310. Using Availability Bias to Generate Buzz (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 310 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about availability Bias.

Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about availability bias, even though I don't talk about it as much anymore. Availability bias is one of my favorite concepts from behavioral economics way, way, way back when I first started doing presentations on behavioral science and how it applies into business before the podcast and changing my company name to the Brainy Business and availability bias was one of the main concepts I included in my presentations. That's why it was one of the first Foundations episodes. This one first aired as episode 15 way back in 2018. It's a really important concept and one I'm excited to share today since, as I said, it doesn't come up as much anymore. Kind of ironic when you think about it. If you aren't yet familiar with this concept, you'll know why very quickly once we kick off the episode. So why is this episode getting a refresh today? You may be wondering. It's because of the guest who will be joining me this Friday, the wonderful Christian Hunt, who is going to be sharing about his book Humanizing Rules. He has a background in regulation and compliance, specifically in banking, and now does talks and consulting to all sorts of other organizations around the world to help make their rules more human and to understand how human mistakes impact organizations and their best laid plans. This ties into availability bias, which gets into how and when we see things a lot, we think they're more likely to occur for a whole host of reasons, one of which is when you create and share a rule that is to mitigate something that doesn't happen very often, it can actually be more likely to happen once you talk about it, because people hear about it a lot and think it's more common than it really is.

This is also I talk about this.

As unintentional normalizing when I talk about hurting, but really availability biases at the core of this as well. And this is just one of the.

Reasons I thought of this episode today.

And it's a really great concept that, as you're going to hear in the episode, has way more application than just compliance. I'm so excited to refresh this one and share it with all of you who haven't heard about it in a while or who are just hearing about it for the first time. Don't forget that your free Availability Bias worksheet and links to past episodes, including many that weren't out when this one first aired. You know, episode 15 was quite a while ago, as well as books and articles, they're all waiting for you in the show notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 310 all right, let's talk about Availability Bias.

As I have done on some episodes in the past here on the podcast, I'm going to start explaining this concept to you by asking you a few questions. While I know I can't hear your responses, that's okay. It will still work the same even if you are answering inside your own head or, you know, shouting out your responses in your car, on the treadmill, at the gym. You know, do what you got to do. I support you. I'm here for you. Okay, when I say the word shark, what comes to mind? What do you see and what words are associated with those images? When I do, my Consumers are Weird presentation, I always show an image of a big toothy shark with its mouth wide open and ask people the same question. What words come to mind? They are probably some of the same ones that came into your head. The most common responses I get are Shark Week, teeth, bite, jaws, or the Da Na Noise, run, blood, or other violent terms. Once the responses are done for that image, I put up another and this one is of a sweet gentle cow looking right at the camera with those big brown eyes. What words come to mind when I say the word cow? Common answers include milk, cute farm, steak, burger, or delicious, and my personal favorite, aw, which happens almost every time I speak on this topic. While most people are more afraid of sharks than cows, the truth is there are less than 1. There's less than 1 shark related death each year, but death by cow in just The United States is 22. Some other interesting shark facts from national geographic are in 1996, toilets apparently injured 43,000Americans a year and sharks injured only 13. That same year, buckets and pails injured almost 11,000Americans and somehow 2,600Americans were injured by room fresheners. Sharks still just 13. Also, you have a 1 in 63 chance of dying from the flu and a 1 in 3.7 million chance of being killed by a shark during your lifetime that also compares to the 1 in 218 chance of dying from a fall. And in an interesting little note from Time magazine, in New York alone, people are bitten 10 times more each year by other people than worldwide by sharks. You are far more likely to simply die while swimming in the ocean or in a car crash on the way to the beach than you are to be killed by a shark. So if all that is true, why do we fear sharks so much more? And even after I have told you all of these statistics, why will you still fear sharks more than cows, toilets and air fresheners? It's because of availability. This is another time when your brain gets lazy and uses a simple rule of thumb to make its decisions. And instead of researching or really caring about the facts with availability, we humans all decide the likeliness of something happening is based on how easily an example, instance or case comes to mind. So when we think about sharks, the only times we hear about them are when they're attacking people. That's when they're in the news. Or if we're watching movies like Jaws or on Shark Week, which really focus on their teeth and them biting and eating things. When someone is attacked by a shark, it's big news and we hear all about it for a long time. It's easy for your brain to remember these examples, so you assume they happen more often than they do, and similarly, that your likelihood of suffering the same fate is higher as well. On the other hand, we have a lot of great interactions with cows. We teach our children about them at a young age and see them at petting zoos or on farms. And they're so cute. Can you ever think of a time you heard of someone being killed by a cow? Probably not. So your brain categorizes it as less likely to happen, regardless of the actual statistics. It's the same for driving in cars or seeing a toilet or air freshener. You have far too many experiences not being injured by these items, so your brain does not associate them as something to be scared of. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want you to finish this episode and be scared of everything around you. And to be clear, availability is about more than death and disaster, and I'm going to try to lighten it up as we keep going through the episode. I will give some positive examples for you in your business as well. Don't worry. So Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking Fast and Slow and a Forefather on the Research of availability, dedicated chapter 12 of his book to the concept in case you want to go pick one up. I'm going to paraphrase some of it here because as I've said on past episode, the book is quite dense, uses a lot of academic terms, and I prefer to keep it as relatable as possible here on the podcast. So here we go. If I asked you what two plus two is, you immediately had a number come to mind. That is an easy calculation for your subconscious brain and you are quick to manifest the answer. You can almost instantaneously know that 2 plus 2 is 4. Now for this next one and no pulling out the calculator. What is 24 times 8?

