Speaking of abstraction, it’s partly why frequent flyer programs work so well amongst the business set. The cost is abstracted away from the beneficiary.
the genius part of this incentive is that the person who makes the flight choice enjoys the loyalty program benefits rather than the person who actually buys the ticket
An important rule for incentive design:
know who pays for the product and who enjoys the incentives
It’s not always the same person.
Pricing is an interesting practice
They determined that when the prices were listed with the dollar sign, customers spent less. Conversely, when the dollar sign was absent, they tended to spend more.
Putting on my hack consumer psychologist hat for a minute…
The dollar sign is a symbol that connects a number to the pieces of paper we think of as money.
The absence of that symbol allows the number to remain an abstract representation, just like the bits and bytes of digital finance.
This OpenAI stuff is a cluster.
The AI race is fast and furious right now. The board’s decision may be the equivalent of a massive in-season superstar trade in sports.
Microsoft could be poised to take the lead while OpenAI could become an also ran or small research shop.
Speaking of shopping looking different
CarMax, Carvana, and the rest of the purveyors of no-haggle, online car buying appear to have worn down the industry enough.
Amazon might truly be The Everything Store™ soon.
It’s going to be really interesting to watch how AI impacts product development. Especially with Google’s new search feature.
Use generative AI to create an image of what you’re looking for. Then use image search to find similar items that actually exist.
One day this could evolve into generating an image of exactly what you want and sending it to a factory to be made for you.
The shopping experience will soon be very different.
Why do shoppers abandon their ecomm carts?
- Shipping costs (guilty! Sometimes it’s the only way to figure out how much shipping will cost.)
- Deal searching / price comparison (ecomm satisfies the game urge unlike brick-and-mortar, the hunt for deals can be half the fun)
- Waiting for a sale (shoppers have been conditioned to wait for a discount winback email or use their cart as a wish list)
- Squirrel! (they get distracted)
- Want to put eyes on the product before purchasing
Useful tidbit from The ‘Gram for those that don’t like being phished or hacked:
Emails from Instagram will only come from @mail.instagram.com
🤯
OpenAI announces leadership transition
The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc., the 501(c)(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAI activities, today announced that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors.
But what does this mean?
Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
An audio ads study found that less is more when it comes to copy.
Cutting 10 words (per minute) leads to a:
- 1% increase in consumers scoring an ad as standing out
- .25% increase in web traffic
24 extra words in a 30-second audio ad lowers ad response by -27%
Less density = fewer messages = higher memorability
An ad with four messages will have message recall of only 24% to 43% of ads with just one message. The more messages an ad attempts to communicate, the lower the likelihood of a single message being communicated.
If you don’t know what you’re trying to say, how will your customers?