Why Buyers Don’t Buy Novelty and Cheaters Stay With Their Partners
Marketing and romance go hand in hand
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Tried-and-true will kick novelty’s ass 95% of the time.
As human beings, we’re driven by two conflicting desires: the curiosity for new things and the anxiety about what we gain vs what we lose.
We all get excited about new ideas.
We want to know more. And even fantasize about putting them into practice.
But when it comes to choosing the change?
We’re far more likely to get back to the tried-and-true than to step out of our comfort zone.
What’s the lesson in this?
If you’re a marketer, you have to advertise your products or services as somewhat new.
New enough to gauge interest. Not so new that people will show interest in it but still chose to stay with their old, preferred options.
If you’re in a relationship, you want to throw in a bit of novelty every now and then.
Yet not so much that your partner will not recognize you anymore.
As human beings, whenever confronted with choices, our curiosity is at its peak when novelty is moderate.
Funnily enough, we discovered this by looking at… animals. Actually, it was English psychologist Daniel Berlyne who pointed out the characteristics of this fascinating “exploratory behavior”.
He made it the core of his research activity and Oren Klaff talks about it in Flip the Script, where he says that “mammal brains seem to like things that are a little new and unusual, but not so new and unusual that we don't know how to process it.”
Oren got to ponder this issue while a very good friend got him into serious trouble.
The story, for context
Oren and his friend were in the situation of having to sell a $40 million asset in 30 days or… buy it themselves.
Oren was a magician of huge deals but this one threatened to be a tad too much even for his skills.
It was a marketplace in Hawaii.
