Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways
Why the
to Be Persuasive
1. Inconvenience the audience by creating
an impression of product scarcity. It’s the
famous change from “Call now, the
operators are standing by” to “If the line is
busy, call again”, that greatly improved the
call volume by creating the impression that
everybody else is trying to buy the same
product.
2. Introduce herd effect in highly
personalized form. The hotel sign in the
bathroom informed the guests that many
prior guests chose to be environmentally
friendly by recycling their towels. However,
when the message mentioned that majority
of the guests who stayed in this specific
room chose to be more environmentally
conscious and reused their towels, towel
recycling jumped 33%, even though the
message was largely the same.
3. Ads quoting negative behavior en masse
reinforces negative behavior. Petrified
Forest National Park A/B tested two
versions of a sign imploring people not to
steal pieces of petrified forest from the park.
One mentioned large amounts of petrified
forest taken away on an annual basis, the
other one simply asked the visitors not to
remove petrified wood. The first one
actually tripled the theft ratio as it showed
stealing petrified wood as something
commonplace. Same effect was observed
after airing an ad that implored women to
vote, but mentioned that 22 million single
women did not vote last year. That kind of
information actually portrays not voting as
more socially acceptable.
4. Avoiding magnetic middle. A California
survey measured energy usage of a
neighborhood on a week-by-week basis.
When the average electricity consumption
for the neighborhood was calculated,
researchers sent thank-you cards to those
using the energy conservatively, and a nice
reminder to perhaps conserve to those who
used electricity liberally. Net effect?
liberals tried to cut down on unnecessary
energy usage, the conservatives, finding out
they’re way below average, suddenly became
way more liberal with their energy usage,
which actually increased the amount of energy
used by the neighborhood. Proposed solution
that worked? Sending a smiley face card to
conservatives with a request to keep doing
what they were doing, instead of pointing out
they were at the right end of the bell curve.
5. Too many options necessitate selection, and
hence frustration, when brain decides it’s
unnecessary work. The example here is given
by a company that manages retirement funds
for other companies, and hence has access to
retirement information of 800,000 employees.
When employees were offered a choice of 2
funds, roughly 75% signed up for a retirement
program. When the number of funds was
increased to 59%, even though qualitatively
this was a better deal for employees, only 60%
decided to sign up. When Head & Shoulders
brand killed off 11 flavors of the shampoo,
leaving only 15 on the market, the sales rose
10%.
6. Giving away the product makes it less
desirable. Researchers gave one group of
people a picture of a pearl bracelet and asked
to evaluate its desirability. Another group of
people was given the same task, but prior to
that was shown an ad, where the same bracelet
was given away for free, if you bought a bottle
of expensive liqueur. Second group
considered the bracelet much less desirable,
since mentally a lot of potential buyers (35%
of them to be exact) shuffled the bracelet onto
“trinkets they give away for free” shelf in their
brain.
7. A more expensive product makes the old
version look like a value buy. An example
here is a Williams-Sonoma bread maker. After
an introduction of a newer, better, and pricier
version, the sales of the old unit actually
increased, as couples viewed the new item as
“top of the line”, but old product was all of a
sudden reasonably-priced, even though a
bunch of features were missing.

8. If a call to action is motivated by fear,
people will block it, unless call to action
has specific steps. A group of people
received a pamphlet describing the dangers
of tetanus infection. It didn’t describe much
else. The second group of people got a
description of tetanus infection, plus a set of
instructions on how to get vaccinated. The
second group exhibited much higher sign-up
rate for tetanus vaccination than the first
one, where many participants tried to block
out the high-fear message urging that
something as rare as tetanus would never
happen to them.
9. A small gift makes people want to
reciprocate. People who received a small
no-strings-attached gift from a stranger were
twice as likely to buy raffle tickets from him
than those who were just pitched on raffle
tickets.
10. Hand-written Post-It note improves
response rate on inter-office letters.
Researchers distributed three sets of
questionnaires around the office. First set
included a hand-written Post-It note
requesting completion of the survey. Second
set got the same survey, with the request to
return it hand-written on Page 1. Third
group got the same survey with their name
mentioned (in type) on page 1 of the survey.
Response rates? 75%, 48%, 36%. People
appreciated personalized approach, and
somehow a Post-It note even highlighted the
extra work that someone did before sending
out the survey.
11. How restaurant mints are a personalized
affair. Let’s a say a restaurant provides
mints for its customers on the way out. If the
amount of tips per week is the baseline for
that restaurant, let’s make the waiters
include a mint as they give the check to the
customer. The tips go up by 3.3%. However,
when the waiters offer the mints themselves,
prior to signing the check, the tipping
amount went up by 14.1%. In yet another
experiment, the waiter would present the
patrons with 1 mint per guest, then give
them the check, then turning around to leave,
then, as if remembering something sudden,
turning around and giving them yet another
mint per guest. Result? 23% increase in tips,
as this signaled high amount of
personalization.
