438. Apple Card: Behavioral Economics in Action (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 438 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about Apple Card. 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 a refresh of the.

Episode I did when Apple Card was first announced in late March 2019, and my episode came out very shortly after, on April 5, 2019. The card didn't officially launch until August of that year, something I discuss in the episode now. You may be wondering why I chose to refresh this episode today. It's because of my conversation with Will Mailer, Chief Behavioral Scientist at Commonwealth bank of Australia, which comes out this Friday. In that conversation with Will, we discuss some of the amazing work they've done to understand problems in a new way and really step out of the status quo. The way things have always been done isn't always going to serve us well. There are so many things that just get accepted in business, but by branching out and having broad conversations with researchers, government officials, customers and more, they've developed some truly innovative products and services that are showcasing the value behavioral science can bring to a company. That conversation made me think of this episode on the announcement of Apple Card. Not just because of the banking angle, but because of how sometimes customers have been showing you what they want and need all along. But when you're inside a company, you can be too close to the problem to realize it and make the necessary changes to to stay ahead of the competition. We tend to get so head down in our own work and problems that we don't see what's right in front of us. Will and his team brought in a diverse group they talk to that can help them to see opportunities others miss. In the case of traditional banking, most of the industry didn't take action on some simple reframes and new approaches that Apple was able to capitalize on with the launch of Apple Card, which I talk about in today's episode. Even though this all took place several years ago now, there are lessons for every brand and industry out there. As you listen, I encourage you to think about what you aren't seeing in your business because you're too close to it. And this is going to be perfect prep for how you can get more out of that myopia with Will in this coming Friday's episode. If you aren't already subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast, this is a great time to do so, so you don't miss that or any other episod. And don't forget there are links for my top related past episodes and books waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com438 all right, let's talk about Apple Card.

