Synopsis
Uncover the psychological shortcuts that shape every decision you make – and learn how to use them in business.
Voted #1 in the BBH World Cup of Advertising Books
Winner of the Sales and Marketing Category at the Business Book Awards
Before you can influence decisions, you need to understand what drives them. The Choice Factory is an essential listen for anyone who wants to learn.
By observing a typical day of decision-making, from trivial food choices to significant work-place moves, behavioural science expert Richard Shotton investigates how our behaviour is shaped by psychological shortcuts. With a clear focus on the marketing potential of knowing what makes us tick, he draws on evidence from academia, real-life ad campaigns and his own original research.
Entertaining and highly accessible, The Choice Factory is made up of 25 short chapters, each addressing a cognitive bias and outlining simple ways to apply it to your own marketing challenges. Shotton interviews some of the smartest and most influential thinkers in advertising, including Rory Sutherland, Lucy Jameson and Mark Earls.
Covering everything from priming to the pratfall effect, charm pricing to the curse of knowledge, with The Choice Factory as your guide it has never been easier to apply the science of behavioural economics to marketing.
'Actionable, memorable and powerful' – Seth Godin, bestselling author of This is Marketing
Details
About the author
Richard Shotton began his career in marketing twenty-one years ago before setting up his own company, Astroten. Astroten help clients such as Google, Facebook, Sky, BrewDog and Mondelez apply findings from behavioural science to their marketing.
Richard is the author of The Choice Factory which explains how behavioural science can solve business challenges. The Choice Factory was voted best sales and marketing book of the year at the Business Book Awards. It was a #1 bestseller on Amazon and is now available in 15 languages. He built upon this book in The Illusion of Choice (2023) and is the co-author of Hacking the Human Mind (2025).
In 2021 Richard was made an honorary lifetime fellow of the IPA and an associate of the Moller Institute, Churchill College, Cambridge University.
Reviews
“A guide to your own mind, a roadmap of your blind spots, a toolkit for better advertising. The Choice Factory employs robust behavioral science in an approachable manner to demonstrate how you make and influence decisions.”Faris Yakob, author of Paid Attention
“Actionable, memorable and powerful . . . Shotton has taken the jewels of behavioral economics and made them practical.”Seth Godin, author of All Marketers are Liars
“This book is a Haynes Manual for understanding consumer behaviour. You should buy a copy – and then buy another copy to give to one of the 97% of people in marketing who are too young to remember what a Haynes Manual is.”Rory Sutherland, columnist for The Spectator and Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK
“A top class guide for those who want to put BE to work, rather than just illuminate their journey to work.”Mark Earls, author of Herd
Media enquiries
If you'd like to get in touch with the author for interview or comment, or you'd like a review copy of this book, please contact us at pr@harriman-house.com or call +44 (0)1730 233870.
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