Thinking on how Different Learners Solve Problems, Buy Goods and Go on their Customer Journey

How you learn impacts purchasing decisions, and that translates into behavior in other areas

 Divya: Hi, I'm Divya.

 Kahran: Hi, I'm Karin.

 Divya: Thinking, thinking.

 Kahran: And this is thinking on thinking.

 Divya: Welcome to the 25th episode of thinking on thinking. This episode, we talked about how Kahran and I think about information, how we learn, how we remember, and then we moved into what makes us decide what to buy. And how you learn impacts purchasing decisions, and that translates into behavior in other areas of your life. We hope you enjoy.

Sometimes when you're struggling with a project, talking to others can boost motivation

I talked to my friend about my newsletter that I've been procrastinating on for so long. I was like, oh, why am I procrastinating? But I feel like he gave me some interesting pointers. So now, hopefully, I'll think about it, and then I will not procrastinate it, and I will see if I start procrastinating again, then I will talk to him again.

 Kahran: Yeah. Sometimes when I'm struggling to finish something or do something, I feel like what I'll do is if I tell other people about it, then I feel like I increase the motivation. in some ways, it's something I can do before I do something that will help me be more motivated to it, because, at least for me, the way I look at my relationship when I commit to other people, that's an additional commitment to the commitment I made to myself. So I was curious, is that what drives you to chat about your projects when you're struggling with them, or mostly just because you're trying to understand?

 Divya: At, least in this case, I was thinking more from the perspective of. Because the friend that I talked about this newsletter, to, we talk a lot, but he's not someone that I professionally discuss a lot of things with, especially in terms of, like, oh, I'm working on this right now, and I am struggling with it. Like, generally, you are one of those people. If I'm working on something and I'm struggling with it, I'll talk to you. I'll talk to Charu. I'll talk to Varun about it. I'll talk to my brother about it. So, this friend himself, actually, recently said this thing that asking for help from somebody who is competent is not a sign of your incompetence, but it's a space for you to build connection. and I found that to be really beautiful, and I was like, huh? If I think about it as, like, you know, this is building connections, then I can think about a lot of different people who I can have a lot of different conversations with and these points of connection with. So this is why I asked him this time, and hopefully it would be helpful also, generally, I think it's a double edged sword for me to talk to people or to not talk to them, because sometimes it can act as an accountability thing, which is what you said, that if I talk to someone about it, I'm much more likely to finish it. And sometimes it can feel like, oh, now that I've talked about it, it's already over, and then I don't pay attention to it or don't invest energy in it. Do you ever find that when you are working on something and you share it with someone, and then suddenly you are not motivated at all to finish it?

 Kahran: That's why I was just thinking about that notion. It's like, do you get the satisfaction of having done the thing almost just by imagining it or thinking about it with someone?

 Divya: Yeah.

 Kahran: So when, when do you feel like, when do you feel like that happens for you?

 Divya: you know, in radioactive, reactions, you need a critical mass. Below that, the reaction doesn't happen. and I feel like there is something of that. So for any creative project, I need is like, you know, critical mass of inspiration for me to actually work on the project. And sometimes talking to somebody increases the critical mass, and sometimes I talking to somebody diffuses the critical mass. Like, if it's already too low, then it evaporates, and if it is just the right amount, then I get more and more, inspiration to do the thing.

 Kahran: And this is before you would have started it, huh?

 Divya: this is when I am in the ideation phase, I guess. You know, it's like, have you gone on like, you know, clothing apps? Do you feel like, oh, I need new clothes? And you go on the app and you just add a bunch of different things to your wishlist, and then your temptation to buy the thing goes away. Have you had that experience? It's akin to that.

 Kahran: No, I don't know if I have ever had that experience. yeah, I only ever add things to my wishlist when I want to buy them, but there's some reason I'm not buying it right now, right? Like either, like the circumstance is not right, or maybe like just, you know, the cost value doesn't feel right to me, so I'm like, oh, I'll wait for it to go on sale or something. Right, but there's some reason why I'm not going to buy it right now.

 Divya: Wait, so what percentage of your wish list do you eventually end up buying? Like, you know, in a six month period, let's say most of it.

 Kahran: Or I end up, like, forgetting about them or deleting them, like, oh, wow. It's just kind of a place. I save the things that I don't want to. Ah. So in Amazon, for example, I use this save for later as something that I don't need to buy in this purchase. And then sometimes things just get forgotten there. And then there's, I don't know, maybe like 50 things. And sometimes I scroll back through. but for example, I was thinking about buying a new coffee grinder for a while because we use it for grinding spices, and our coffee grinder has just completely failed. Right. Mike Gorev was trying to make posto, which is made with poppy seeds, the other day, and it was just like a disaster. He refused to grind the seeds at all. And then you have to add a little bit of liquid, and the liquid was coming out of the sides. It was a whole nightmare. Right? And so I had one, and then I, like, had it in my cart, but then I had to order some other stuff, and I didn't want to order it right then. So I added it, like, saved it for later. But, like, for example, there was a pair of shoes I was looking at. the shoes are just outrageously expensive, right? So those I added to my wish list. And, like, if they go on sale or something, I might buy them, but I still kind of want the shoes.

