Featured · Foundations
Attention is a loan, not a gift
Every second of attention you ask for is borrowed against future trust. Most marketing forgets to repay it — and then wonders why the audience has stopped lending.
The library
Essays on why people choose.
Long-form notes on attention, memory, trust and the ethics of influence. Written for people who make marketing decisions and want to make them well.
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Read in any order. Return often.
Each essay stands alone. Together they make an argument: understand the person, earn the attention, build for memory, and stay honest.
Foundations
Attention is a loan, not a gift
Every second of attention you ask for is borrowed against future trust. Most marketing forgets to repay it.
Psychology
Two systems, one decision
People decide quickly, then explain slowly. Marketing that only speaks to the explanation will always arrive late.
Strategy
Mental availability beats persuasion
Most growth doesn’t come from changing minds. It comes from being the name that arrives when a need does.
Ethics
The ethics of influence
The techniques are neutral. The intent is not. A practical test for telling persuasion from manipulation.
Strategy
Better is not a strategy
“We’re better” is the most common and least useful claim in marketing. Here is what to say instead.
Practice
The 60/40 rule
The most patient idea in marketing is also the most profitable. Why brand building still pays — and how to protect it.
How to read this
A note on evidence.
Marketing psychology is a field with a replication problem. Some of its most quoted findings — ego depletion, certain priming effects, the stronger claims about power posing — have not held up. I try not to build arguments on them.
Where I cite research, it is usually work with large samples, commercial data, or a long record of practical replication. Where I am reasoning from experience rather than evidence, I try to say so. You should treat these essays the way you should treat any marketing advice: as a set of hypotheses to test against your own market, not as laws of nature.
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New essays arrive by email first.
One considered essay every other Sunday. No round-ups, no growth tips, no urgency.