Apple made a series of star studded announcements about their new offerings which included the announcement of Apple TV plus, Apple Arcade, Apple News plus and of course Apple Card. One big thing people have been talking about is that it's weird that Apple did not really talk about anything that was available yet, and that they did not disclose any of the pricing. People are complaining about why this was bad or silly, but let me tell you, this is the true genius behind the announcements from Apple. Yes, it is different than the way they have made announcements before, but they're also taking a huge turn in what they're offering, from products to services, so it's justified to make a shift. And in reality, a company can change their approach whenever they want. Ideally, it's done strategically. And I would argue that Apple did some really, really smart things with these March announcements which you'll hear about throughout the episode, even if people logically didn't get it right away. As you've heard me say on the podcast many, many times, people are not logical. People say they think one thing, but their subconscious will often think different. And yes, that was an intentional play on the old school Apple campaign. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check the show notes for the video. This is quite possibly one of the most important campaigns Apple has ever produced and one that is so smart in their branding efforts. But that's not the focus of today's episode. So when we take a step back and look at the announcements from their behavioral economics appeal, the way the brain actually makes decisions, there are a lot of smart things here your business can learn from, which I will outline throughout the episode. Disclaimer and Disclosure alert. I am in no way affiliated with Apple other than having an iPhone and Apple CarPlay in my new Volvo, which I totally love. But I was not at the announcement event even though I would love to go someday. If anyone from Apple is listening to this, I do not know if they worked with a behavioral economist or behavioral insights team or if they introduced insights from behavioral economics into their thinking, or if this is merely intuitive on their part. Purely providing an analysis on the backside of the announcements, letting you know what I see here and how it relates to my field of behavioral economics. All right, let's dig in. In the episode, I'm going to talk about building anticipation and expectations, the delayed pricing strategy, subscription models, framing herding, how familiarity breeds liking, and the value of celebrities. While it's generated a lot of complaints from our logical brains, I would argue one of the smartest things Apple has done is announced all the greatness of the services before they're actually available. Why? Because this creates anticipation and releases dopamine in the brain. I've talked about this before on the podcast in episode two, the top five Wording mistakes businesses make. But anticipation is a great way to stimulate the reward center of the brain. I've linked to the study again in the show notes for this episode, but here's a brief synopsis again for those of you who have not heard it, and because refreshers are nice in this experiment, a light comes on and a monkey knows that if it presses a bar 10 times, it will receive some food. It has a baseline understanding of the task, so it knows what the light means and how that translates into its ability to get food. We may think and the researchers originally thought the dopamine release in the brain would come when the monkey gets the treat or while eating it. But in reality the dopamine was released only until the reward came. Then it went away basically completely. So the anticipation is where the brain's reward really lives. And this is how habits form, which I talk about in episodes 20 and 21. When the treat delivery system worked 100% of the time, the monkey's brain had a certain amount of dopamine released. Let's say it was a factor of 10. What happened when the treat was only delivered 50% of the time? You may think the dopamine release would go down, the monkey would get upset and frustrated, but that's not true at all. In reality, the the release of dopamine doubled when there was a 50% chance no treat would be released. So instead of getting a dopamine release of 10, they're now getting 20 hits of dopamine during the phase of hitting the bar to get the treat. Interestingly, when the payout went to either 25% or 75%, which are two drastically different outcomes for the monkey, the dopamine release was the same. It was halfway between 50 and 100% in both cases. So in the scenario where reward 100% of the time means 10 hits of dopamine and a 50% chance meant 20 hits of dopamine, both 25 and 75% reward generation resulted in 15 hits of dopamine. The video I've linked to and the article I've linked to in the Show Notes show you this visually. If you're more of a visual person and would like to see that there the main thing to learn here is that the anticipation and unpredictability was always more rewarding to the brain than 100% rewards. But more volatility in the 25 or 75% outcomes did make it so that there was less dopamine than the 5050 split. And this really shows that the reward is in the journey and not the destination. Humans, of course, have the exact same reaction. We thrive on the excitement of anticipation. This happens when we play games, when we watch movies, when we bet in the casino, and when we're waiting to see if the new product or service from Apple is really as great as we think it will be. Anticipation creates a reward in the brain that it