. So, in the world of neuroscience, I mean I I don't know how you can make a mistake in the world of neuroscience, but have you made any mistakes in your career that you you're willing to share with the listeners?

Roger Dooley 40:52

Well, yeah, I've uh had a long career, so I probably made more mistakes uh than most people have. And I guess um I'll uh trying to look at mistakes that one can draw a business lesson from. Uh one comes to mind uh was a uh starting a uh partnership, a business with uh two other individuals uh without really a good uh partnership document that defined roles and expectations and so on. And uh within a few weeks, one of the partners uh just kind of stopped participating. And uh the good news is the company itself was doing pretty well, uh, despite that lack of participation, or maybe because of uh he wasn't necessarily a great contributor. And uh we uh were at a point where uh he owned a third of the company, wasn't doing anything, and uh I had a had to have a very uh difficult uh sort of uh cram down negotiation where it was uh look, either we're gonna reduce uh your share uh or uh you know we're gonna uh figure this out some other way. We're we're gonna end this company now, and you'll have nothing. And uh uh it ended up uh he still retained uh some share of the company when we sold the business uh uh many years later, uh he ended up uh uh actually getting a really nice payment out of it uh for doing absolutely nothing for the uh entire thing. And and the lesson I took from that was uh, you know, you're starting off something, this this was almost a little lark of a venture. You know, we really didn't think it was going to go anywhere. It was just kind of a fun thing to do. And uh by not really doing it right, setting it upright to begin with, uh, you know, we really uh handicapped ourselves. And that um uh that's that's one mistake I'll never repeat. If if I get involved in any sort of uh shared ownership thing, uh, everybody who's involved will have uh expectations and you know performance uh criteria and you know their continued uh maybe an equity vesting process or something uh that solves that problem. But that that's that's one mistake, I think. And the other mistake I think that many, many entrepreneurs have made is uh assuming that because you have succeeded in one area that you can translate that success uh very easily into another area. And uh an earlier company I had was a uh direct marketing business, a catalog company. We were in the uh home computer space, we're selling uh software products, hardware products, and so on. And uh we saw we were doing reasonably well there. And we under we had a pretty good grasp of direct marketing, we were doing uh quantitative stuff that most companies our size were not doing, so we we thought, okay, we're pretty smart about this, right? And we saw the next, what we thought would be the next big thing, which was uh home automation. It was just starting to come uh make a splash. There were some huge projects out there. Uh builders' associations were forming big technical committees and huge companies, General Electric and Phillips and others were getting involved. So we said, okay, uh, you know, we could dominate this space uh if we had the magazine in that space, because we had seen that exact same thing happen in our space. Our biggest competitor was the company that uh had the all the users subscribing to their magazine so they could just market directly, uh almost for free to them. So we said, okay, let's let's start a magazine for that space, and we did. Uh and unfortunately, uh the uh translating uh the direct marketing marketing success in the computer space to direct marketing magazine subscriptions uh was not uh uh did not make an easy transfer. So uh the business did not do well. It was a it was a good concept. Uh the market was slow to take off. That that didn't help. It was despite all this uh effort by the big companies and brands and so on, uh, there really wasn't that much of a market for it. Uh and so after uh six years, we ended up selling it uh, you know, for next to nothing after investing a fair amount of money into building it. Although the the one good thing uh that I'll say is uh that was like uh boy, uh 40 years ago, and the magazine still exists today uh under its uh the people that bought it. So we we we had the right idea. We were just a little a little bit early. Yeah, but I mean I think uh our conceit was that hey, look, we can market this thing, so we can market this other thing, yeah, because we're smart marketers, uh not recognizing That the way you do it, the criteria for success and so on are totally different.

Chris Norton 45:28

Yeah. I mean, I the thing is, the thing is, any entrepreneur out there, anybody that's running a we all fail all the time. Like literally, that's marketing is literally a plethora of mistake after mistake and building on compounding on top of the mistakes and making sure that you do those micro-isms better and better and better. But in terms of when you're founding companies and companies going under or not working, the fact that the magazine is still going after four years, I'd say you've you've done all right there. Um do you read it then?

Using AI As A Decision Partner

Roger Dooley 46:02

Well, uh no, actually I don't. Uh but uh uh you know I I just appreciate the fact that uh it lasted that long, uh which it sort of validated that there was an idea there. I just needed uh the right owner, perhaps, uh, who uh knew how to uh uh properly scale it. And of course we we ended up uh it's it's sort of like uh the the guy who uh builds a really expensive uh club, uh restaurant, uh takes, you know, puts uh millions of dollars into the we didn't put millions into this, but put a fair amount of money in, uh uh you know, into a facility, and it's a beautiful facility and everything, but then they go bankrupt. Uh the they sell to somebody else who doesn't have to make that investment, they can make it profitable. And that was sort of what happened uh here. The uh the purchase price wasn't uh that bad. And and they apparently knew what they were doing too, which uh that that helped a lot.

Chris Norton 46:55

Um so you've you've spent your whole career like learning from people and how people make decisions. Does that affect how you make decisions? Like how because you've been watching how people do it.

