#614 The Psychology Behind Irresistible Brands: Stand Out & Win with Chris Gray

How do you make your brand impossible to ignore—without being obnoxious or gimmicky?

In this power-packed episode of Talking with the Experts, I sit down with Dr. Chris Gray, a world-renowned consumer psychologist and marketing strategist who’s helped brands like Coca-Cola, Nestle, and P&G grab—and keep—customer attention.

Chris brings 30 years of experience decoding how the brain filters information and why most brands fail to stand out. You’ll discover the two powerful levers every business must understand: disruption and relevance.

Disruption gets you noticed. Relevance makes you remembered.

He explains how selective attention works (yes, your brain deletes most of what it sees!), and how to use that insight to craft marketing that sticks. Whether you’re a coach, creative, founder, or marketing professional, Chris reveals strategies you can implement immediately to:

• Disrupt patterns without being pushy.
• Craft messages that truly matter to your audience.
• Connect emotion and insight for long-term brand loyalty.

We also unpack real-life examples from global campaigns and discuss how AI and tech are shifting attention economies. This isn’t about manipulation—it’s about becoming intentionally visible.

Chris’s approach blends neuroscience, strategy, and empathy, empowering you to market smarter, not louder. He believes small businesses can gain the same psychological edge as billion-dollar brands—by applying the science of how people think and decide.

🎧 Ready to stand out the smart way?

Hit play and discover the brain-based branding blueprint to capture attention, drive decisions, and build a brand that’s truly unforgettable.

✨ CONNECT WITH CHRIS

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drchris/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBuycologist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebuycologist/

Website: https://thebuycologist.com

📌 PROMOTION: https://thebuycologist.com/newsletter/

▼ ▼

Transcript

Intro | 00:01
Welcome to Talking With The Experts. Here we discuss all things business. By business owners. For business owners. Here is your host, Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:12
Do you know that the key effect to effective marketing is capturing and maintaining attention? Well, today we're going to learn from Chris Gray about how our brains filter out a vast amount of sensory information through selective attention, making it crucial for marketers to break through this barrier. Now, a little bit about Chris. He has been a pioneering expert in consumer psychology and buying behaviour for three decades. And in that time, he's put his extensive expertise to work helping many of the world's novice Novartis and other and many others, understand consumers' minds to create winning strategies, solve business challenges, innovate effectively and gain an unfair advantage in influencing customer behaviour without feeling or grace. Chris, thank you for joining me on Talking with the Experts. It's such a pleasure to meet you. 

 Chris | 01:07
Thank you, Rose. It is a pleasure to be here with you. 

 Rose | 01:10
Now, why are you doing what you're doing? What prompted you to go into consumer psychology? 

 Chris | 01:17
Yes, that's a great question. It's actually one of the most common questions I get when I tell people what I do and tell them about my background. My background is actually in clinical psychology. I was a psychologist. And so when people hear that I work in sales and marketing, the first question is, how did that happen? And it's a bit of a long story, but I will keep it short. Essentially, I was fascinated by psychology since the moment I could read. I began just exploring... How people think in the mind and the brain and all of those things when you're a kid that you're fascinated by would just my grand remember my grandfather had a set of encyclopedias if anyone remembers those I think I’m aging myself now and I would just sit down and pick a letter, you know, because the books are all, you know, alphabetized and just read through the encyclopedia. 
 So I've always been fascinated by psychology. And so I got my undergraduate degree in psychology and then went on to graduate school and was probably about six months from finishing my dissertation to achieve my doctorate in psychology. And had this realization that I didn't love being a therapist. And the program that I was in was very clinically based. 
 So it was training you to be a therapist. So you can imagine that was a bit of a crisis for me. And so I was fortunate enough to have mentors that were professors, the chair of my dissertation, who did some business consulting as well. And so they kind of took me under their wing for a bit and showed me that, you know, with my degree, there's so many different avenues that I could go down with that. 
 And then I led my first focus group and I fell in love. And that is how my journey began many years ago. And I have two. I've been a consumer psychologist, a qualitative researcher, a consultant for 30 years, and I have never been bored a moment of my life. People are endlessly fascinating. And so that's how I got my start. And I've had the great honour of working with some of the world's biggest and most admired brands, P&G, Coca-Cola, the North Face, Adidas, and the list goes on. And from those experiences, I continue to learn, I continue to grow and use what I've developed and learned with my clients today. 

