Pile of sugar cubes with the title breaking news

Five Billion Calories

How big is a five-billion calorie pile of sugar?

Red lorry with the words £16.9 million written on the roof

A truck load of cash

Imagine an articulated lorry carrying £16.9 million in cash is on its way to your house.

Little snowman in a snowy Christmas scene

The John Lewis Christmas ad is out!

It’s an annual event just over 10 years in the making, but it’s become a British tradition already.

Images of people completing Zip World cavern underground course

Zip World Cavern - A Desire Code Review

Where paricipants cling to a rockface hundreds of feet in the air...

Illuminated Jack o' lantern pumpkins in a row

Halloween

Halloween isn’t a festival of evil or a celebration of the macabre.

Mokku character and an illustration of the brain

Memory Design 12 -
Summary

A summary of all the factors covered in this series over the last two weeks.

Group of people at a concert

Memory Design 11 -
Repetition

The more we’re exposed to something, the easier it is to recall.

Collection of souvenirs

Memory Design 10 -
Mementos

People enjoying profound experiences want to take home an artefact to remember it by.

Chalk board at the Heineken Experience with writing on it

Memory Design 9 -
The end of an experience

People remember experiences more positively if they end well.

Three people experiencing the thrill of a rollercoaster ride

Memory Design 8 -
The peak

A person’s memory of an experience is stored based on two key parts of that experience.

Woman with a surprise expression

Memory Design 7 -
Surprise

When the brain gets something it’s not expecting, it tries to lock it down quickly and add it to memory.

Image of the Royal Albert Hall

Memory Design 6 -
Sensory immersion

We create stronger memories of an experience if more of our senses are triggered at the same time.

Take the payment off the table

Memory Design 5 -
Take the payment off the table

Even in the most immersive, enjoyable space, if there’s a sale coming, it’s hard to relax.

The Shape of the Experience

Memory Design 4 -
The shape of an experience

The shape is the layout of the experience and the path customers take through that space.

Emotional engagement - stories

Memory Design 3 -
Emotional engagement - storytelling

The first ingredient for creating better memories is emotional engagement.

A model of memory

Memory Design 2 -
A model of memory

A model of memory - Sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory

Introduction to memory design

Memory Design 1 - Introduction

Memory Design - the factors that enhance a person’s memory of a product or experience.

Words relating to chance

Probability language

The choice of words we use when we’re trying to convey to another person the likelihood of something happening.

Level up screen on a computer game

Levels

Breaking down a long-term process into manageable tasks and challenges helps customers to stay engaged.

Arrivals board at an airport

When customers know too much

Customers will invariably get hold of information that increases their convenience but makes your work harder.

Retro portable compact cassette player

Nostalgia

Which toys were your childhood favourites? What was the first movie you saw in a cinema? What was the first record you ever bought?

Words new life written on paper in an old typerwiter

The First Step

In a journey of a thousand miles, the first step is easy. You have clean socks and you just ate breakfast!

Old photograph of a train at a railway station

Railway Time

Have you ever wondered why all the time zones in the world are compared to GMT, Greenwich Mean Time?

Two reindeer standing in snow

Can you name Santa's reindeer?

What’s remarkable about the story of Santa is the consistency with which we tell it.

Santorini in Greece on a sunny day

How do you choose a holiday?

How do you make sure the holiday you choose will give you the kind of experience you are hoping for?

Man on railway platform looking at smartphone

Nowism

Now that we have smartphones and mobile data we have found a way of entertaining ourselves for even the shortest amount of time.

Small pug dog looking out of the window

Describing emotions

There are some more wonderful examples of words we don’t have in English, that describe emotions and experiences we are all familiar with.

Tray of champagne cocktails

The cocktail party effect

There are some sounds we are conditioned to react to, sounds that instantly demand priority for our conscious attention.

Yellow battery

X is less Bad than Y

If you only do something to avoid something worse, you will never intrinsically enjoy it for its own sake.

A train on a platform

Certainty behaviour

Have you ever sprinted to the gate at an airport, run to board a train or any other of these certainty-seeking things?

Sun loungers on a sandy beach

Investment or experience

We have an instinctive preference for things we can have right now over the things we can have in the future.

Retro VW camper van

People like us

We have an extra-liking for others with whom we share an obvious common thing.

Bamboozle quiz page

Bamboozle situations

No one likes being bumped back to the start again. Especially after you’ve put in time and effort to get to where you are.

People waiting in a line

Visible demand

As complex, social beings, we take a lot of our cues from the actions of others.

Statue of Neptume or Poseidon

Naming boats

Imagine if everything we did in life was like naming a boat, with no opportunity to change our minds afterwards.

Large signpost at London's Hyde Park Corner

The next step

At each step of your customer journey do you explicitly tell customers what the next step is?

Two women sitting having a coffee and laughing

How was your weekend?

Are you using cup of tea language? And would real people have a conversation like that?

Lotto players slip

Tips for playing Lotto

Do you talk about percentages, odds and chance to try to persuade people to want your products?

Satellite in space

Falling satellites

What happens when a satellite the size of a washing machine crashes back down to Earth?

Small friendly robot holding a red flower

The decision machine

If a machine could tell you every action to take to have the longest, healthiest, wealthiest life, would you listen?

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