likes. The thrill of the unknown is more valuable than the thing you get on the other end. But having anticipation creates loss aversion and perceived ownership, which also means you're much more likely to feel the need to experience the treat at the end, to at least test it out and see how it meets or exceeds your expectations. This is the sort of anchoring and adjustment and loss aversion coming in. In this case, that means buying into the product or service announced and reading up on it before it comes out, and keeping Apple top of mind for when the releases actually take place. And as Byron Sharp says in How Brands Grow, being top of mind is key in influencing buying behavior. People need to be constantly reminded of and thinking about a brand to buy it. So being relevant is important. In behavioral economics, we call this availability, which was the topic of episode 15. Other studies have shown people are willing to pay more for items they have been primed for. So having Apple on the brain could make people more willing to pay for Apple products and services, especially where they're now associated with things like news and TV and credit cards. So every time you use your credit card or watch a different streaming service or play a different game, you're going to now be associating with Apple and how that product could maybe be better, which builds more anticipation and also expectations. Your logical brain is probably saying, but if you build up expectations and the service is bad people are going to be more upset and more likely to hate it than if there were no expectations set at all. So that's why we would wait and not announce until it's totally ready and we know it's perfect, exactly what we want. This kind of thinking is why far too many organizations wait to announce a launch or a new product or its features until it's actually launching. In reality, people usually need time to get really excited about things. A few months or weeks of anticipation with nothing to see but the perfect and amazing portrayal of the new services and ads meticulously crafted by Apple means high expectations, and studies show the brain gets what it expects. For example, we expect medicine that costs more to work better. So when someone's told a pill they're taking for pain relief costs $2.50 a pill, they have a greater reaction to it than the one they're told costs only 10 cents a pillar, even if they're both just a placebo. When ordering coffee from a coffee stand that's run down and gross, people will say the coffee tastes worse than the exact same beverage in ceramic mugs and with nicer mix ins like nutmeg and cinnamon available, even if they don't actually use them. If people expect Apple Card or Apple TV plus to be great and they begin to get familiar with all it has to offer by the time it's actually available, that expectation will make the perception of it that much better, assuming it isn't a complete train wreck. And knowing Apple, it won't be. So building expectations of greatness means people will expect this thing to be good, and we expect it to be really good if they went out of their normal strategy to announce it before it was ready. So we are expecting super greatness, and even if it's just pretty good, our brains will get what they expect and we will be more willing to pay for it when it does become available. Which leads me to the next stroke of genius, the lack of pricing. You've heard me talk about this a lot on the podcast, or perhaps you've heard me speak on this topic. The truth about pricing is that price is never about the price. All the things that come before the price matter much more than the price or the item itself. Creating value is about framing and anticipation, which Apple is taking time to let ruminate before the pricing is announced. If it were me, or if I was consulting to Apple on this, I would have run studies to see what people were willing to pay for these types of services before the announcements were made, and then test Again a few days, weeks and months after the announcement to see how that changed. Presumably once the announcements have been made and people have started to see the buzz and read up on the items, the amount they're willing to pay would go up. I'm guessing it would be peaking in the weeks following versus months or, you know, years following. But they can see how this works as they have items rolling out as early as maybe and as late as the fall. This also allows for herding behavior to be triggered earlier than it would otherwise as people start talking about the products and saying they're going to use them or sign up right away. Again, if Apple were my client, I would encourage them to allow for early registration and signups for the products and services, which people could pay a fee for. Perhaps for $25 you guarantee you'll be able to get the release on the first day. Or you get a special edition of the already fancy titanium Apple card that shows you were a founding customer. And for the subscriptions it could include some sort of badge that can never be sold or traded and lives within the app. And to trigger loss aversion, it could be set up so if you ever cancel the service, you lose that badge forever, even if you sign back up again later. This is payment for something that doesn't really exist, but it's bragging rights and an ability to show proof you were part of the in crowd, the herd before everyone knew it was cool. Apple could then use this to help get other people on board for the service by continuing to trigger herding behavior. This would include messaging like 250,000 have pre signed up for Apple TV plus and the numbers are growing every day which