 Rose | 03:57
Well, fascinating journey, Chris, and I think we all need this opportunity the psychology of business and marketing is such a broad thing. And, you know, we all get... 
 You know, sucked in, so to speak, to these ads that, you know, companies put out. And obviously there's some psychology behind them to get people to buy. 
 So, you know, with, Selective attention, we know that it's a major hurdle for marketers, but how can we get our brains to filter out most of that sensory input? 

 Chris | 04:36
Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because, I'm going to start somewhere that you might not expect. I think the first step to gaining attention and maintaining attention of your potential customers is to be curious. And it is a one of the pillars of my company, the by colleges, I like to call it refer to it as perpetual curiosity and The reason for that is because when you're curious, you're learning. When you think you know it all, when you are incurious, you're no longer learning. And if you're no longer learning about your customers, you are opening yourself to blind spots, to biases, and to missed opportunities that you would have found if you were simply curious about your customer and learning about them. The world is constantly changing. People are constantly changing. The context in which we live is constantly changing. 
 So there's always something new to learn. Your customer is always changing. Their needs, their desires, their aspirations, the challenges they face, always in flux. And so if you stop learning, you're going to miss those opportunities. And so I think the first step to Gaining attention is simply to be curious. And fortunately, curiosity, we all have, you know, sort of all born with a different capacities for curiosity. But the good news is that science has really. Time after time shown us that you can develop curiosity just like a muscle. And so I always encourage my clients to do things to develop their curiosity. And that can be anything from, you know, asking purposeful questions to going to a museum or going hiking or taking something that you do every day mindlessly, right? 
 So maybe it's brushing your teeth, maybe it's driving to work and just being mindful about it. Start noticing things that maybe you would have missed if you weren't actively thinking about it and that will help you start to develop this sense of wonder for the world and That sense of wonder is not something that is you know simply nice to have. It is absolutely essential for business success. And so when we think about attention, the key to attention, there's really, you know, They're, Our brains, as you mentioned, selective attention, right? And I think most people are somewhat familiar with that process, but just to make sure we're all on the same page. Our brains they... Process. About 11 billion bits of information per second. But our conscious mind can only handle about 40 or 50 bits per second. 
 So that's a huge difference, right? And so what happens is your brain is working furiously in the background to anticipate what will be most relevant and important to you so that you can focus your attention on the things that are most important. And so. Just as a quick demonstration for you and your audience, it looks like you wiggle your toes for a second. And if you wiggle your toes, you can feel sensations in your toes. Maybe you can feel the inside of your shoe or the carpet beneath your feet, or you can feel whether they're warm or cold. 
 Well, what does that have to do with anything? Well, probably 30 seconds ago, you weren't thinking about your toes. All of those sensations were there. They just were not, your brain decided that they were not relevant in the moment. And so it said, we're not going to focus on that. And so it allows you to shift your focus to something else because it's Tension is a finite cognitive resource, meaning that we only have so much to give at any moment. Cash in your wallet. I hope kids still use cash once in a while. I know what that is. And you only have so many dollars. 
 So you decide where am I going to distribute those dollars? I can put them all here and spend all my money on this big thing, or I can spread it out and buy a whole lot of little things. And that's exactly how attention works. Because it is a finite resource. If I put all of my attention... On one object or one situation, I am ignoring everything else that's going on around me. Now, I'm not doing that consciously. That is a subconscious process that happens in a split second. And your brain is constantly filtering out all those billions of bits of information that are not important. And so, As I always say. If you are in business, particularly if you are in sales and marketing of any kind, Getting and maintaining attention is your number one Hurdle. Because If your brain decides that you're not one of those 40 or 50 bits of information and filters out your package, your messaging, your commercial, your ads, you've lost any opportunity to communicate with your potential customers. And it doesn't matter how beautiful the ad is, it doesn't matter how clever it is. If it's not something that your customer's brain is latching onto and say, yep, we're going to pay attention to that, then it may as well not even exist. 