86.

Unless you are like my husband, who is a total freak of nature for doing math in his head, you probably did not have a number come to mind quickly. More likely, you probably knew immediately whether you could do that math in your head or not. For me, I'm strictly no math in my head kind of person. It is not a skill I possess and and I always go calculator, even for the simplest math. Maybe not two plus two, but much beyond that. And I'm reaching for the calculator. So you would have gotten some simple parameters in your brain if this was something you knew you couldn't do in your head. Maybe a range. The answer would be between perhaps that number is more than 250 and less than 10,000, and the less confident you are, the larger your range will be. But beyond that, you didn't do much. What happens with availability is your brain swaps out the question at hand. For one it's more likely to be able to answer quickly, or one it would prefer to answer. Unfortunately, it does not always swap out for a new question that provides the right answer to the one you were asked. In the case of the complex math, you substituted what is 24 times 86? It's 2064, by the way, in case you were waiting with bated breath. So you swapped that out. You substituted with an estimate of the range of possible numbers with availability. It's about how easily examples come to mind. Those you could think of easiest are weighted as most likely. For example, because Hollywood divorces are common in the media, you will exaggerate how often they occur. Dramatic events have a higher impact on your mind. If you just saw an accident on the side of the road or heard about a plane crash, they will impact your view of the world for a while. Most people overestimate what percentage of the household chores they do and underestimate the contributions of their significant other because they see and feel and endure everything they're doing and don't necessarily see that with with the significant other. Similarly, in teams, everyone seems to overestimate their own contributions compared to everyone else. And this is a direct quote from the book. Personal experiences, pictures and vivid examples are more available than than incidents that happened to others or mere words or statistics. A judicial error that affects you will undermine your faith in the justice system more than a similar incident you read about in the newspaper. Statistics and lots of numbers or charts don't mean much to our brains. We get bored and stop listening or internalizing what's being communicated. But stories. Our subconscious brains love stories, especially ones that are interesting and captivating and draw us in. And this is definitely not the first time I've mentioned stories or this in general. On the podcast we hear stories of people like Justin Bieber getting famous on YouTube and it begins to feel like it's more common than not. Do you know that one in three British children have said they want to be a professional YouTuber when they grow up? It was three times more than any who said they wanted to be doctors or nurses, which is really kind of sad. And while there are some full time YouTubers, they're few and far between. How many views do you think you need to make it big on YouTube? What if you got a million views a month? If you woke up tomorrow morning and saw that you now have a million views a month, is that enough? The top 3% of YouTubers are getting around one and a half million views a month and they make less than six $17,000 a year from their advertising revenue. Wah wah. One quote from the article I'm referencing, which is in the show notes of course, says you can have half a million followers on YouTube and still be working at Starbucks. But still, everyone thinks it's easier than it looks and they will be the one to break through because the stories are in our faces and easier to relate to than these types of statistics. In your business strategies, try and keep that in mind as well. Your social media strategy should support the rest of what you're doing in your business. Even the top social media stars get most of their money from sponsorships and other avenues. Use social media to gain a following, to sell other things, not to gain money from the platform. If you do make some money that way, awesome. But it should not be the main strategy. Sorry everybody, I feel like I'm just popping all the world's balloons on this episode. It's not my intention, I promise. So let's get into some More fun examples of availability in action. So you can use this in your business. Okay, I have another question for you to shake things up. In 2014, tourism to Norway increased by over 40% because of a movie. Do you know what it is? I'll give you a second to think through some of the options. Norway 2014. Believe it or not, it's because of the movie Frozen, a cartoon which is set in a fictional place but closely modeled on Norway. And since then, things have continued to grow. In 2016, the country essentially cut its tourism advertising budget because they're overflowing with visitors. People hiking up to Trolltunga increased from 1,000 to 100,000 in five years. And those visiting Pulpit Rock increased from 60,000 in 2009 to 300,000 in 2016. Apparently, a village with 215 permanent residents is now visited by 700,000 tourists a year. If you are one of my listeners from Norway, please let me know what this has been like. Leave a comment at the Brainy biz B I Z or send me an email Melina atthebrainybusiness.com to share your experience. It sounds crazy. And remember, in this case Norway, the country didn't do anything. This is all because of a movie that was made by Disney that was very popular, that is sort of set with looking at what it could. It sort of looks like there. It's not actually even, like I said, set in Norway. And they didn't do anything to gain all of this good publicity and tourism. Similarly, in 1997, the sales of Mars bars went up significantly, but they did not increase their advertising. Any guesses as to why? According to Jonah Berger, author of Contagious why Things Catch on, which is a super awesome book. I highly recommend it. This was because of the Mars rover. These two examples show a little bit about how our brains associate information together that the conversations would actually be, hey, did you hear about that Mars Rover? Yeah, that's amazing. Speaking of which, I'm hungry. How about a Mars bar? It