 Divya: This is so interesting. Like, I'm aware of this behavior, so I have utilized it so often when I feel like, oh, my God, I need to buy new clothes. Okay, we'll add a few things to our wish list. I think I maybe buy something like 5% of my wish list.

 Kahran: Oh, that's so funny. Your wish list really is kind of like a wish list. Maybe like, it is things you actually want. Yeah, but you just don't buy them.

 Divya: Well, it's like, things I like, I might or might not buy them. I don't know if I want them. I like them.

 Kahran: That's so interesting. I think that's similar to the pinterest behavior, right? Like, pinterest is kind of built on that model that people want to be able to interact with things that they like without actually committing to a purchase. Because a lot of interest is products.

 Divya: Yeah, 100% like Pinterest behavior. I'm actually a fairly regular Pinterest user also for years. and that is the behavior. Like, I think at this point, I must have at least nine or ten different boards for mural projects. Like, it's all different kinds of murals, and I'm not going to make all of these, but I feel like, you know, I just want to keep it for reference. But even right now, I know I'm not going to make all of them. Not even, like, I'm not even gonna make the nine murals that I have different boards for. Forget about, like, making all of the ideas that are inside the boards.

 Kahran: Wow. No, I only pinned when I needed to communicate with either, like when I was planning my wedding. so, right. Like, I pinned a bunch of stuff which was like, you know, the vibes I liked, and we pinned Gaurav and I have like, found clothes we liked, but it was like, you know, we could point to those and be like, oh, I like this about this. So then it was stuff that then you could talk about and be like, oh, yeah, you know, we want to have silverware in this way, or we like the lighting of this, or we like the fall of this kind of shervani or this kind of trudha or whatever.

 Divya: Yeah, I also like those things about those. Like, there are different boards because they are different moods to all of these different murals that I want to make.

How do you generally retain information? What does that mean

But at the same time, I know that I'm not going to execute on everything.

 Kahran: Yeah, no, I was just saying it's interesting to me because I don't think I even capture as much things that I like the feel of, in my pinterest as much as I capture things I like tangible aspects of, which is just. It was interesting because hearing you, I'm realizing that that's not necess. You're not starting with like, oh, this is a, you know, shape of a fork. I like, let me pin that necessarily.

 Divya: No, I mean, I have this sort of like open form kind, of board, which is basically about, if I come across something which is like an interesting looking board game, I put it on there. I don't know when I'm gonna make a board game. I don't know, like, you know, if I'm ever gonna use those piece design ideas or card design ideas or anything like that, but I don't know, I just have them collected.

 Kahran: That is really interesting. I think the reason why I am like, fairly advanced in taking notes is because I don't retain things well when I hear them, but because I actually retain things fairly well when I read them. I don't have so much structure around how I retain things that I look at and see and interact with visually and then retain them because I just usually remember, especially if it had some impact on me, like, I can, I can recall fairly reasonably well. but it's just interesting because I never built the structures then to think about like, oh, if I wanted to do this in a systemic way, how would I do it?

 Divya: It's almost like if imagine you were making visual work, how would your behavior change? Right. Like, the context is so different.

 Kahran: I mean, I remember almost every photo I've taken. Right? So I m just take pictures of things. I remember almost every picture I've taken. Like, I can look at any picture I've taken and know about, like, no certainty about where it was and what it was.

 Divya: Wow.

 Kahran: Which, if you think about how many pictures I've taken, it's kind of crazy because it's, you know, 30, 40,000. But, yeah. it's just, that's not, that's, that's not very hard for me. Especially if it's a photo that I felt something when I was taking it, I'll remember pretty clearly.

 Divya: That is insane.

 Kahran: So I take pictures of things.

 Divya: I don't think I remember all of the artworks that I've made. And I think I've made something like around 1000 ish artworks. But recently, like a few months back, I was showing some of my works to somebody and she asked me certain questions about those artworks and I was like, I have no idea because I don't even remember when I made these.

 Kahran: Oh, that's so interesting.

 Divya: Like, I didn't even remember the approximate year when I made those artworks.

 Kahran: Yeah, it's like, for me, that's like my hack, right? Like, I know if I take a picture of it or in that scene, I'm so much more likely to remember that, that moment than otherwise. So that's the flip side of it.

 Divya: interesting. How do you generally retain information?

 Kahran: What does that mean?