 Rose | 10:09
It's difficult. I mean, I know that I found it quite challenging initially to get the attention of my ideal client. 
 You know, I'm put out content regularly. You know, I think that I'm putting out content that, you know, would make someone curious and interested in the service that I'm providing. But, you know, what is that little piece Honey. Thing that you can change. That will get that interest from that person. Because for a lot of us, it's quite challenging. 

 Chris | 10:45
Yes. Well, I would say that your success with the podcast has certainly shown that you know exactly how to do that. But for your audience, I think that the first thing is self-awareness. So important because. We as humans, we are just wrought with cognitive biases and blind spots. And we all have them. We all, you know, there's no shame in having a bias or a presupposition or anything like that. It's what we do with them. And it's how aware we are of them. That is really important is I casually refer to it as main character syndrome. And what that means is that If it's interesting to me, well, it must be interesting to everyone. Right. 
 Well, That's not always the case. Sometimes those line up nicely. Most of the time, Maybe not so much. At least it's not an exact match. And so we have to develop our empathy. And I'm a big advocate for empathy in business, sales and marketing, because I think one of the problems with empathy is that people mistake it either for sympathy or for empathy. Which is feeling sorry for someone, or for simply being nice, which Certainly empathy feels nice when it's practiced, but that's not always the point. And certainly in marketing, sales, business, empathy is about putting yourself in the shoes of your customer and seeing the world from their perspective, setting aside your own perspective, your own biases, your own assumptions about who you're talking to, and being able to step into their shoes so that you can see the world as they do, see them through fresh eyes, and really understand what's going on. What is important to them? What matters to them? What's going to motivate them? And what's going to drive their behaviour? And the better you can do that, the more relevant you're going to be with your audience, the more interested they're going to be in what you have to say, and that relationship then develops from there. 

 Rose | 12:53
Yeah, and I guess, you know, we've got to cause that disruption, don't we? You know, people either perceive a product or service or how they perceive a person or a business. 
 So how do we cause that disruption, Chris? You know, I think that's probably one of the most important vital things in marketing is causing that disruption in people's biases and perceptions. 

 Chris | 13:21
Yeah. So there really are two avenues to attention that I like to talk about a lot. Then there may be others, but I think these are the two most primary when we're talking about sales and marketing or business or entrepreneurship. The first is disruption. And disruption is simply standing out against your environment. 
 So, you know, it's making sure that people see you quickly, hear you quickly. So this is why, you know, school buses are bright yellow. This is why ambulances have sirens. It's so that they stand out immediately and they're impossible to miss to other drivers. Now, disruption... Is you can, achieve that visually you know, sound or visually through colour, movement, pattern disruption. You can do it through hearing, through sound, through things like jingles or beeps and buzzes and those types of things. And there's other, you know, sensorial ways. It's primarily a sensorial experience, right? But the problem with disruptions is that two things really. One, it's entirely contextual. Thank you. 
 So... You... 
 You know, you can only stand out against your environment if you are standing out in the context of that environment. So for example, let's say you're walking down the shelves of a grocery store and Everything in the aisle is sort of drab colours and, you know, beiges, browns and things like that. 
 And then all of a sudden there's this bright orange package. Right? That's disruption. It's standing out against its environment in the context of these drab colours. Now, if you do that and you're very successful at, standing out and getting attention and that leads to success and sales and all of that. Your customers are probably going to catch on, or your clients are, I'm sorry, your competitors are probably going to catch on to that. And they'll start making their packaging bolder and brighter. Now that bold orange package no longer stands out so more because the context has shifted. And so. Disruption is entirely contextual. 
 So you always have to be on top of what's happening in the environment so that I can shift and change. To stand out. The other issue with disruption is it is very successful. At capturing attention for a moment. Literally for a split second. That's all it guarantees. Because if you capture someone's attention for a split second and the brain behind the scenes notices it and says, yeah, it's not interesting. It moves on. It will put attention elsewhere. 
 So this is where a one-two punch comes in play. And the second part of this is relevance. Now, relevance. Is simply meaning that, as we discussed, it is meaningful. To your target, it is important, it's moving, it's motivating, and so they feel strongly about it. And the good thing about, the great thing about relevance is one, it doesn't need disruption. To get attention. True relevance is disruptive in and of itself. And let me give you an example. There's a very, fairly well known, I think. Way of teaching this in like psychology 101 classes. And they call it the cocktail party effect. 
 So imagine that you are at a party, And you're surrounded by people who are having a great time and they're laughing and talking and there's music playing. But you're having a conversation, a one-on-one conversation with a good friend. Now. You're able to focus on that conversation, despite all the chaos around you, due to selective attention. Your brain is filtering out anything that's not relevant. 
 So all the music, the laughter, the other conversations kind of fade into the background, right? They just become background noise. Now, if someone in a conversation nearby says your name, whoa, That gets your attention. Why? 
 Well, because your name is very personal to you and it's very relevant to you. So that relevance is able to draw some of your attention away to say, maybe someone's trying to Dall-E or maybe someone's trying to get me, get my attention. And so that's an example of how powerful relevance can be at breaking through. The key, though, is that relevance is the way to not just... Attract attention for a moment, it is how you engage attention over time. And keep that attention. Because if we only capture attention for a split second, and then our brains move on, that's not gonna help our business. If we can attract that attention for a second and then our brains say, yeah, that's really relevant. I'm interested in that. Then we engage attention over time. And that's when you have the opportunity to tell your story, to get your message across, to be persuasive, to convince them that they should. Do whatever it is that you think they should do. Sign up for a newsletter, listen to your podcast, buy your product, etc., etc. And so it is really the one-two punch of disruption plus relevance that really come together to grab attention and keep it so that you have an opportunity to tell your story. 

