Chinwag Psych - The Wrap

We just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who came and helped make our second Chinwag Psych Conference a success.

So just in case you missed the day, we have a quick snippet of the roundup here, for the full run down visit PsychMatters. 

We began with an intro from Toodle pip himself, Sam Michel before kicking off the day.

Anticipate

First up was Ed Weatherall from VisualDNA, with his talk on how to predict customer behaviour by understanding their personality. Taking us through the ‘Big Five’ personality traits;

• Openness 
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness 
• Neuroticism

We all know our own personalities but do we know our customers? Finding out their personality type can help us to predict what they want to see, and what will provide click throughs when they visit the landing page.

"Prediction of online behaviour aided by known personality types increases accuracy by 300% in the 1st minute"

Optimise

On his first trip to London was Brian Massey, flown in all the way from Texas, complete with lab coat which he later goes on to explain.

Looking at addiction centres and what language encourages folks to call…

A – We can help. Call *****
B – Speak with a Compassionate Rehab Specialist. Call ******
C – Ready to start healing? Call ******
D – Ready to stop lying? If so, we can help. Call ******

And which encouraged the most calls? Well B created 32% more calls while out in front is D, having encouraged 43% more calls. Why? Because our brains let in the information that is unexpected, unbelievable and just plain wrong.

Analyse

Dr Paul Marsden with his presentation and what a fascinating one it was. The power of suggestion is a very powerful thing –  think Sharon Stone in Basic instinct, or when you go to see a horror film, you’re far more susceptible to be frightened of those bumps in the night.

For example, a storyline on Casualty involving an overdose, saw hospital admissions rise. However, when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, the media guidelines put in place meant there were far less copycat suicides.

Paul’s research found suicide bombings more likely due to way they were reported with the power of suggestion.

"Use cue words to prime minds and build strong positive associations around desired behaviour of consumers."

Persuade

Beginning with Web Psychologist, Nathalie Nahai on the secret psychology behind persuasive content.

1. Know who you’re targeting 
2. Communicate persuasively 
3. Sell with integrity

And some secrets for writing a headline that packs a punch,

We want to say a particularly special thanks to our sponsors Visual DNA, City University, Lumen, CrowdEmotion and Millward Brown, all our fantastic speakers and The Museum of London, without you, we couldn’t have done it!

Thanks again to all who came along and made the day so special. For all info on our upcoming events, don’t forget to sign up to the PsychMatters newsletter, follow @ChinwagPsych on Twitter & join our G+ community and we hope to see you again very soon.

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Photo (cc) Artur Ring on Flickr. All rights reserved.