 Divya: okay, so, like, let's say you are trying to learn about something new. Like it's a new domain. It's. Or it is expansion or deeper. Dive into some area that you already know about. How do you usually go about learning about it?

 Kahran: I would read about it.

 Divya: Yeah. But like, how do you do the reading in the sense that, like, let's say we pick a particular topic that you're interested in right now. What's capturing your curiosity?

 Kahran: I can give you a perfect example.

 Divya: Okay.

 Kahran: there's this series, by Isaac Asimov called foundation, which my father was very into when I was young. And he, remember he gave me one of the books, I must have been like 14 or 15, and I just could not get into it. And I always felt really sad because I knew even when I was that, I knew he was trying to like, connect with me because I read a lot of fantasy. And he was like, this is the thing I read. I did not like it. but Gaurav and I just watched the first two episodes of the Apple, tv series yesterday. And then I was so curious, right? So then, like last night before I went to bed, I was like reading a little bit on this, like fandom wiki. And then I kind of clicked through a little bit. And then I was reading, I just read a whole assortment like what some m of the key figures were, what some of the key kind of concepts were. I read about, who the authors were that wrote the foundation series after Asimov died. Kind of like the, the circumstances that were happening like culturally in America, right? So there was like culturally people were looking at, America as being the roman empire, in kind of like the forties and fifties. And then we started to realize like the decline of the roman empire. So part of what maybe led him to write the sequels was this desire to reshape the narrative a little bit, as, like, as our picture, because the foundation series is very much built on metaphor, of the Roman Empire. right. So, yeah, I kind of like just read a diversity of different things. I also didn't want to ruin the story for myself, but I wanted to have more of an understanding of the background. I'd say that's pretty typical for me. I like to get a spread of what's happening when I'm trying to understand something.

 Divya: Interesting. So I think I've generally like when I am trying to learn about something. In your example, I just realized I don't think I try and learn about specific things. It's very hard for me to do that. I can't stay interested. So for me it would be something like, oh, I'm trying to learn more about philosophy. That's as deep a category that I can go into. and then I would just like randomly read stuff, listen to podcasts, whatever. And over two years or so, I would build a corpus of information in my brain and it's almost like throwing spaghetti on the wall, whatever sticks, sticks. like, I still don't think that, on a very foundational level, the most I remember about is fundamental sciences. Everything else I have to like, you know, reason my way to because I remember this one thing and then maybe this is connected to this piece of information, but I don't have a lot of direct memory of things and I even don't try to sort in my brain any information that comes in like that. That's why I don't like courses and structured learning, because it forces me to put structure on something that I am not a fan of putting structure on.

 Kahran: Yeah, that's really interesting. I was trying to think how I would do something like that. Ah, I feel like if I was trying to, like, get more depth into a specific area, I would spend time with someone who I felt like had depth in that area that I could learn from. It's just interesting because it's such a different model. It was hard for me to reconcile that those are just two different ways to solve the same thing. but, yeah, I think largely that's what I would end up doing. That's largely what I usually do.

 Divya: Even here in your foundation, example, you have a person that you can talk to, your dad, you know, somebody who actually has deep knowledge about it.

Ambika: When you're building a product, you need different strategies

 Kahran: Well, in some ways, fandom wikis kind of are that. Also, though, because you can click on things endlessly, especially ones without, like, with like a strong corpus, like the, foundation series, you know, m. No.

 Divya: I actually understand this. And so for the longest time, like, I have a lot of friends who always say, oh, Wiki is my favorite, you know, pastime, because I can just keep endlessly clicking on things and keep learning more and more about it. And wikiing has never really appealed to me as a hobby. And it's over time that I've realized that, oh, it's because I like to do the, I will only retain 10% of the information that I read or watch.

 Kahran: Someone else has already retained only 10% of the information. And then, giving it back to, like, this is like a secondary source, it's not a primary source. Am I understanding you correctly?

 Divya: No, no, no. I need more touch points. I feel like in my mind, there is a network of different nodes, and I'm trying to connect every new piece of information, whether it's a factor, like something else, it's like trying to connect to the previous pre existing nodes. And so I have to connect each one individually to different things. So I can only make so many connections at a single given moment. That's why it takes me a long time to build the corpus when I'm starting a new zone of nodes, it's like, so for example, you could think about, your learning, like, file folders, right? Like, you're just putting all of the relevant information here. But I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to do an open map and so while it's eventually easier to use it by connecting multiple things, the storing of information just requires a lot more data to go in m and even I don't know what I am. Like, it's a little bit like how OpenAI doesn't know what parameters are.