will make people realize they're behind the times and it's time to follow the herd. You could also look at incorporating scarcity and maybe say the first, you know, 10,000 or people who pay a certain larger dollar amount can get the special stuff and that nobody else can have it. You know, there are all sorts of ways that you could work this in. Making the announcement so far in advance of the releases means more time to create herding behavior, expectations and anticipation, which all mean a likelihood people will pay more and be more satisfied with whatever they get when the products and services actually come out. Not too shabby. Speaking of herding behavior, our brains don't just herd behind others, we also do a sort of self herding and get in line behind ourselves over and over again. As Dan Arielli says in his book Predictably Irrational, if you remember from the episode on Herding if you're looking at two restaurants and trying to decide which to go to and one has a line out the door and one is completely empty, which one do you think is better? The one with the long line. Because everyone must know something you don't. But that line could be completely unrelated to the food. Maybe they had really slow service in self hurting. When you try something or research an item or buy it, you are the first one in line in your brain. The next time you're exposed to the item, you remember that you bought that once before and it's familiar. You remember, oh yeah, I'm the kind of person who drinks $5 lattes and you get another one and then again and again. And this line of use sort of gets longer and longer. Familiarity breeds liking. And the more familiar we are with a brand and its products and services, the more we like them each time we see them. If you've ever heard a song and the first time it plays, you think, ugh, I hate that. I never want to hear that again. And then the next time maybe you hate it a little bit less or, you know, after 15 times of it playing sort of in the background, you find yourself singing along this. This is the example of that. I know plenty of songs that I hated at first and now are in some of my playlists. So knowing and hearing about something that's different and new from a company we like makes us more familiar with the offering and more excited about it. And we like it more. And it is just a virtuous cycle for Apple. So the more that we can hear and see and talk about it, think about it, associate it every time we think about it again and again, or hear a story about it, see it on the news, have it on a podcast or on a YouTube video. The more it comes up, the more we like it. And speaking of getting in line and herding, did you see all those celebrity endorsements? Everyone from Steven Spielberg to Big Bird, oh yeah, and Oprah were on the stage for that event. You may think star power and celebrity doesn't work on you and that this parade of stars was unnecessary, but you would be wrong. Our brains love celebrities and we associate all their qualities with the brand of Apple directly. Now, Apple has now taken on the humor of Steve Carell and the nostalgia of Sesame street along with the world changing awe that is Oprah. Your brain now associates those all with Apple and it influences the way you think about them. Whether you realize it or not, studies show how powerful celebrity endorsements are on our brains and Even if we think it shouldn't matter, our subconscious buying brains love it. I dug in a lot on the power of subscription models in the episodes on habits, so I'm not going to talk about the concept too much here, but Apple is definitely jumping on the subscription train. Subscriptions play on the power of habit, that is dopamine and rewards coming to play again, as well as loss aversion and the overwhelmed brain, meaning people are less likely to remember to take action and cancel subscriptions when we expect error that people will forget to cancel those subscriptions or or the flip side would be that they would forget to buy the product that they want if they do not have a subscription, and then they would miss shows or things that they would really want and then they would get upset. It's almost always in the best interest of a company to offer a recurring subscription model. A recent article from Variety referenced a study from Deloitte and talked about the onset of subscription fatigue, which may be starting to set in as more and more and more and more companies are using subscription models. This is interesting and worth watching. I know I definitely will be. But in my opinion, the issue with this information and some of the study and the findings that people are putting out there is that the study is asking the logical brain questions about how it feels logically about subscription services. With the subconscious running the show, it's really going to be hard to make it so people do not continue to use and value subscriptions, even when they say otherwise that logically they would do something different. Some of the insights from the study that are particularly useful in this discussion are that nearly half of the people studied said they're frustrated by subscription services required to watch what they want. But 57% of all consumers and 71% of millennials said they subscribe to services specifically for the original content. And of course that's what Apple's going to be offering now in Apple TV plus and Apple Arcade. It's a bit counterintuitive, but what I would read into this information is people want all the original content but wish it was easier to access so they could pay one subscription or one time or have one place to access everything they want. Again, it