seems a little ridiculous, but really that's how our brains work when it comes to availability and your business. You want to associate yourself with things people are already talking about or what's going on in the world around you. You need to be aware of what's trending on social media or in the news or pop culture, because that is what people are talking about and searching for. And you want to get associated with those things. Knowing of course, to pick and choose some. You don't want to be maybe associated with something super controversial. Use good judgment and you may get lucky like Norway or Mars bars, but I recommend doing what you can to make your own luck instead of waiting for Disney to make a character that's named after your business. In last week's episode on Scarcity, I gave a bunch of examples, including some from Starbucks and Disney and their recent big wins, including the Unicorn Frappuccino, Rose Gold Venti Takeaway cup and Rose Gold Minnie Ears. As I mentioned then the examples of items that flew off the shelves, it was partially because they hit on items that were all the rage at the time. Rose Gold has gone in and out of fashion since the 1920s, but really blew up recently with the release of the Rose Gold iPhone, of which I'm sure it surprises no one that I have a Rose Gold iPhone to go with my Rose Gold Starbucks cup and my Rose Gold Minnie Ears, and also I have Rose Gold sunglasses. I'm silly and ridiculous anyway. People like me love Rose Gold these days and want it in everything from cups to phones to sunglasses and mini ears and wedding cakes. People are actively seeking out Rose Gold and if you offer something in that shade, people will probably go gaga over it. If, like those examples from last week, you have a limited number available. Using Scarcity to your advantage with availability, it could cause people to start sharing or bragging on social media and fueling the fire to your benefit. My advice in using availability in your business is to watch what people are talking about and find ways to interject yourself. I recently had a friend tell me she knows someone who is a handwriting expert. When people were going bananas over the royal wedding, as they always seem to do, she wrote an article about what the Signatures of Harry and Megan said about them and it was a big hit, meaning it got picked up by USA Today and the Huffington Post and the Dr. Oz show and outlets around the world. I don't know her personally, but it's my understanding that this was not happenstance, this was deliberate and it worked. Watch the trends, what people care about and are talking about, and find a way to integrate your business and what you do to that conversation and know that it's something that you want to be looking for, ways even when it seems really out there, left field, totally different. That's a really great time to put your spin on something because there will be a lot less people talking about it, making you more unique and more likely to be picked up. Like this woman. As with Scarcity, not everything is going to be a giant win every time, but if you try enough times, something might stick and propel you and your business to new heights. While it looks really obvious when you hear the example now, most people who are handwriting experts probably would not have thought to capitalize on the royal wedding with an article like that, and obviously they didn't. And now they aren't the authority in the space. But this woman is. Instead, I'm recording this episode a few weeks before it airs, so if some of these trends are out of date by the time you listen to this, please forgive me, but right now people are talking a lot about Nike and the Colin Kaepernick campaign. Serena and Osaka are trending on Twitter because of the US Open and football season is starting, so the NFL will have a lot of activity as well. Even if the connections are not obvious, try and come up with ways you can align your expertise to those trends. What do you know about that people would care about and how can you connect with those curious minds? If someone is searching for articles or information on the US Open, what do they want to know? What is interesting about Serena and Osaka? I did not watch, but it appears the Women's final ended about an hour ago and Serena lost. Looking through Twitter, it appears there are claims the umpire made some bad calls against Serena, it was overly controversial, and there's a claim of a sexist remark by the umpire. I'm guessing this will be in the news for a bit and there might be follow up articles. What could you have written about or done a video or podcast episode or whatever to connect your business as an expert during this conversation? And if it seems like a weird mix, all the better. That means, like I said earlier, no one will have your same perspective. If you work in tennis, everyone would expect you to have an opinion about the U.S. open and the controversial final and it's going to blend in with the noise. But what about the scarce opinions, the ones people don't expect? How does this tie into the real estate market or credit unions or shoe sales or bakeries? Or if you're a handwriting expert in episode four Questions or Answers, I talked a lot about my absolute favorite book, A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger. One of the items I referenced is combinatorial thinking, which helps you get more innovative ideas. The idea is to combine things together that others would not think, go together to come up with something novel and amazing and that often seems really obvious after the fact, he says. Instead of trying to connect A and B, look at connecting A and Z or better yet, A and 26 things that don't seem related at all, like gym memberships and video stores can come together to make something amazing like Netflix. The worksheet for this week has some prompts to help you do this for your business. It might seem a little weird at first, but I encourage you to give it a shot. It can make a big difference in the way you think about everything. And if you have never heard of something called haro, which stands for help a reporter out, H A R O, you need to check this out. HARO is a website, an area that connects reporters with potential sources. So three times a day I get emails from HARO that are all the different reporters that have stories they're working on and places where they would like a