 Rose | 19:11
I guess that's how people like McDonald's or Burger King or Nike or Adidas use those two things in unison. To keep their... Customers and potential customers engaged. 
 You know, whether it's through, text or image, you know, they often use colours, you know, certain kinds of colours attract certain types of attention. So in your view, what are, you know, I'm not sure if you do this, but what are the colours that, you know, that attract the most attention, you know, other than the reds and the oranges, because they're not business colours except for McDonald's who uses yellow? 
 Yeah. 

 Chris | 19:55
Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because What I would say is it depends, right? So let's go back to our shelves at the store. Now, when all the items on the shelves are drab colours, then bright colours are going to stand out. If all the colours are crazy, vivid, wild, bold colours. Perhaps something a little more muted might stand out. It is entirely contextual. And so thinking about like McDonald's, let's say, Now, McDonald's, yes, they have bright colours. Those colours play multiple roles, however. Now, they often can be disruptive. Those are bright colours that often stand out. But there's a lot more going on behind the scenes with those colours. Because McDonald's has been, for many of us, a big part of our childhood, and we recognize the brand, those colours represent to us McDonald's. When we see the red and the orange, those bright colours with the golden arches, we instantly create associations with that. Or recall associations with that. 
 So it may be wonderful experiences we had from our childhood. It may be, you know, It may be something that you love on the menu. It may be just recognize the fact that you're hungry. Those colours are part of the brand. And brands are a heuristic that our brains use as a shortcut And so when I see that, I instantly know what's on McDonald's menu. I instantly know what I like there. I start to reminisce perhaps a little bit about gosh, remember when I had my birthday party there and all those things. They have done a masterful job at associating those colours with certain elements and emotions and experiences that then. Become relevant to us so that their marketing and their message gets across to us and it keeps our attention. 
 So I'm not, I won't advocate for any single colour per se, because it is entirely contextual. And it is emotional. And, you know, cognitively, we are making associations with those colours. And when we get branding, right, When we are consistent with our colour palettes or our symbols or things like that, our logos, then people begin to develop associations and hopefully they begin to develop trust and interest. And that is really what gets our attention. 

 Rose | 22:30
Yeah, I guess that's quite true when you put it in that way that, you know, you're right with McDonald's, those particular colours, the, you know, the golden arches, you know, they evoke memories, they evoke. Emotion. And so I guess in our marketing, I suppose emotion is a big part of how we can gain those customers that we're looking for? How do we use that emotion? How do we draw those people to us? 