 Kahran: So it's interesting because that reminds me of some of the things I kind of learned early, when I was learning about marketing and kind of advertising strategies. Persuasive strategies. Right. so depending on whether you're trying to bring people, along with you, or maybe you're trying to distract them from something, there's different strategies you might employ. So one is a red herring is a way that you can distract someone from something. And it's always been a great visual, for me because a red herring is like a fish, right. So it's like someone's like swinging your fish around, right. And they're trying to distract you. but. Right, like bandwagon approaches or kind of influencers are ways of saying, you know, everyone is doing it, or this kind of star that you respect is doing it and you should come along because of that. And, I think as I was listening to has talk just now, what kind of occurred to me was that these are, those types of, different types of strategies are going to appeal to different kinds of people. That's why you learn different strategies. Right. What I was just thinking about was when you're, when you're trying to build a product, like, depending on whether you're someone like you or someone like me, you're going to need a different strategy, right. Because someone like you is going to have gathered information about that purchase decision from a bunch of disparate sources before they come to that purchase event. Whereas me, I'm going to be more influenced by more singular events, right. Like, if there's someone I trust, and it's particularly if it's someone I trust in that area, right? So to maybe use my sister's company as an example, if it's someone I trust in fashion, like my wedding planner was basically designed by all my outfits, right, for my entire wedding and still has randomly gives me feedback on my styles every now and then, right. I like, if she told me like, oh, go try out this service, I think it'll be really well suited for you. I'm super likely to try it out just because, right. I know I've seen her judgment. I know she makes good decisions for me and I'm like, sure.

 Divya: Oh, that is so interesting. I will not do it that, yeah.

 Kahran: I had a feeling.

 Divya: Yeah. I would think about, oh, does this product feel interesting? Do I have a need for this thing? And, like, the need would be defined in a variety of ways. It would be from, like, oh, what kind of clothes do I like? Do I actually know what styles I like? Because it's not the options that is the thing. Just specifically talking about Ambika's, company, like, it's not the options for me. It is more about, can I fit this thing in my life? And that I would know only if I have enough different sources of information.

 Kahran: And you wouldn't think anyone else could judge that for you because you're making a decision about whether it fits in your life, which, of course, how can anyone else decide?

 Divya: Oh, this is so interesting because there is a category of things where referral does not work for me at all.

 Kahran: Yeah. I only realized that listening to, as you were talking about how you learn, there is like, ah, that would be the outcome of that, or one of the outcomes of that, because it's also how you learn that things are right for you or not right for you. Right. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's really. I think it is. It's something that people really forget that we know that there are people who learn in these different ways, and we know that that should have outcomes. But when we design products and we think about how do things actually, how do we convince people to buy something or do a behavior, we totally forget. We're like, oh, no, we gave them one referral. Why isn't it working?

 Divya: Yeah, that is so interesting, because this is why I'm very okay with taking referral for knowledge sources. Like, if somebody recommends me a, channel on YouTube or a video or a podcast, I'm very likely to watch it. But if somebody recommends me an entertainment thing, I'm way less likely to watch it, because in my brain, those are two very separate categories, even though it's the same thing. Like, it's a video on YouTube. If it's an entertainment channel, there is, like, you know, a 25% chance I might watch it. If it's a, knowledge channel, there is a 75% chance I will watch it. That is so interesting. Wait, do you trust recommendations based on who the person is?

 Kahran: Absolutely.

 Divya: And what their area of expertise is?

 Kahran: Well, I would say, and my perception of their area of expertise, but, yeah.

 Divya: So, like, what do you do about entertainment? Like, let's say somebody suggests to you, oh, I really liked this play. Like, how do you, you know, decide whether to take that referral or nothing.

 Kahran: I think about who they are. So, for example, I have a neighbor here, in my building who is constantly referring plays, and such for me to see. And I just, I know he loves the opera, so I'm like, I don't know. I don't love the opera. The only opera I ever went to, I fell asleep within like 15 minutes. And I'm just like, I think we have really different tastes in place, whereas, on a much different note, like, I have a good friend, also here in the city, who I feel like she and I have a similar sort of upbringing and we have similar friends and we just, like, I think we approach life really similarly. So I asked her if she had ever, gone to therapy and had a therapist in the city, and if she would recommend them, because I felt like we had a similar enough sort of like, approach that we might vibe, well, with the same therapist. So, like, I both use it to, I would say maybe penalize or kind of bring negative weight to certain, certain recommendations, but then I can also use it to boost other recommendations.

 Divya: I don't watch much fiction, but it's also that I don't think I really take recommendations, but I would always very happily listen to how you are thinking about something that you have seen and what stuck with you and what didn't, because that still adds to my knowledge. Map.

Do you think that advertising really works very well on you? M like, if

Do you think that advertising really works very well on you? M like, if you see an ad for a product or a service, like, let's say 15 times in like, you know, two months, would you be very likely to try it, even though you have never considered that this is a thing?