source. They sometimes would specifically call out that they're looking for a psychologist or somebody who has a business perspective or marketing perspective. There are things on Facebook Fitness there's been a lot of disaster related questions with the hurricane happening on the east coast right now and you can see what people are interested in. And there are a lot of times where I am responding and someone's not asking for a behavioral economist or that type of perspective on a topic because they don't know that they need me yet. They don't know that this exists. So I have been interjecting myself and commenting, responding and writing out how I relate to that. The article that I was quoted in recently on Hiya was something I found on haro and again, they were not looking for a behavioral economist perspective. But I reached out and said, hey, this is a really a different and unique perspective that I think would be helpful for your readers. And and obviously the author agreed and quoted me in the story and I've been having quite a few connections that have worked out well through haro. And again, there are a lot of times that I am responding and pitching and they go off into oblivion and I never get quoted and that's fine. But it's worth the time, it's worth trying. And I have included myself on all sorts of things that I wouldn't have thought were relevant, like dating and you know, the grocery store situation obviously makes sense, but there are tons and tons of ways that you can relate your business to other areas even if you don't think that they're tied together. And you should use this worksheet that I have on the freebie to help practice flex that muscle a little bit. And I would definitely recommend signing up for haro. Just Google for Haro, help a reporter out and you'll be able to sign up. They let you sort based on category. I just get everything because you never know where something might fall and make sense. And there's a lot of weird stuff in there. But it's interesting. It helps you to know what people are talking about in a way that you know what reporters are going to be writing about. And even if it just gives you ideas for your own blog posts or videos, you know, it's worth giving it a scan a few times a day when it comes around. Okay, Last week I promised to revisit the fascinating story about how diamonds became the powerhouse they are today through a combination of scarcity and availability, with a few other behavioral economics concepts thrown in there as well. As I shared on that episode, diamonds are not really all that rare, and diamond engagement rings, especially with large spectacular center stones, were not popular until the early 1940s. And the concept of a diamond being forever was essentially created to ensure people would never try to resell their diamonds and disrupt the market. I'm going to reread the first paragraph on that article, even though I read it last week just to help set the stage here the Diamond Invention the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable and are essential signs of esteem is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late 19th century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil and the entire world. Production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange river in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered. Diamonds had little intrinsic value and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semi precious gems. The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. The instrument they created in 1888 was called De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. Incorporated in South Africa. And yes, as I said last week, they mean that De Beers. Over the next hundred years, De Beers owned and controlled over 90% of the world's diamonds through a carefully crafted mix of controlling price, available inventory, and strategic advertising. Using availability, they completely changed the world. The article then goes on to say the diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices. It Is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones, but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life. To stabilize the market, De Beers had to endow these stones with a sentiment that would inhibit the public from ever reselling them. The illusion had to be created that diamonds were forever. Forever in the sense that they should never be resold. In 1938, Harry Oppenheimer, who is the 29 year old son of the founder of De Beers, went to America to meet with an advertising agency because with Europe on the verge of war, the they were not a good candidate to increase diamond sales. So the British company turned to America because, quote, in 1938, some three quarters of all the cartel's diamonds were sold for engagement rings in the United States. Most of these stones, however, were smaller and of poorer quality than those bought in Europe and had an average price of $80 apiece. Oppenheimer and the bankers believed that an advertising campaign could persuade Americans to buy more expensive diamonds. And oh, were they right. They did some research and found that the amount of diamonds sold in America was down 50% due to the economy, changing social attitudes and the promotion of competitive luxuries. The agency suggested a well orchestrated advertising and public relations campaign that would strengthen the public's mind of diamonds with romance. And since young men buy over 90% of all engagement rings, it would be crucial to inculcate them in the idea that diamonds were a gift of love. Love. The larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women had to be encouraged to view diamonds as an integral part of any courtship. They leveraged the then new medium of motion pictures. Stars of the screen were given diamonds to use as their symbols of indestructible love. In addition, the agency suggested offering stories and society photographs to selected magazines and newspapers which would reinforce the link between diamonds and romance. Stories would stress the size of diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones. And photographs would conspicuously show the glittering stone on the hand of a well known woman. Fashion designers would talk on radio programs about the trend toward diamonds that Ayer planned to start. The Ayer plan also envisioned using the British royal family to help foster the romantic allure