Why Your Brain Falls for the Casting Trick

In my neighborhood there are two coffee shops. The first serves only white, middle-aged businessmen in suits. The second buzzes with customers of all ages, ethnicities, and styles. Without reading a single menu, which shop do you think offers more variety?

Your brain just made a snap judgment. And it probably got it wrong.

This isn't about coffee shops. It's about a fascinating quirk in how we process information. When we see different types of people using a product, we automatically assume the product must cater to different types of needs. It's logical, intuitive, and an interesting tool for marketing.

Stanford researchers call this the Variety Perception Effect. And smart marketers are already using it to make their brands look bigger without spending a dime on product development.

It’s June 22nd, 2015. Chevrolet sends out a press release to announce the reveal of the new Cruze. But guess what? It’s all written in emojis🤔 No words, just funny pictures (some even made up by Chevy, like its own “bow tie” logo.) The goal was to appeal to the younger generation of buyers. But that backfired, as it was a real struggle to make sense of it until they provided a ‘translation’ - the standard press release using English written words.

Nobody can deny the popularity and impact of emojis in modern digital communication, from social media to email, SMS and websites. The current version 16.0 of the emoji encyclopaedia (Emojipedia.org) boasts 3790 pictographs and is constantly growing (Unicode.org 2024). In the last ten years, almost 22% of global tweets (close to 3 billion) contained at least one emoji! And 92% of the world's online population uses emojis (Daniel 2021).

Imagine you’re in a cozy bistro. You’re browsing the menu, thinking about what you feel like eating. Now imagine a message on your table:

“We are committed to reducing food waste - you can help! About one-third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. As our beloved guest, you can make a difference.”

What do you do? Chances are, you’ll order more mindfully, and leave less on your plate.

Juan's Chocolate Problem and What It Taught Scientists

Meet Juan, a young adult with a serious problem with chocolate. When researchers wanted to help him eat healthier, they didn't just tell him "avoid chocolate" like everyone else. Instead, they crafted a message specifically for him: "Juan, the chocolate you eat in times of stress could be replaced by nuts, avocado or citrus fruits." 

This wasn't just good advice; it was the foundation of a groundbreaking neuroscience study that would finally prove why personalization works so incredibly well. Spanish researchers Casado-Aranda and colleagues just cracked this code. They recruited 29 people like Juan, with self-reported poor dietary habits like eating too much chocolate or hamburgers. These people laid into fMRI scanners and watched their brains respond to personalized versus generic health messages.

Imagine walking down the cleaning aisle and spotting the newest plug-in room freshener with packaging adorned with scrumptious looking cinnamon rolls. You can almost smell it, right? That’s not just your imagination, it’s a powerful psychological phenomenon at play. 

A recent study by Sharma and Estes (2024) reveals that pictures of scented objects can actually make us "smell" them in our minds, influencing how we evaluate and choose products. Olfactory imagery can play a vital role in consumer decision making.