 Kahran: I think that eventually works on everyone, you know, it's a threshold thing. Yeah. Ah, right. And some people's threshold might be higher and maybe they need more components into their threshold, but eventually it's just right. You build enough awareness of that product for someone and eventually they're going to be like, either, what is this thing? Or like, why am I thinking about this? Like, Gaurav and I had both been getting advertisements for the same underwear brand, and I had actually thought about ordering something from it because I'm just kind of curious. It's just been months. It's called Charlie. and I think I put something in my cart and kind of forgot about it. And then a few days ago, I just noticed that there was a Charlie box. And I asked everybody, he's like, oh, yeah, their underwear is terrible. The quality is not worth the price. now, would I have probably bought something in a couple of weeks, maybe? Right now I will not, because now I have a data point from someone I know and trust, then, like, this is not worth my time. And next time Instagram shows me the ad, I'll just tell it's not relevant to me, so it stops showing them.

 Divya: To me, that is. I don't think that that works on me. There are things that I've been seeing ads of for a long. I'm just trying to think about anything that I have been convinced of purchasing because I was shown ads repeatedly and I didn't feel, how did you.

 Kahran: Decide to buy your aura?

 Divya: Because I knew that I wanted to have a health tracker. Same was for Garmin, because I knew that, like, my training would get better, and it did.

 Kahran: But how did you decide on those ones is what I'm asking.

 Divya: on garmin, I decided because almost all the sports heavy people I know use Garmin as the product. Garmin didn't show me ads and aura because. So when people started using health trackers, almost everything was a watch. I really dislike watches. Irony. Now I pair 124 seven. But, like, I really dislike watches. And aura seemed like the most reliable health tracker. The data was good, the stats were good, and the service seemed to be good. And at the same time, it was like, oh, this is very non intrusive. M. I think that I have, like, a lot more utility bias in my purchases in most cases, unless it is about art supplies. That is something where if I enter an art store, I will end up buying too many things.

 Kahran: I'm thinking about, there's this very famous equation of, a professor at Stanford named BJ Fogg, where he said that behavior is motivation, times ability with a trigger. And basically what that means is how motivated are you to do the action? How hard is it? How much ability does it take? And then, where on that spectrum are you when the trigger happens? So are you highly motivated and is it perceived as easy, or are you low motivated and it's perceived as a hard action to take? Well, then, he has, I think, a decision curve is what he calls it. And if you're on this side of the line and when the trigger happens, then you're likely to perform. And if you're on this side of the line, you're not likely to actually go ahead and undertake the behavior. Does that make sense?

 Divya: It makes sense. Can I question you on that?

 Kahran: Yeah.

 Divya: is he checking for the quality of motivation? Because motivation is not an independent variable like equations like this work. If all of the things which are on the right hand side were independent variables. But motivation is like, dependent on multiple things, like intrinsic versus extrinsic, for example, would be one part that motivation would be dependent on. Am I intrinsically motivated to do something versus am I extrinsically motivated? there might also be factors of, like, what am I going to get out of it? Right.

 Kahran: M. But I think because those are not affected by how difficult the task is to perform could be. Well, actually, there is some interesting research there, right, where, like, people. I was just listening to this a couple of days ago in a podcast I was listening to. But if you people who are overweight or have a higher, I think it's hip to waist ratio, are more likely to perceive distances as further than people who are less, overweight, it's like the same distance. They'll perceive it as being a further away distance. so the ability to kind of do a further away distance is obviously going to feel more.

 Divya: If I ask you your motivation to, let's say, cook breakfast, when you are like, let's say you wake up at 06:00 a.m. your motivation to cook breakfast, 05:30 a.m. is zero. At 06:00 a.m. it is close to zero, and it probably rises up. Like, motivation in itself is like such a context dependent and time dependent factor.

 Kahran: Well, the thing I was just realizing as we were, as I was kind of just digesting what we were saying there is, I feel like we're kind of conflating, of course, you know, a couple of different factors, but one, I think there's a motivation to do something, right? And it could be that you're going to join a rental company for your clothing, or it could be that you're looking for a sleep tracker. And it feels to me like the way you've kind of been talking, it's like you feel like that motivation kind of builds as you gather the disparate data to help you figure out. This is like. It's almost like this is. This is me, right. It's almost like it's an identity thing.

 Divya: Yeah.

 Kahran: Right. And I. But then what I was thinking about is there's a separate thing where there's a trigger moment, right? Where it's like, oh, you know, you got notified this thing is on sale or for some reason, or it's something that you've been thinking about buying is in front of you, and now there's a value to that transaction. And then part of it is that you're fulfilling your motivation or, you know, you're solving your identity thing, but then there's a value to that transaction itself. So do you not feel that way?

 Divya: I have many times not purchased things on my wish list, even though I got notification of it's on sale. And I really did intend to do it, but I just didn't do it.

 Kahran: Well, I wonder if for you, in even adding it to your wishlist, you get some of that transactional utility. I don't know, by making the selection, is that part of the joy that one gets out of it?