of diamonds. And Ayer memo said, since Great Britain has such an important interest in the diamond industry, the royal couple could be of tremendous esteem. Assistance to the British industry by Wearing diamonds rather than other jewels. Queen Elizabeth later went on a well publicized trip to several South African diamond mines and she accepted a diamond from Oppenheimer. In addition to putting these plans into action, NW Air placed a series of Lush 4 color advertisements in magazines that were presumed to hold elite opinion. Featuring reproductions of famous paintings by such artists as Picasso, Deraine, Dali and Duffy, the advertisements were intended to convey the idea that diamonds, like paintings, were unique works of art. By 1941, the advertising agency reported to its client that it had already achieved impressive results in its campaign. The sale of diamonds had increased by 55% in the United States since 1938. That's just in a three year period for those of you that missed that. And it reversed the previous downward trend in retail sales. Nwaer noted also that its campaign had required the conception of a new form of advertising which has been widely imitated ever since. There was no direct sale to be made. There was no brand name to be impressed on the public mind. There was simply an idea, the eternal emotional value surrounding the diamond. It further claimed that a new type of art was devised and a new color diamond blue was created and used in these campaigns. This went on and on. As I said last week, this article in the Atlantic was very long but very fascinating. They created then the diamond is forever line in 1947. Then they started using television when it came into the forefront. And they create even created a diamond information center to place a stamp of authority on any of the historical data and news that it released. The advertising agency became the source of information to the publishing world on diamonds. Everyone went to them first. It was the Haro. Before Haro existed, they had the world in the palm of their hand, or on their finger more likely, and kept writing themselves deeper and deeper into the story. They went on to reverse a 1500 year tradition of marriage in Japan to incorporate diamond engagement rings just like they did in America. And when they found themselves flooded with tiny diamonds that contradicted with their previous messages, they created the Eternity Ring to encourage people who had been married a long time to buy even more diamonds but still never sell the ones they have. De Beers and the diamond invention, as the article calls it, is the the original availability case study. And they changed the face of the entire world forever in a way that almost no one knows or cares to know. Because our brains relate to the stories and the images of what we see most frequently. Diamonds subtly spoke to the subconscious brain and became a piece of our culture without people even realizing it. De Beers had the money to buy the time on screen and radio and print and subsequently in the brains of the masses. And while I mentioned money right there, it was not a huge amount compared to the benefit they got for their efforts. According to the article, by 1979, NW Air had helped De Beers expand its sales of diamonds in the United States to more than $2.1 billion at the wholesale level, compared with a mere 23 million in 1939. In 40 years, the value of its sales had increased nearly a hundredfold. The expenditure on advertisements, which began at a level of only 200,000 a year and gradually increased increase to 10 million, seemed a brilliant investment. What do you think? Is it worth $10 million to make 2.1 billion? I think most would agree. How about just the mere $200,000 a year to make 23 million? Yes, definitely worth the investment. One other thing that they did that far too many people neglect is, is solid research into the mindset of the consumer. And they looked for new ways to get their message out there. You all know I am all about research and how the brain actually works and testing and looking at studies so you can make comparisons instead of just doing a few traditional ads. They knew people had idols they wanted to be like. Getting their products affiliated with those people could mean huge interest if done right today. We might call this the Oprah effect. And while it would be nice if you could get your product mentioned by Oprah or Ellen or a Kardashian, as I've shown in this episode, it doesn't need to be quite that fancy. You can just be watching the conversation, paying attention, and trying to see how you can interject yourself and looking for the right time. I mentioned that right now we have a hurricane that has been going around on the east coast. And again, I'm not sure when you're going to be listening to this, if you're listening later. But this happens, you know, every year. And it's a time where people would be more likely to get flood insurance. People are more likely to get flood insurance after a flood because of this availability effect. And that's actually, you know, the least likely time that you need it, because you just would have needed it. And it'll be a long time before a flood theoretically comes back. So when hurricane season is approaching, it would be a time if you. I recently talked with somebody who is working in disaster preparedness. You know, that's the right time where you would want to be messaging and communicating about what you do in advance of a hurricane. Because, you know, people are talking and thinking about it and immediately after how they can be prepared next time and want to buy something from you. Or if you sell insurance, you would want to be messaging about that right after Something was really big and notable in the news because it's at top of mind for people. Those stories are in their heads. They're thinking about this in a different way and that's a time where you can be part of the conversation and elevate yourself in a way that that you couldn't do otherwise. If De Beers could do it back before the Internet and the invention of hashtags, you can do it too.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about availability bias today? For me, I've always loved how availability bias ties in with PR and brands catching on. Getting the right buzz or just a lot of it at once can make a huge difference in how big and important people perceive a brand to be.

