Hey 👋 The Crew here.
You’ve probably seen a bunch of AI-generated videos of influencers in various bizarre situations. But you probably haven’t seen this awesome Spiderman video we just watched on Reddit.
Turns out, Google forgot to turn on Veo-3 copyright filters for a few days, and you could make these types of videos without worrying you’ll burn expensive credits for nothing.
Forgot? Or “forgot.” We’ll never know…
Reading time: 4 minutes, 44 seconds
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Why the fastest-growing subscription brands don’t “fight churn” they engineer loyalty
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Primacy Effect
Can you remember the first thing you did when you woke up this morning?
How about the second? Or the third? At one point, you must’ve had breakfast. Or if you skipped it, you at least brushed your teeth… right?
But what did you do before or after that?
If it wasn’t the very first activity you did, you’ll have a hard time remembering it.
This is something common we experience everyday—Primacy Effect. It’s the mental quirk we humans have of finding it easier to remember information presented at the start than during the middle.
Ever tried to remember stuff on your shopping list and could only recall the first few itemson the list? There you go.
The Primacy Effect is why news headlines shape perceptions: First impressions shape opinions.
Psychologists have backed up the Primacy Effect with multiple studies.
For example, in 1946, Solomon Asch found that people rated a character more positively when positive traits came first.
The best part? The Primacy Effect can make your brand memorable and keep it top of mind, thus influencing shopping decisions of your consumers later on.
A little extra: On the opposite side of the Primacy Effect, there is Recency Bias—which we covered before.
Together, they create the Serial Position Effect, which we also described in the past. So if you want the full package, you better check them all out.
Three ways to leverage the Primacy Effect
1) Hook your audience during the first few seconds
OK, you now know that what comes first gets remembered the best. Now what?
Well, try to make potential customers see or pay attention to your brand so they can remember it afterwards. This is the first step.
According to Entrepreneur, you have 2–3 seconds to capture attention on social media and around eight seconds to do it with your website content.
Otherwise, the chances anyone will remember who you are are zilch. None.
What to do: Start with a bold claim. Usually a strong question. “What if you could cut mindless tasks in half?” Or… “Want to see how I slash my calorie intake with a single tap?”
We often use this approach when advertising this newsletter. This is one example of an ad we ran in another newsletter, Stacked Marketer:
It hooks you. It mentions the brand right away, and you’ll probably keep the name of this newsletter somewhere at the back of your mind.
The easy-to-remember name helps, too!
2) Make a strong case up front
What you display first will be easier to remember, but will also frame everything that follows.
So if you lead with something powerful like your most compelling benefit or an outcome, you’re shaping how the rest of your message is understood and remembered.
In marketing, this applies to most things:
- Start your product page with the clearest outcome (“Save 3 hours a day with our tool.”)
- Put your best-selling product first on the website.
- Lead your emails with a customer win or bold promise.
Dossier, a perfume company, leads its website with brand-building copy and an image of its best-selling product:
You can also lead with a best review, your most appealing plan, and similar.
3) Let your customer speak before you
The first voice your audience hears is the one they’ll remember—and the one that will shape a lasting impression of you.
And sometimes, the most persuasive thing to say is… nothing.
Instead, let a happy customer speak for you, right at the top.
This can have double the impact. You’re leaning into the Primacy Effect by placing the most positive features at the top, but you’re also combining it with social proof.
You see many brands doing this on their landing pages. Slite, a knowledge management tool, shares its interface along with a few testimonials at the top of their landing page.
Try it out on your landing page as well.
Even if your product doesn’t sell right away, the right customer hype can help your brand live quietly in the back of a potential customer’s mind.
Just like that voice that’s telling us it’s time for ice cream…
Until next time!
AI EDUCATION: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Midjourney… So many names, but what’s actually useful for you in your work? There’s a newsletter called The Deep View that exists to sift through all the noise and get you up to speed on what’s actionable with AI products, and it’s free. Join 452,000+ subscribers with one click and let AI empower you.*
META ADS: What makes successful Meta Ads work with small budgets? The Principles-Based Meta Ads Swipe File reveals proven techniques from small brands that convert cold traffic into sales.*
WHATSAPP: What? More ads? Ads are now rolling out globally inside WhatsApp’s Updates tab, which means users will see sponsored content in the Stories-like Status format and in Channels. So far, there’s no mention of ads showing in private chats. Yet.
SOCIAL MEDIA: In the past, social media users logged in to the platform to see pics of their friends and family. Today? They log in to follow brands and find new product information. This report looks into what brands can appeal to this new social media behavior. Check it out.
META: The company’s latest updates to Advantage+ Ad Creative includes new branding and personalization tools that infuse campaigns with logos, colors, fonts, and tone. Plus many more, all pulled from existing assets like Shopify. Nice.
YOUTUBE: Google’s Veo 3 is coming to YouTube Shorts, which means you can generate short-form videos from text prompts, visuals, and sounds. On one hand, this will make it easier for you to automate content production. On the other hand, brace for more AI slop…
SOCIAL MEDIA: Reddit is quietly becoming a legitimate referral source for news publishers, driving millions of pageviews. Publishers are building trust by engaging subreddits thoughtfully, boosting traffic and audience relationships even though there’s no direct monetization yet.
*This is a sponsored post.
ICYMI, last time we looked at the Ratio bias.
The “First impression-setting” Crew
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