 Divya: Yeah.

 Kahran: Interesting. So the curating itself is part of the joy.

 Divya: Yeah.

Sometimes you can mistake your motivation for one thing for another

Okay, so because we were talking about motivation and prompt and triggers and all of that, sometimes you can mistake your motivation for one thing for another. And I think that's what happens here. Like maybe I just want to look at a bunch of clothes and see what am I feeling about them and about fashion at that particular moment. And just like making the selection and then putting things in my wish list takes care of that. I don't have to worry about purchasing it. Purchasing is a separate decision. Like, there are two cognitive tasks and I might be like, you know, I don't have to intermix the rewards that I'm going to get from one to the other. Right.

 Kahran: That's something we have discussed in other contexts before where I'm like, why shouldn't I feel joy from like running my errands? And you're like, it's just a thing that has to be done. We don't have, That's really funny. That's really interesting. While you were talking just there, I was thinking about how I think it's a very different outcome. And you also have to just, you have to treat that person very differently if they made an identity decision that, oh, this is a part of who I am and this is who I am, right. I'm someone who uses trackers to improve my well being and get a better sense of my health, or I'm someone who does rental because sustainability is core to who I am and I want to be living my values. That's such a different person than someone who is like, been recommended something and trying it out because someone, they trust recommended it to them.

 Divya: That is so true. If like the sustainability message hit me and sustainability was a value, I would be way more likely to try a brand that went for it.

 Kahran: And that just means that the journey that you're on versus the journey that I'm on is really different because for a brand, for me, they need to convince me of the value. I've tried it out, but I'm actually not convinced of the value. I'm not convinced this is a thing that I need to do. But for you, you've already are convinced on the value and they actually have to show you that it's more of a, showing that they're the right among options, whereas I'm not as much likely going to consider options. They just have to show me. They have to make me not look almost. Whereas you've already looked. I don't know. Maybe that's just part one of it.

 Divya: This is so interesting. No, this is so interesting because yesterday when we were talking about and you were considering hiring a personal, like a company for your personal brand, and I said, look at multiple options. If you actually want to go in this direction, look at multiple options and find a company that actually suits you.

 Kahran: Yeah, very interesting. Right? Like, even when I found this marvel, people I like read five options, but I only called one because the hassle in my mind of like, getting two people out here for an estimate is just not worth it. I'm getting like, some marble repolished in our, on our countertop. It's gotten really badly stained. Right. But like. And I'm just like, oh, you know, I could get more estimates, but he talked really sensibly and the headache in my mind is just so big, it's not worth it.

 Divya: So there. I don't think I would also try to maximize on the quote unquote best deal.

 Kahran: Yeah.

 Divya: like, you know, the maximizer and satisfies, like, dichotomy. Right. I think that there, I would also not try to maximize because it's a functional thing.

 Kahran: Yeah. Yeah. you're not learning anything about it.

 Divya: Oh. Oh my goodness. It's almost like there are different buckets, like, in my brain. It's an operational task. I don't need to maximize on it. But if it is something on the strategy point of view, which personal branding seems to me, on the strategy point of view, then I'm like, no, no, you do need to maximize here.

 Kahran: Oh, that's so interesting. It just feels to me like it's not that big of a deal. Right? It might work out. It might not work out. It might try out another personal branding company in a few years or a few months. It doesn't feel like a, big strategic kind of choice to me. Like, I paid for you know, I would pay for some Instagram followers. I tried once. It didn't work. I don't know. It was rs200. And then it came, like, the UPI transaction came back. So I was like, I don't care. I was just kind of curious. I was like, do these things even work? Like, what kind of followers do you get? Right? like, it just, Like, it didn't feel like that big of a question to me, which is funny, because I, struggle with other kinds of questions because they make them into identity questions. But these kinds of questions, for some reason, I'm very willing to kind of just look and say,

 Divya: So it's almost like purchasing always feels transactional to you. Like, it really doesn't feel like an identity thing, services or products. I don't know, I just felt like, or rather the sense that I got was, you are thinking, oh, if I'm buying something, I can buy something else later. And that's okay.

 Kahran: Yeah, that's, I think, a learned behavior. I've tried really hard to teach myself that nothing is forever because it lowers the decision cost and almost nothing is forever. It's only in our minds that we convince ourselves that it's these huge decisions.

 Divya: This is so interesting. But then why do you try. And so when we are writing something for some context, when we are writing something, a piece of, like, you know, an article or like, a paragraph to send to someone, Kahran frets a lot about what exact words need to be used. And I couldn't care less. I'm, like, yeah, as long as it communicates, it's fine. Like, that writing is also not forever. Right? Like, you read so many things in a day.

 Kahran: Yeah. but sometimes you read one sentence that stays with you, right? And you never know what that one sentence is going to be for someone.