 Chris | 23:02
- Yeah, great question. You know, The motion Here's the thing, emotion can either be a brand's biggest asset or its most formidable challenge. It just depends on how they approach it. We as human beings, we respond to things emotionally. We have emotional responses to every experience. There's no such thing as an emotionally neutral experience. And so The thing is that your customer, your client, your listeners, they're going to react to your message emotionally, whether they're aware of it or not is a different story. But they're going to respond to your marketing, your messaging, your podcast with emotion. It's a given fact. Now, you can either be strategic in how you approach emotion and what kinds of reactions you're looking for, or you can leave it to chance. And I think that when you are strategic and you're really thinking about what is it that I want to evoke? In my customers, what do they want from me from an emotional experience? What do I want them to leave with from an emotional experience? Then it becomes something that you can actually strategize around and create those emotional responses in a way that is responsible, that is ethical, that creates wins for both you and your clients or your customers. Or it can just kind of be, left a chance. I don't know exactly how they're going to, because I haven't thought about it. And now perhaps I'm going to screw up and they're going to be angry or resentful or sad or whatever it may be that may not be what you want associated with your brand. And so I always advise my clients to be very careful and think very carefully and strategically about what are the emotional connections we want with our brand, our logo, our colours, and then walk it backwards. How do I get from point A to point C or D or whatever that may be, that is the emotional response I'm looking for. What do I need to do to get there? And so that is everything from, again, colours and the... Cognitive experiences that we want people to have. The way we message, the tone of our communications, the way we engage on a customer experience or customer service level. All of those things will play into the associations that people have with your brand. And so being very strategic because trust is the basis of every brand from Purell to Prada. And if you lose that trust, then you lose your brand and you lose effectiveness in your messaging. And trust takes a long time to develop. Those associations, they don't happen overnight, typically. They take years. 
 I mean, think about McDonald's. How long have they been around, right? And it does take time. It takes effort and it takes patience to develop those associations, develop that trust. But they can disappear in a moment if you're not careful. And that's why we really need to be very strategic about what it is that we want our customers to experience. 

 Rose | 26:29
I agree. I think a lot of businesses lately have lost the trust of the public because they've made some bad choice, you know, whether with a product promotion or using the wrong language or just some tiny thing. And people won't buy from them anymore because of that one little error. 
 And then they have to. Try and build that trust up again. And it can be quite a challenge for them. 

 Chris | 26:56
It absolutely can, because now you're, you've got that association, right? So if you do something that, you know, destroy, you know, and it would have to be something probably fairly large to destroy that trust and create a negative association. Now that negative association is going to stick with you for a little bit. And. You can take action to make up for it. You can take action, whatever it is that your customer needs from you, to start building that trust again. But you are starting over. You're not starting from scratch necessarily, but you do now have something that you have to deal with there and that's a negative association. And we certainly have, you know, the, you know, history is rife with examples of brands that have lost their trust. And this is one of the reasons why I think empathy, again, is so important, is because when you can put yourself in your customer's shoes and you can anticipate how they might respond to certain things, and that's when you can avoid those kinds of mistakes, you're at the same time building a relationship. Not just, you know, this is one of the, I mentioned the first. Question that I always get is like, how did you get into marketing? The second one, when I tell people I'm a consumer psychologist, is always something in the realm of... So you use Jedi mind tricks to get people to buy things they don't want. Bye. And, you know, the funny thing is I used to hate that question, but now I love it because it gives me an opportunity to talk about what I do and what I don't do. 
 Look, we can use tricks. You can use psychology tricks to, you know, trick someone into buying something that they really don't want. And we're, as marketers, we have the tools, we are sophisticated, we know how to do those things. I don't recommend it. And, you know, again, like there are zillions of so-called behavioural science experts who maybe read half a book who will talk about psychology hacks and psychology tricks to get your shopper or your customer to buy something. We can do that. We can. We can get just about anyone to buy anything once. Now, Think about your own reaction. We've all, you know, we've all sort of been tricked into buying something that didn't live up to our expectations or we really didn't need it or didn't want it. But in the moment we got caught up. When you realize you've been hacked or tricked or you know, you've been... You've had. 