12. Attaching no strings increases response to
the message. Using the same hotel as the one
mentioned in Chapter 2, researchers tried out
two different versions of the sign. First one: if
you reuse the towels, a donation will be made
to a nonprofit environmental organization.
Second version: the donation has already been
made, since the hotel trusted you’d reuse the
towels anyways. Recipients of the second
message reused their towels 45% more than
the recipients of the first one.
13. As time goes by, the value of a favor
increases in the eyes of the favor-giver, and
decreases in the eyes of the favor-receiver.
Researchers asked a group of people in the
random office environment to exchange favors
and then rate the value of the given/received
favor in their eyes. A few weeks later the
same employees were reminded of the favor,
and asked to evaluate the favor again. Favor-
givers consistently assigned higher value to a
given favor, while as the time passed by,
favor-receivers tended to assign lower value to
the received favor.
14. Asking for small favors changes self-
perception, introducing ways for big favors.
Researchers asked a group of homeowners to
place a large “Drive Carefully” sign on their
front lawn. Only 17% agreed. In a second
group of homeowners, 76% of people were ok
with road traffic people maintaining the sign
on their beautiful lawns. What was the
difference between two groups? A few weeks
earlier group B was asked to display a small
non-intrusive window sign asking drivers to
slow down. This mental foot-in-the-door
technique made homeowners from the group
B view themselves as socially responsible and
safety-aware, hence a request for a larger
favor few weeks later didn’t startle them.
15. Labeling people into a social group tends to
 increase their participation ratio. A group
of people was interviewed regarding their
voting patterns. Half of them were told that
based on their response criteria, they were
very likely to vote, since they were deemed
to be more politically active. Later on the
election day that specific half did indeed
turn up a participation rate that was 15%
higher than participation of the control
group.
16. Asking people to substantiate their
decision will lead to higher commitment
rate on that decision. Researchers called a
group of people asking them how likely they
were to vote in an upcoming election. Those
who responded positively were either asked
nothing, or asked why they felt they would
vote. Any reason would suffice, but when
the election day came, the turnout for the
control group (who all responded “Yes” to
the question of whether they were going to
vote) was 61.5%. Turnout for the group that
actually gave a reason (any reason)? 86.7%.
A restaurant stopped telling customers
“Please call to cancel your reservation” and
started asking “Will you call and let us know
if you need to cancel?” Net result? Number
of reservation no-shows dropped from 30%
to 10%.
17. Writing things down improves
commitment. Group A was asked to
volunteer on AIDS awareness program at
local schools, and was asked to commit
verbally. Group B was asked for the same
kind of volunteer project, but was given a
simple form to fill in. 17% of volunteers
from Group A actually showed up to their
assigned local school. From Group B 49%
of volunteers showed up.
18. The fact that circumstances changed
allows people to change their viewpoints
without being viewed as inconsistent.
People are generally not thrilled to change
their viewpoints on something, as they fear
they will display lack of consistency and be
called a flip-flopper. Convincing people that
their old decision (to stick with the old
product) was completely 100% correct
under old circumstances allows them to be
more responsive to the messages that imply a
new product/idea is better because the
circumstances radically changed since then.
19. Sometimes asking people for help makes
them more open. Group A was given some
bogus research that included a sum of prize
money. After the experiment, the researcher
approached them and asked whether it
wouldn’t be inconvenient if they had to give
the money back, since the researcher was
using his own money. Group B was not
approached with such request after their
portion of bogus experiment was done, and
was allowed to keep the money. After this
both groups were asked to rate their
impression of the researcher. Even though it
was the first group who didn’t get to keep any
money, all of them consistently rated the
researcher higher on likability scale.
20. Asking for little goes a long way.
Researchers went door-to-door asking for
American Cancer Society donations. Group A
just asked for a donation, group B ended their
spiel with “even a penny would help”.
Results? 28.6% response rate for Group A vs.
50% response for Group B.
21. Lower starting prices attract higher bids.
This is a reference to a study of eBay items
where people consistently bid items with a
lower starting price higher. The explanation
seems to focus on the fact that people invest
more time into updating bids for a lower-
priced item to let it go.
22. How to impress a potential customer with
credentials without being labeled as a show-
off? Public speakers have someone else
introduce them, a real estate company made a
slight improvements to their phone service by
directing people to “Jane, who has 10 years of
experience with houses in upper price range”,
and physicians display their diplomas on the
walls.
23. The danger of being the smartest person in
the room. The expert card frequently trumps
any other card in the room. The example here
 is that the scientists who discovered the
double-helix of the DNA were never prime
DNA experts, which made them “hungrier”
for new discoveries, and made them
question established rules.