isn't about the price that thing costs, but if you were able to have an aggregated content site with all the original content from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu and Apple in one search spot, would you pay more for that than each of those alone? Probably. People also said they want more privacy, which was a really big deal at this Apple announcement you know, 82% of people in that study said they don't believe companies do enough to protect their privacy. People also want less ads and more people are playing games and want subscription services for that. Enter Apple Arcade. This is an aggregator of games, all you can play across all your Apple devices with no ads and a strong commitment to privacy. Sounds like someone's been doing their research. People say what they want and Apple has framed the message both in Apple Arcade and all these other offerings to appeal to those words, phrases and concepts of what people are saying they care about the things that pop up for them. Framing is everything in these Apple announcements. It's truly at the core of all messaging. But I'm going to start from here to get into what I promised on this episode. A breakdown of Apple Card because it is a framing story more than anything. Having worked in the financial space for over a decade now, both inside of a financial institution and as a consultant, I can tell you that a lot of the functionality and features being touted by Apple Card already exist in various cards and from many institutions. So why does it seem so novel? Apple has asked a better question to uncover what people care about. And then here's the kicker. They found a way to frame the product and message so it's within those parameters. And and it's important to note I'm confident they didn't just ask people what they want, but they did some studies of showing actual behavior they were able to observe to see what people really do versus what they say they will do, which is the whole foundation of behavioral economics. The Apple card has been presented as having no fees ever. That is something that I am confident every financial institution knows that people don't like fees. That's pretty standard knowledge, but it's also something that to my knowledge no bank or credit union has yet offered on a credit card. There are many credit cards with no annual fees or some fees that don't exist. Like this one doesn't have over limit fees and that one doesn't have international wire fees. But most cards have at least one fee that's charged or able to be charged for various reasons. If you work at a financial institution that has a credit card or with no fees at all, or maybe you bank with one, please send me the information because I would like to look into it. You can share it with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram where you can find me as the Brainy Biz or email melina@the brainybusiness.com and I'm not so sure about Cards outside of the us but I would still like those as examples. But it might be more common elsewhere. So why have other financial institutions not done this before and shouted it from the rooftops like Apple's doing? They have the same research that people hate fees and are less sensitive to interest. And I've been talking about this for years. I know because I've been in a lot of meetings and attended a lot of conferences that have covered this topic. The problem is, as with any industry, because the financial institutions are too close to the situation that they can't really see it clearly. They've been in the practice of offering cards for such a long time that they've become victim to the sacred cow mentality that is herding holding them back and loss aversion or fear around removing something they've always done and not wanting to be first, which is now a problem. While Apple Card does not have fees in the traditional sense, Apple still needs to make money off of Apple Card. Sorry everyone, but they're a business and at the end of the day they're there to make money. So yes, Apple and or Goldman Sachs will earn interchange income on the back end just like any other financial institution. But that's not the only way they're making money. And they've found a way to present their non fee fees so they're appealing to customers. It gives people what they think they want and care about. No fees ever and makes money in a way people tend to ignore interest. I've seen articles saying this is a bad thing, that Apple should have found a way to not incorporate interest on their credit card because some people get into trouble. I've also seen the people say that credit worthiness and applications should not be part of the credit card process, which is honestly ridiculous. So not even going to get into that. You know, credit cards have interest rates just like any other loan and they should. In truth, the rates on Apple Card between 13.24% and 24.24% are reasonable for a rewards card. So they're not gouging people on interest. And for the most part interest rates cover the risk of getting a credit card. And a lot of this will probably be going to Goldman's Sachs to cover the risk of the card. But we're talking about the framing of the no fees message. This led me to the fine print and the natural questions most financial institution insiders were probably asking themselves on the eve of this announcement. But what happens if someone has a late payment? And how are all those other risks and hard Costs incurred by the financial institution going to be covered. The short answer is the customers will still pay for that, but it's framed in a way so they're less likely to feel it due to a little concept called time discounting.