Roger Dooley 47:09

Um, you know, I wish I could say uh yes, that I'm much wiser having studied how other people make decisions. I'm not sure that's totally true, although I have learned now with AI uh that I can get a uh get feedback on decisions and advice on decisions. Not that I'm always going to take it or believe it even, uh, but you know, it's like having a uh you know somebody else in the room with you where you can uh say, hey, I've got this idea, what do you think? And you know, bat it back and forth and uh sometimes say, well, okay, you make a good point, other times say, well, no, I disagree with you. Uh, you know, I'm right. But uh regardless, you know, I think to me, from a decision-making standpoint, any significant business decision now, uh, I would probably be, uh, in addition to you know, asking the uh people around me, I would probably ask one of the smarter AIs who knows a lot about the space. I obviously have to know um, you have to give it a lot of background information and uh everything else. You can't just uh hit it cold with a 20-word prompt. But uh, you know, to me, uh it's you can't treat it as an oracle that's gonna be right. But, you know, in terms of in the people are wrong all the time too. You know, if if you're in uh say a meeting of your leadership meeting of your small business or whatever, even large business, and go around the table, people are gonna have different opinions. Everybody's not right. Uh, but as a leader, you have to sort out, okay, uh, is there a consensus of opinion, or is there one opinion that really seems to make more sense than uh the other ones? And uh to me, dealing with AI is the same. You can't just accept it's uh advice, but uh it's another source of advice, another source of ideas. Maybe it they'll think of something that you hadn't thought of.

Chris Norton 48:50

As AI continues to evolve, what excites you most about the future of behavioral science in marketing then?

Roger Dooley 48:59

Well, I think that we're gonna see uh AI taking over more of the uh role. Like right now, you could a lot of it is creating a prompt to uh get advice on something or get a design for something or get uh 10 ideas for something. Uh but I think that uh AI now with its uh agentic capabilities uh will be doing more where you can go out and pretty much on its own uh look for uh, say, uh what the competition is doing, look for ideas in the marketplace, look for other things, and then come back to you uh with things for you to review. So we can take over some of the roles that you would be relying on people for. Uh but uh what that's gonna look like exactly right now, I can't tell you. But I mean to me that's that's where the growth is. We're moving beyond uh just prompting AI into uh trading uh AI tools that kind of do their own thing under your direction.

Agentic AI And The Big Takeaway

Chris Norton 49:57

Yeah. I mean, uh neuroscience and AI is just my it's my pardon the pun, it's mind-boggling. It really is. Um and so if um well I realize um I've taken up quite a bit of your time. So I I just wanted to ask you, so what's the have you got what's the one story in your book right now that you think that um or one message that people should take from your from this book that you've you've written, and why should people buy it?

Roger Dooley 50:28

I think the theme that pervades the entire book uh is that now neuromarketing and behavioral science marketing have been democratized. Uh the world is different today than it was just say four years ago. Before, uh these were expensive tools that were only accessible to not only large companies, but only for important projects in large companies. You could be working for a big brand, but if you're in a you know small marketing office for a minor product somewhere, uh you don't get to ask the nudge team questions or use the neuromarketing labs. You're just like a small business marketer operating on your own. And uh now uh these tools have are available to uh anybody. And that's that to me is the thing. It's it's just an entirely different world. That that's my that that pervades the entire book. Even some of the tools for traditional neuromarketing that used to require labs, now they can be done uh in some cases with remote devices like uh uh iPhones and uh tablets and such, or uh they can be done even by AI simulations instead of bringing real humans into a laboratory setting. So to me, uh just this whole area uh is now accessible to everybody. They just the tools are there, they just need to use them.

Chris Norton 51:47

Yeah, I mean, I think, well, you you've you're preaching to the converted here, but people out there should definitely definitely stress test their ideas. Um so Roger, um you've been on the show now and you you've told a couple of your mistakes. If you were us, who is who would be the next person that you think we should interview on this show? Um yeah, and hear their mistakes. Who who would you recommend?

Where To Find Roger

Roger Dooley 52:12

Hmm, well, you know, I don't know if it's uh good to nominate somebody uh for their uh mistakes. Uh you know, usually I don't even um know most of the mistakes people make. And if if I did, I probably wouldn't uh want to suggest them for having made made a particular mistake. Uh the uh uh I was gonna uh suggest the um remember that you you said you're in crisis management, Chris. Uh uh I remember the uh BP CEO after the uh uh big uh well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, uh where uh like 11 people died and there was massive environmental destruction and so on. And the CEO uh told a uh TV interviewer that he wanted his life back. I I mean you know that I think uh probably that's one that uh he he would take back, but I I doubt if he's available for interviews.

Chris Norton 52:59

I don't know if he didn't know if he's still around. A good suggestion. I used to teach my my class at uni, I used to teach my students the uh the BP example, as you know, because the the way that they they dealt with the problem. Obviously, it's awful what happened, and it's a it was a tragedy with all the the stuff that can happen down the coastline, but the way just it was just a fascinating case study on how to deal with a crisis, and when you've got real money behind you, the fact that they were buying the PPC terms to all the phraseology and everything. So people were searching for whatever it was, oil spill, whatever, it was all it was all directing it to the greener messaging, and it was very, very cleverly um, if not very financially expensive. It was it was very, very cleverly done. There was good bits, and obviously, uh in the crisis management aspect of how they dealt with it. Um, I used to teach it um just to break it down, but obviously, yeah, uh that that bit where you said that was an absolute gaff, wasn't it? Um great. Um Roger,

Roger Dooley 53:57

if if Claude had uh read his comments before, I think Claude would have said, Yeah, don't say that.

Chris Norton 54:02

I mean, there's a million things that I'd like to run. Why do you think I've got a podcast about mistakes? And there's a I need I could do with it um running through everything that I I write every day. I make a million mistakes every day. Roger, thanks so much for your time. If if people want to get hold of you, how can they find you to book you or whatever? But what's the what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Roger Dooley 54:23

I think the uh two places to go first would be my LinkedIn profile. I'm real easy to find on LinkedIn just by searching for my name. Uh and uh I do uh interact a lot there. And also my primary website is RogerDouley.com, and that has links to my YouTube channel, my Forbes column, and so on.

Chris Norton 54:40

Yeah, great. Great. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Roger. That was absolutely brilliant.