24. Devil’s advocate example works with
large organizations. Leaders who
consistently seek out dissenting opinions
earn more respect, and generally have better
agreement with people in the room than
those who rule by lying the law and
persecuting dissenters.
25. Negative examples are memorized better
than positive examples. When one group of
firefighters went through the list of real-life
mistakes other firefighters have made, and
another group just went through the list of
positive things to do, the first group
demonstrated better judgment when faced
with real-life tests. Our brain seems to
discount the best practices, but single out
bad examples of someone else making a
mistake.
26. Admitting negatives up-front might lead
to better communication. When
Progressive says that they will compare your
rate against their competitors’, and when
original VW Bug was introduced in the US,
both companies pursued a strategy of
highlighting the negative stuff only to open
conversation about the true values their
product has to offer.
27. Spinning negative facts as positive allows
customers to make a mental link towards
the positive. Among the viewers who
viewed an ad advertising restaurant’s cozy
atmosphere, an ad advertising the restaurant
and lack of parking spaces, and an ad
mentioning both, the third group made a
connection between cozy atmosphere and
bad parking situation. The restaurant was so
cozy, the customers reasoned, that they
didn’t even have enough parking spots,
which made them even cozier in the eyes of
a customer.
28. Admitting you’re wrong makes people
trust you more. Company A published an
investors relations report, contributing slump
in sales to overall economic climate. Company
B said slump of sales was relevant to a few
bad decisions by top management. Net result?
Investors viewed company B more positively.
You’d think that they’d be viewed as a bunch
of screw-ups, but admission of a mistake
made investors more confident the situation
was under control, while company A investors
got the uneasy feeling of the ship floating in
the waters with captain losing control.
29. Similarities raise the response rate. A
person named Cindy Johnson received a
survey request by mail from someone named
Cynthia Johannson. Someone named John
Smith received a survey from Gregory Jordan.
The name similarity in the first case (note that
it’s just phonetic similarity, none of the names
are the same) brought up the response rate to
56% vs. regular 30%.
30. People like the sound of their name, and
that defines their vocation. There are three
times as many dentists named Dennis as any
other names. Number of Florences living in
Florida is disproportionately high, same goes
for Louises living in Louisiana.
31. Verbalization helps interaction. Waiters
who repeat customers’ order to them make
70% more in tips than waiters who just say
“Okay”. Our mind subconsciously appreciates
the effort taken to ensure the things are
perfectly right.
32. Just smiling makes for a poorer customer
service. Group A was exposed to a hotel clerk
smiling, while peppering the customer with
questions regarding their preferences and
ways to improve their hotel stay. Group B had
just a smiling clerk performing her duties.
Group B was likely to rate the smile as fake.
33. People pay more for the stuff that’s about
to disappear. Oldsmobile sales rose after GM
announced the end of life for the line.
Australian beef purchases rose after customers
learned this year’s supply would be severely
diminished because of the weather conditions.
 Concorde sales took off right after British
Airways announced the hyper-speed flights
would be shut down.
34. When people feel something is about to go
away, they will stick to perception of the
product being better than the new one. In
majority of blind tests customers chose New
Coke over Classic Coke. Yet when New
Coke was introduced, massive protests were
staged. When the same drink was packaged
into Classic Coke and New Coke bottles,
customers still claimed they preferred the
Classic Coke and could taste the difference,
even though labeling was the only thing that
differed two drinks.
35. “Because” makes any explanation
rational. In a line to Kinko’s copy machine
a researcher asked to jump the line by
presenting a reason “Can I jump the line,
because I am in a rush?” 94% of people
complied. Good reason, right? Okay, let’s
change the reason. “Can I jump the line
because I need to make copies?” Excuse
me? That’s why everybody is in the line to
begin with. Yet 93% of people complied. A
request without “because” in it (”Can I jump
the line, please?”) generated 24%
compliance.
36. Asking people to choose reasons
themselves might backfire. Two groups
were given an ad by BMW. Group A saw an
ad saying “So many reasons to buy a BMW.
Can you name 10?” Group B saw an ad
saying “So many reasons to buy a BMW.
Can you name 1?” After the ad both groups
were asked to evaluate their likelihood of
buying a BMW. Similar to what’s described
in Chapter 5, people who had to name 10
reasons actually named Mercedes-Benz, a
competitive brand, as their probable choice,
while Group B named BMW as their likely
next vehicle, compared to Mercedes-Benz.
37. People like stocks with more
pronounceable names. Research of stock
tickers between 1999 and 2004 looked at the
relationship between the phonetic fluency of
the stock and its rise through IPO, then 12
months later, then throughout its lifetime. The
result? Stocks with more pronounceable
names produced higher returns, even though
nobody yells out the tickers on the exchange
floor anymore.