While there's no fee for going over.

The limit or missing a payment, according to the fine print, late or missed payments will result in additional interest accumulating towards toward your balance. So it's basically a fee, even though it technically isn't, but you know it is. What this additional interest is and how that will be applied is not yet disclosed. So we don't know if it's, you know, 1% or 50%. And it's also important to note for any of you who do not work in this space that penalty rates are not uncommon in the industry. Many, many, many store cards and other cards have this. However, at an institution, you may think people will see through this logical brain alert and know it's basically just a fee with lipstick on. Which is why many financial institutions haven't moved to this model, because it doesn't feel like the pain of changing your entire process is worth the benefit that customers may or may not actually see. Since Apple has gotten on their very large platform and shouted around the world that there are absolutely no fees ever on this credit card, I'm interested to see how this plays out when people actually have the card and receive the penalty interest. This is one of those things we'll have to wait and see. But I'm guessing it's not as much outrage as any of the financial institutions who coulda, woulda, shoulda done this already think it will be. Payday lending has shown us people are less sensitive to fees as interest where rates are 400% on average to borrow money for a short term. The main point here, and what you should learn from this is Apple was able to look at the product with fresh eyes and understand what people did not want fees and shape its offering to not have any while still making money. And they did all this without having to build anything that didn't already exist. Every single financial institution could have done this. There's no rule that says a bank or credit union has to include any fee on their credit card. In many ways, fear held them back. And now Apple is leading the way with a powerfully framed message that will appeal to many. If I was consulting to a financial institution on their own credit card offering, in light of the Apple announcement, I would recommend they seriously look at removing the fees from their credit cards. Yes, now it appears reactive to the announcement, but it doesn't really matter. Thankfully, Apple has given you a timeline and leeway by doing their announcement this way. There are a few months to change your card products to be more complete competitive before Apple Card is available to make it so your customers and members are less likely to want to move to Apple Card. And I know that this is a large ship to turn. There's a lot of effort that goes into that. It doesn't mean you can't start the process now. And while status quo bias will work in your favor, people are lazy and it's a lot of effort to change financial institutions. It isn't a necessary risk to keep a lot of fees on your card that you don't need. Look at framing your products to be most appealing and then look at how you're framing the message of communicating that across the organization and to customers in your business, whether it is a financial institution or anything else. Where are you framing the message based on what you believe you can offer because of the constrictions you think exist or your own jargon and beliefs instead of what customers are showing they actually care about? Another thing Apple Card is doing really, really well is their cash back offering. It's no secret that consumers love cash back. It's the most popular reward. But many cards offer points and many of them are used to redeem products from companies like Apple. In reality, Apple could have come up with a point system to be redeemed for Apple products, but they didn't. That's important for financial institutions to learn from and they stack the incentives so the percentage you get back is highest on things that are best for the company. You can get 3% on anything you buy from Apple, 2% on everything you buy using Apple Pay, and 1% if you ever need to use the physical card. Presumably the rates and fees they have on their side are lower when a physical card is used and or it's easier to track all the information behind the scenes when they're using Apple Pay, whatever the reason, they pay more for the things that make them more and promoting the service they want you to use. Apple Pay, this makes good business sense and they don't need to talk about it in their messaging. This is framing again. They're messaging to give people the information they need to make a choice which will nudge them in the purchasing direction and get them to be using the card. And they know they're going to get cash back, but not all of the details and specifics that they don't really care about and the most important thing they've done in this aspect, from a behavioral economic sense, is bringing the reward as close to to the trigger as possible. I've been saying this forever and I will say it again. If you're going to use rewards, they need to be as close to instant as possible. Our human brains forget what we did fractions of a second ago, and instant payouts mean lots and lots of positive associations with the card and the brand behind it. Look at the video. They created a stream of transactions showing how the card paid you back multiple times a day every day. When you use the card, the brain basically gets to be on reward overload. Yay. I bought a thing on Amazon and it's going to arrive in two days. Yay. Apple paid me money back because I bought that thing on Amazon. Ugh, gotta fill up the gas tank. But at least Apple will pay me back. When I do, I can use that money to buy a soda and get a few pennies back for my next purchase. It makes the reward synonymous with the company offering the rewards, which other cards do not do. Lump sum deposits away from other tracking someone would do on their account do not excite the brain in the same way. The monkey absolutely stops pushing the lever because the treats are not coming soon enough. If you give benefits of any kind back to your customers, how can you make it real, tangible and as close to the behavior you want repeated as possible? In this case, they want you using Apple Pay and the Apple card as much as possible. So the rewards should come immediately and very obviously tied to that behavior. And they've done a really good job of this. Another feature of Apple Card being touted as brand new is combining and tracking purchases to help encourage better spending habits. This is absolutely not new, but again, framing. The brain believes what it hears, and this is leaning on the anticipation and expectations that Apple's Personal Financial Management tool, or PFM as they say in the biz, will be better than anything offered by Mint or all the financial institutions out there. Many, many financial institutions have this already and have an incentive. Incentive and an ideal of helping people to spend less on interest regardless of what has been said in this messaging. And many offer this service free to their customers or members if it's a credit union, even though it costs them a lot of money to maintain a system like this. What Apple has apparently done is invest in building a solution that is custom and not bogged down by jargon like merchant codes. And they've added a really cool map feature and pictures of the merchant's logo and offering to help make it pretty and user friendly, which is very Apple. They had an advantage that financial institutions did not being Apple, which let them build some fancy code to make it all about the user experience. But as with everything else, this is not something every other financial institution could not have done or can't go do. Now again it comes back to framing. Apple has positioned this as the be all end all of tracking, but of course that's going to be dependent upon you doing all your spending within Apple pay for tracking purposes. Most PFMs are positioned this way and it will be interesting to see how it works once it's live. And I'm interested to see if people actually use and care about this feature or if it's another time discounting victim where the logical brain says it wants to know and track and that it should be easy but it still takes a teeny tiny effort that would cut into my Netflix streaming time. Or perhaps now it will be Apple TV plus streaming time. You get the point. To wrap up this bit on Apple Card and the episode, I want to reiterate the main points. 1. Framing matters. How the product is framed and the message around the product are all critical to the way it's perceived in the brain of potential customers and how anticipation builds and expectations. It's all about framing next. Every financial institution could have done this and still can. There does not appear to be anything incredibly not novel or earth shattering no matter how it's framed. So if you're looking to sort of deconstruct, you want to try to get past the framing and see what's really there. But that does not mean this card will not change the industry. Apple has a huge megaphone on top of a platform that no one else has. Consumers will now expect things and everyone else has to play catch up or decide how to respond. If you're working in a financial institution, please don't just stop at your credit card products and portfolio. When you hopefully go in and do some analysis of the announcements from Apple and how to integrate that, the findings and the things I've highlighted for you in this episode. When you think about how to work on this in your financial institution, it's only a matter of time for checking, savings, auto loans and everything else that you've been talking and thinking about for years. Use these lessons and start looking at how you can get ahead of the curve there. And if you want a consultant to help you, I'm here. Email me melinathebrainybusiness.com so we can talk about it. The same of course goes for any business, but this is really a critical time for financial institutions, which is why I focused on them in this particular point. Your status quo bias will make you feel like it's time to wait and see what happens. Give it more time. Don't be the first to jump after Apple. I'm telling you now, don't be afraid to step away from the herd and make your own statement. It doesn't have to be exactly what Apple is doing and frankly it shouldn't be. You need to assess what's best for your own brand and offering and relate that to what people want and will actually use and buy. That's how your brand can win and be more brain friendly in any industry, in any business. Learn from these insights and take a critical look at your own business to see how you can be better tomorrow. And if you want an outside set of eyes to help with that. As I said, we're often too close to our own problems and jargon and constraints to see things clearly. If that's you, let's chat. Visit thebrainybusiness.com and click on Work With Me to start a conversation or send an email to melinathebrainybusiness.com to see how we can work together to uplevel your business by getting out of that hurting mentality and into a space where you can really make a difference and be seen.

