WEBS OF INFLUENCE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ONLINE PERSUASION

Nathalie Nahai

The term ‘Web Psychology’ means:

The empirical study of how

online environments influence

our attitudes and behaviours.

The 3 Systems

PRIMAL

Key PRIMAL PrinciplesCues for Sex Images of food / drinkMotion

Contrast & Concrete Peak End RuleScarcity

EMOTIONAL

Key EMOTIONAL PrinciplesEmpathy (Mirroring) Body LanguagePleasure & Pain

Story-Telling Images of Faces

RATIONAL

Key RATIONAL PrinciplesPost-Rationalisation Specs & BenefitsProduct Demo

Evidence of working Be the Authority

APPLYING THIS TO VIDEO(PICK ONE OBJECTIVE)

REMEMBER

Your brand is not what you sell,

it’s how you sell it

CANDY CRUSH CASE STUDYAnother key psychological strategy Candy Crush use is that you can play the game with

one had. Candy Crush clearly understand that we all have busy lives and in order to win

our time, they’re going to have to make it as easy as possible for us. For those of us

who commute to work on public transport, this is a golden opportunity for engagement

as there’s a strong potential to get bored on the commute and need entertaining.

As you flick four candies in a row and they zap away, words pop up on your screen

along with a voice that says ‘Sweet’ or ‘Delicious’. This feedback is essential for player

immersion. According to gaming addiction expert Dr. Kimberly Young “positive

rewards are the main reason people become addicted to things and it’s because of

this that when you play the Candy Crush, you feel better about yourself”

CANDY CRUSH CASE STUDY WHAT CAN WE LEARN

1. Understand exactly who your users are, what emotional satisfaction they’re currently receiving, what’s missing and where the

opportunity is.

2. Know the exact situations that your app is likely to be used in. Think of your own app use, we don’t use all of our apps all of

the time so design your experience based around a specific use case.

3. Optimise the core user actions that users perform within your app to progress and reward the core actions with emotional

satisfaction. This helps to create ‘flow’ within your app allowing users to seamlessly transition from one action to another until

their experience is completed.

KEY TAKEAWAY 1

To be persuasive online in ecommerce,

marketing and customer engagement, you

have to target all 3 systems

KEY TAKEAWAY 2

Your message, content and website should be:

Primal - Arousing

Emotional - Emotionally effective

Rational - Intellectually compelling

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