I really, really love how this ties.

Into seemingly unrelated stuff like increasing travel to Norway because of Frozen or the sale of Mars bars due to the Mars rover or countless other examples because they say so much about the brain and the literal way it relates information and decision making.

It also builds upon the idea of.

Combinatorial thinking, which I first learned about in Warren Berger's book A More Beautiful Question many years ago, and how two things that seem like they aren't related can feel so unique and innovative and insightful when they're combined together in a new way. You can watch the trends and take some time to be thoughtful about what your unique opinion would be on whatever that thing is. Fight the hurting instinct here to talk about something in a way everyone else has already? You want to be unique. What's the angle where you are an expert and can share some insight that would build on an old conversation in in a new way? Look at what is happening and predictable around you. Sports, weather, holidays, back to school, wedding seasons, New Year's, graduations, vacations, home remodels. The news is incredibly cyclical when you know what's coming and if you look ahead a little, you can find opportunities to share a new insight on a topic where reporters and the public are definitely looking for a new angle. I think it's a fun game to play and try to see how you can take the most obscure stuff and tie it back to your brand background and opinion. What's something you've come up with? Come share it with me on social media. You'll find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn.

I can't wait to hear all about it.

And of course, don't forget about your free Availability Bias worksheet as well as related past episodes, books and articles. They're all waiting for you in the show notes@the brainybusiness.com 3100.

And just like.

That, episode 310 on availability bias is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Christian Hunt to discuss his new book, Humanizing Rules. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.