So what got your brain buzzing as.

You learned about Apple Card today?

For me, I really enjoyed revisiting this episode and reflecting on what it was like to create it way back in 2019. As you know from the conversation here today, back then I was still pretty fresh off of leaving my role in a financial institution, so this announcement from Apple, which had long been anticipated, was so relevant to me at that time I had so many thoughts and insights from very recent work I had been doing. This also ended up being one of our most watched episodes on YouTube, a.

Title it held for a very long.

Time and prompted me doing more of the behavioral economics analysis of companies type of episodes that have become real fan.

Favorites over the years.

I've done them on Disney, Costco, Amazon, Peloton, Starbucks. They're a fun way to see the things that your favorite brands are doing, some of which might have consciously registered with you as something that you like.

But a lot that you might not.

Even recognize until it's pointed out. The seeing the concepts in this way can make it so you find opportunities that may tie into your own work. And as we'll talk about in this upcoming Friday's episode with Will Mailer. Getting out of your own status quo or myopic viewpoint on the problem you solve can create some really beautiful opportunities that are a win win win for you, your company and your customers. Remember, people don't buy drills, they buy holes or an ability to secure things. How does that apply in your work? What opportunities aren't you yet? Seeing as we close out the show, don't forget about the show Notes with links to my top related past episodes, books and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 438 and just like that, episode 438 on Apple Card is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Will Mailer, Chief Behavioral Scientist at Commonwealth bank of Australia. 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.