Well written copy can actually make you buy something or not buy something

And if you can give them that one sentence, it just, it's really nice. I'm maximizing more than one thing, which you don't tend to do, right? Like, I'm like, oh, I can maximize how the joy I feel in expressing myself really well. Like, as a writer, even though I'm writing an email.

 Divya: It's not just that. I think that it's beyond that because I am not going to be convinced by a well written copy. I am not as focused on well written copy, but because you know that that can make an impact on a buyer like you. Like, you implicitly understand that well written copy can actually make you buy something or not buy something. So then you are way more likely to pay attention to it because you know that it matters.

 Kahran: Yeah.

People are more likely to make purchasing decisions based on referrals, right

 Divya: So now, like, let's say there is one personality type that is, like you, right? Which is, somebody who is more likely to take, like, you know, purchasing decisions or, like, life decisions based on referrals and expertise of the people around them. generally does deep dive, at the moment. Like, there is temporality to the knowledge acquisition, and then there is, like, a very different personality type, which is my personality, which is like, there is no temporality. I'm, like, acquiring information over a longer duration, and the value of recommendation is really low in my mind, especially when I'm making important decisions. What could be other personality types?

 Kahran: Well, first of all, I'm not sure if the temporal and the referral ness have to go hand in hand.

 Divya: Okay.

 Kahran: Like, there could be people who are, you know, not very temporally driven, but are very expert driven. So, fine, so there can be more combinations thereof. I think there's a lot of unknowns in this space, right? Like, I don't think we fully understand what makes people do things because, sure, part of it is, circumstances or situations that we control, but there's a lot of situations that we don't control that lead up to someone's behavior in a certain circumstance. So I feel like some of the early thinking we did at joyous, some of those models around how do you move people on a journey of behavior are actually quite sensible, because I do think the emotional, resonance that people are looking for may be separate from this kind of more cognitive way that we're thinking about it right now. You need something to grab your curiosity, whatever that is. And then you need to look to understand that this thing actually has value and substance. And then you need to understand that, you know, that it's the kind of thing that's right for you. So I think that there's maybe an emotional journey that people are going on that's kind of separate. There may be different things that trigger their curiosity or different things that give reassurance or different things that give, I don't know, fulfillment. But the emotional thing they're looking for is the same. How do you feel about that?

 Divya: Makes a lot of sense, and I'm thinking about, like, something kind of completely different. But you know that love, language model, like, what's your love language? And, then there are like, you know, different people acquire their love. Language is based on their upbringing, right. it's almost like that. So, sure, we would all be looking for a certain emotion. And they would, like, we all sort of feel the emotion similarly, but it can come from different places and it can take different shapes that make sense. Right. So, like, for example, both you and I, while making a decision, are probably looking for trust in a brand, but how we are acquiring that trust is different.

 Kahran: Yeah, exactly.

 Divya: but, like, if a brand understands how to cultivate trust, so rather than centering themselves around, oh, people get trust x way and y way and z way and a way, they're just like, okay, we want to be, like, a trustable brand so that they don't have to almost do this, like, weird shipping themselves to the end user kind of a situation. Does that make sense? Did I, like, mix up too many ideas?

 Kahran: No, no, no, it did. what I was actually thinking about as an example, while you were talking was, do you remember how coke used to do all those things with the polar bears for a while, like, especially in the early two thousands?

 Divya: I don't know, really.

 Kahran: Like, there were all these coke ads.

 Divya: Tell me.

 Kahran: Unfortunately, I don't remember super clearly, but I think it was coke. Cool. It was definitely not Pepsi. but used to do these ads with polar bears. and it was before people worried about polar bears, right? It was before climate change was such a persistent thing in everyone's minds. But I think what it did is it had this way of conveying, you could convey in these ads different things to different kinds of people. You would still have your beautiful, scantily cladd women to kind of grab some kind of people, but then you would have this kind of elements of, like, whimsy you could convey with these animals. And then you were conveying this sense of, like, like, surety that it's the thing you want with, like, you know, it's all cold and there's. Right, like, the visuals, obviously, are of ice. And. And what I was just kind of thinking about is, I think maybe older school advertising, like, the more kind of, like, clever sort of advertising that I think we saw in the sixties and for some decades after that used a lot of these principles, right? They were thinking about, how do I convey trust to not just one kind of person, but five different kinds of people, right? Or how do I invoke curiosity? Like, there's that really famous lemon ad, right, of the Volkswagen bug. right. Then they just said lemon and they made it yellow. Ah. And I think that was just a way of evoking curiosity from many different kinds of people. You were like, why is the car yellow? What does it mean to be even if you didn't understand what much about cars, it evoked curiosity. What was the controversy? Right. If you're into politics. Right. Like, why were they. What are the controversy they're referencing? Right. They were a way of just getting that same emotion from different kinds of people.