38. Rhyming makes the phrases more
convincing. People were asked to evaluate the
practical value of parables “Caution and
measure will win you treasure” and “Caution
and measure will win you riches”. In general
proverb A was considered to be more practical
and insightful than proverb B.
39. Amount of information is context-
dependent. A group of people was given an
ad for department store A, extolling in great
detail the 6 departments that A had. Another
group was given a short blurb on store A,
presenting mainly abstract information. After
that store B was presented to both groups with
information on 3 departments given to both
groups. The first group thought they preferred
A, since A volunteered more information and
B seemed shadier in comparison. The second
group did exactly the opposite and preferred
store B, which volunteered detailed info on 3
departments, while A’s message was an
abstract blurb.
40. Incentive programs need a good start. A
car-wash place gave one group of customers a
free car wash after 8 washes, and everybody
got their first stamp after their visit. Group B
got a free car wash after 10 car washes, with 3
stamps on the card. Both groups needed to
make 7 more trips to get a free wash. 19% of
the Group A returned, while 34% of the Group
B did.
41. Abstract names allow the customers to
come up with reasoning. Crayola found out
that naming colors Cornflower Yellow and
Kermit Green worked better than no
adjectives attached to colors. The more
abstract the connection, the better it seemed to
work, as people spent mental time working
out the connection between the abstraction
and the product in their mind.
42. Ad campaigns that do not incorporate
 brands tend to not be remembered. A
good portion of people when asked which
company was represented by a bunny and
the phrase “going, going, and going” named
Duracell as the advertiser. Duracell sales
increased with the launch of Energizer
Bunny campaign.
43. Mirrors make people more self-conscious.
A group of trick-or-treating kids was told to
pick up one candy from the jar in the living
room, while the adult was in a different
room on some pretense. Group A had a large
mirror placed by the candy jar, group B did
not have the mirror. 8.9% of kids with the
mirror in the room and 33.7% of the kids
with no mirror treated themselves to extra
candy. Another group of people was brought
in for what was advertised as gel research,
and was given a hand paper towel to wipe
the gel off while heading for the exit. With
the mirror in the hallway, 24% of
participants littered, dropping the towel on
their way out, with no mirror, 46% threw the
paper towel on the floor without bothering
to find a trash can.
44. Negative emotions make people pay more.
Group A was exposed to an emotional
movie about the death of someone close to
the main character. Group B saw no such
movie. Both groups were asked then to
name a fair price at which they’d buy the
object presented to them. Group A tended to
give prices 30% above Group B’s.
45. Tired people tend to be more receptive to
arguments. No wonder those magic bullet
infomercials run so late at night. Both
groups were presented to product demo, and
then asked to evaluate the possibility of
buying it. Group A was tired and a bit sleep-
deprived, group B was in good physical
condition. Group A was much more prone to
buy.
46. Caffeine increases the argumentativeness
of a strong argument. Group A drank
regular orange juice, group B drank orange
juice infused with caffeine. Both groups
were then presented with a statement on
controversial issue. Except one statement then
made weak and hasty arguments, while second
statement made a strong case. Both groups
equally dismissed the weak argument case. As
far as strongly argumentative case, group B
was 30% more receptive. A faster-working
brain under the influence of caffeine seems to
appreciate good arguments.
47. Face time still beats e-mail time. Group A
was given time to get to know one another in
person, then resolve a conflict via e-mail.
Group B got a similar task, except no face-to-
face communications. 6% of the Group As
failed to come up at a good resolution, while
29% of Group Bs arrived at impasse.
48. Individualism is perceived differently in
many countries. In US and Western Europe a
chewing gum campaign that accentuated “you,
only better” seemed to get more success, than
a similar campaign in Eastern Europe and
Asia, with much more collectivism built into
the culture. In those countries, emphasizing
that chewing gum was much more tolerable
for other people who can smell your breath,
was perceived better.
49. Notion of commitment among various
cultures differ. A group of American students
was asked to complete a short marketing
survey. A few weeks later they got invited for
a second survey, which was going to take
twice as long. No pay for either survey. The
same experiment was conducted among Asian
students. The response rates among American
students was 22%, response rate among Asian
students was 10%. Research suggests that
while American students relied only on their
own experience, Asian students found out that
few of their peers responded to the first
request to complete the survey, which
triggered their negative response.
50. Response to voice mail differs among
Americans and Japanese. When faced with a
voicemail message, 50% of Americans, and
85% of Japanese hang up. Respondents from
Japanese test group pointed out the personal
touch of the conversation (intonation, pauses,
volume) was important to them and
impossible to reproduce over voicemail.