Writing on attention, packaging, and why people watch what they watch. These are the pieces I’d point someone to first.
On attention
Why the brain notices some things and filters out the rest.
The Paradox of Choice
What a supermarket experiment reveals about why more options often lead people to choose nothing at all.
The Serial Position Effect
People remember the beginning and the end, and lose most of the middle. What that means for anything with a running time.
The Streisand Effect
How attempts to suppress something reliably make it larger, and what that says about attention as a system.
The algorithm doesn’t push, it pulls
The most common misconception in the field, corrected. The algorithm doesn’t wake up when you upload. It wakes up when a viewer opens the app.
On packaging
How work signals its value before anyone consumes it.
The Psychology Behind a Thumbnail
Curiosity, contrast and visual hierarchy, and how they decide what the eye lands on first.
Cues from movie posters
Packaging traced back to Hollywood’s visual grammar. Almost none of it is new.
What makes a brand iconic, scientifically
Apple, Nike and Samuel Adams, and the emotional shortcuts that outlast any product feature.
The art of selling a feeling
Liquid Death, Graza and Apple sell rebellion, taste and confidence. The product is mostly the excuse.
On audience behaviour
What people do, rather than what they say they’ll do.
The IKEA Effect
Betty Crocker’s instant cake mix failed for being too easy. What that says about making people work for something.
The Prattfall Effect
Why competent people become more likeable the moment they visibly stumble.
Why everyone is obsessed with Spotify Wrapped
How a data export became an annual identity ritual that millions of people volunteer to advertise.
Rory Sutherland’s marketing insights
Marketing as a multiplier rather than a department, and why the rational answer is so often the wrong one.
Everything else
Around 150 pieces going back to 2023. Not all of it holds up, but it’s all there.
New writing goes out most weeks.