 Divya: Yeah. So, like here in these coke ads or, the Volkswagen ad, another thing that's happening is they're really not thinking as much about the end user. They are just thinking about, okay, these are the things that we want to convey to, and not in an artsy, sort of, like, you know, self aggrandizing way, but almost there.

 Kahran: Yeah. It's in some ways, it's knowing you're not gonna meet all of your users where they are because you're going to meet some of your users where you want to meet them.

 Divya: Yeah.

 Kahran: You know, and I think as a society, we kind of had gone in that other direction where we're like, oh, it's important to meet everyone a little bit, even if we're not really deeply connecting with people. Right. That's why our ads now are of the product. You see big burgers, like, landing and whatnot. Right. Because that's really clear for everyone to.

 Divya: Understand, because, like, that's the only thing that, quote, unquote, everybody who's using this product will connect on that. They are using this product. That is so interesting.

 Kahran: It's interesting. I think part of it maybe comes from we're living through a period where it's harder to ignore parts of your audience, whereas before, it would be easier to ignore parts of your audience. Right? Like, Subarus, infamously, were driven by lesbians. like, all, you know, forever. Like, it was just this, like, association, right? But, like, Subaru never acknowledged that for thousands of years. It's only, like, in the last few years that Subaru was like,

Steve: For the longest time, branding and marketing and advertising were constrained

 Divya: I wonder if there is also two forces at play here. So, one, earlier, it was assumed that people who were marginalized did not have financial power. So whether it was women or people of color or people of marginalized sexualities, nationalities, whichever, they really didn't have the power. So people didn't need to make ads that looked like those people or address the concerns of those people because, oh, if you want to buy it, you buy it. But we are making the ad for, like, you know, a suburban, middle aged white man, and that is where it's at. But also, I'm not very sure if, like, right now, when people, when everybody has an opinion on every product's branding, maybe you're not the target audience for that product. And like, does everybody need to be a target audience for every product?

 Kahran: That's the thing. I think that's what we're seeing right now is almost a fear to say that I'm not right for everyone.

 Divya: Yeah. Especially because the people that you explicitly say you're not right for can actually come and be like, but why am I not right for you? How dare you?

 Kahran: Yeah, it's definitely an interesting aspect, I think, of the culture we're living in and then also how that's intersecting with the way people make decisions because that has not changed. Kinds of people that exist does not change. But I think because we're living through this cultural moment, it almost makes it feel, I don't know, I feel like it's harder. It's harder to know what is right for me, I guess. Right. It's harder to feel like there's a set of products that are being built for me because I don't feel like anyone's trying to tell me that story. People are trying to give me the ability to make the choice, but in some ways that's just very frustrating, because I want someone who's going to wink at me in a way that I feel like I'm being winked at. Right. Think back and then, yeah, I'll buy your sweatshirt.

 Divya: That is so true. And I've been thinking about that also in context of AI. So for the longest time, branding and marketing and advertising really were constrained by the limits of how expansive you could make things. Because some things were too costly to produce or make. Even ads, some of them were just too costly to make. even conceptualized. So your brain wouldn't even go there. But now, if you could conceptualize everything, where does that take branding and marketing? Not just from like, you know, end output is easy to create kind of point of view, but even conceptualization and thinking and creative direction is like amplified.

 Kahran: I don't know why you were just reminding me of this, but do you remember that BMW did a series of short movies? This must have been the mid two thousands, with, a real Hollywood actor and proper production. Did you ever see these?

 Divya: No.

 Kahran: Oh, they're so amusing. I remember one of them I loved, it was called the chase or something. And sure, it was kind of about the car, but it was also just a movie and it was cool and it was a big stir at the time because nobody was doing something like that. But I think what's interesting is they had said whatever their decision matrix was. But like, there was a set of their audience that this was going to appeal to, and they almost gave them something really deeply powerful no one else would even understand. Why would you invest this much into doing this? But there's a set of the audience that's really going to appreciate that. So I don't know. I think when you were talking just now about the possibility with AI, I think that could maybe also be. One of the possibilities is that you do kind of divide your audience more. But instead of you having to just choose one segment and say, this is my favorite segment of. Because our costs of production are so much lower that we should be able to give our nod and wink to a couple of our segments and have to, You should be able to help people feel supported without helping everyone feel generic.

 Divya: Hm. That is very hopeful. And I like that.

 Kahran: I like to give a nice summation when we try to round things up.

 Divya: Yeah. But this was a really lovely conversation.

 Kahran: It really was. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. Bye bye.

 Divya: Thanks for listening to this episode of thinking on thinking. Our theme music is by Steve Goombs.

 Kahran: If you found this topic to be interesting or have other topics you wish we would explore on a future episode, please reach out to us at, our website, joyous studio.