 Rose | 29:30
An impulse buy for whatever reason, because in that moment you needed that particular thing where you think you did. But when you get it, it's not what it is. 

 Chris | 29:41
Yeah, you've been sort of-- tricked into thinking you needed it in the moment. Now, some impulse buys, like impulse buys can be good. They can actually be things that work out for you very well. But when you feel like you've been coerced or tricked into an impulse body, you start to feel some fairly negative emotions towards the brand and sometimes towards the retailer, even though they're just the store. When people feel like they've been coerced, they start to feel resentment. They start to feel anger, frustration. And if that continues, that can lead to Avoidance. And if that's the... Reaction that people are having to your brand, the association that they have with your brand, you're in a lot of trouble. And so I always say to my clients, look, yeah, we could turn people into it. I don't do it personally. I don't recommend it. But you're much better off. Being open, honest, authentic with your customer base and understanding their needs and helping them to achieve those needs and aspirations in better ways. That builds a relationship because and that's valuable because. The cost, you know, the cost of acquiring new buyers. Is very high. New listeners, new audience members, That takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of money. Versus having people that want to come back again and again. Because they have had a positive experience with you, you've helped them in some way, they have positive associations with you. What that leads to is a customer base that will buy from you more often. They will buy often. They often spend more. They will often refer others to you. They will sing your praises on social media. And that is far more valuable. Than tricking someone into buying once. 
 And then having to find new people to trick and new people to trick and new people to trick. And so, you know, you can go one or two paths there. I don't recommend the psychology hacks and tricks aspect. 

 Rose | 31:52
I don't. I bypass them. 
 You know, you see a lot of things, people are offering all these hacks. And the pursuer's got the word hack in it. I think, no, it's not for me. Because the word itself to me doesn't sit well. It may be quite legitimate, but it's just the word itself has that I don't know. It's just so negative for me. 

 Chris | 32:14
I think that there are a lot of marketers out there that think consumer psychology is like a bag of tricks. You just pull them out and, you know, throw them at your customer and they'll buy stuff from you. And that's just not how it works. It's just not the way that it works. 

 Rose | 32:28
No, absolutely. Now, if you want to learn more from Chris or learn more about Chris, you can find him on LinkedIn at Dr. Chris. He's on Facebook at TheBuycologist. He's on Instagram at TheBuycologist and his website, TheBicologist.com. And you have a newsletter. What's in the newsletter, Chris? 

 Chris | 32:46
I'm so excited about this. We just launched. 
 So my newsletter is called TheBuycologist Brain Trust Newsletter. It comes out once a month. 
 So that's all you get for me. I'm not going to give you any spammy stuff or anything like that. And, I know, right? Because I get way too many emails. 
 So, but what I do with each newsletter is a deep dive into a particular aspect of consumer psychology. So, each month has a theme, attention maybe one, curiosity. I talk about building resilient relationships with your customers. And I do a deep dive into why it's important, what it means to you in business, sales, or marketing. Practical steps you can take to use this information in a way that will actually help you. It's, you know, I come from the world of academia, and it took me a long time to develop the ability to take these heady concepts and bring them down to the ground so that we can actually do something with them. And it is very important to me that the work that I do is not just smart, but that it actually helps people. And so every newsletter will give you practical tips and ways to use the information that you have learned in the newsletter and put it to work for you. 

 Rose | 34:03
Well, I'm going to go and sign up soon as we finish here. That's so good. Chris, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. Is there something else that you might like to share with our audience? 

 Chris | 34:15
Well, I would just like to say, Rose, you're wonderful. Thank you for a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. 

 Rose | 34:22
Thank you so much. 

 Chris | 34:24
Thank you. 

 Outro | 34:25
You've been listening to Talking With The Experts, hosted by Rose Davidson. Make sure you have a look at our back catalogue over at talkingwiththeexperts.com. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss out on any episode. We look forward to your company next time.