Learn about praising competitors; star stuff and gravity assists with the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe; and the strange history rock paper scissors.
Learn about praising competitors; star stuff and gravity assists with the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe; and the strange history rock paper scissors.
Praising a competitor can lead to greater sales for brands by Steffie Drucker
More from Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson, hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe (listener questions from Peter and Lohith):
The Strange History of Rock Paper Scissors by Cody Gough
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CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. I’m Cody Gough. Today, you’ll learn about how praising a competitor can lead to greater sales for brands. Then, we’ll also answer a couple listener questions about our universe and the physics that govern it, with help from the hosts of the hit podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. And we’ll wrap up with a little rock, paper, scissors. Today is my last episode, and I’m gonna go out with a big bang! So let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Social media is weird. Just take the way that brands have created quirky online personas that joke, roast, and meme just like we do. This strategy can often earn them fans and criticism in equal measure. But as funny as it is to see two brands in an online flame war, new research published in the Journal of Marketing shows we all just want them to get along. It turns out that brands who compliment competitors online get more sales.
It might sound unbelievable, but competitor compliments do happen. Researchers from Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Duke University opened their study on this with the story of a 2017 Twitter exchange between gaming giants. The day that Nintendo launched the Switch, Xbox and PlayStation tweeted their congrats. Researchers found that the applause earned those accounts more than 10 times as many likes and retweets as their usual content. Replies to their congratulatory tweets were overwhelmingly positive, too.
But beyond that, there aren’t a ton of examples of brands playing nice! So the researchers got creative. They mocked up some fake tweets by the candy bar KitKat and showed them to 1,500 participants. Half saw a tweet congratulating their competitor Twix with a message that said “Competitor or not, congrats on your 54 years in business! Even we can admit — Twix are delicious.” The other half saw a tweet where KitKat talked about its own products — the tweet just said “Start your day off with a tasty treat!”. The team checked in on participants’ purchases 11 days later. Those who had seen KitKat’s congratulatory tweet went out and bought the candy bar a third more frequently than those who had seen the self-promotional tweet. But even though the tweet mentioned and even celebrated their competitor, Twix sales didn’t increase.
The scientists’ explanation is that seeing a brand be kind to its competitor makes us feel more fondly about them. Just like when we see a person being kind to others, the brand’s actions make them seem warmer and more trustworthy. But, also just like with people, it has to seem like the brand really means it. Praising a rival had no benefit if consumers felt it was disingenuous. The same went for flattering a random, unrelated brand.
Brands have met plenty of skepticism for acting like people online. But scientists were surprised to discover that people who were most suspicious of brands responded most positively to this social media sweetness.
This study shows that it’s not called “friendly competition” for nothing!
We received a couple physics-related listener questions, so my longtime cohost Ashley Hamer and I got in touch with a couple pretty cool people to answer them. Physicist Daniel Whiteson and cartoonist Jorge Cham are the hosts of the super-popular science podcast “Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe” — which, according to my Spotify dashboard, is a show that a lot of Curiosity Daily listeners are already familiar with. And Daniel and Jorge were kind enough to help us explain the universe — or, at least, the answers to a couple questions. The first question comes from Peter, who asks: how is it that we are all made of stardust, billions of years after the stars have exploded? Slight correction here that the Carl Sagan quote he’s referring to says that we are all made of star STUFF, not star DUST, but you get the point. Either way, here’s Jorge on how it’s possible that that’s what we’re made of.
[CLIP 1:41]
Talk about an answer that’s OUT OF THIS WORLD! The second listener question comes from Lohith, who said he was curious about how spacecraft move around in space, and he came across a term known as “gravity assist.” He said he didn’t understand the concept clearly, and he was hoping we could help. And help we will! So here’s Daniel.
[CLIP 1:41]
I hope that gives you a better understanding of what a gravity assist is. Although, if you ARE a fan of Star Trek, then you might know the term as “gravitational slingshot,” as seen in The Next Generation episode “Booby Trap” from Season 3. Again, that was Daniel and Jorge from the hit podcast “Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe.” And they have a new book called “Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe,” which you can pick up in today’s show notes!
With roots that may date at least as far back as the time of the Chinese Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), Rock Paper Scissors is one of the oldest games used for making decisions in human existence.
In London, England, The Paper Scissors Stone Club was actually founded because of the issuance of an 1842 law declaring, quote, “any decision reached by the use of the process known as Paper Scissors Stone between two gentlemen acting in good faith shall constitute a binding contract. Agreements reached in this manner are subject to all relevant contract and tort law.”
Yes, that’s right: British law codified acceptable uses for mid-19th century iterations of Rock Paper Scissors.
And according to the club’s founders, this law was seen as, quote, “a slap in the face to the growing number of enthusiasts who played it strictly as a recreational activity, since for many constables it was taken to mean that the game could not be played simply for sport. The club was founded and officially registered to provide an environment free from the long arm of the law where enthusiasts could come together and play for honour.”
Let’s recap what we learned today.
So here we are! Today is my last episode of Curiosity Daily.
I can’t tell you how amazing [what an honor] it’s been to be your host…
And I know you’re wondering…what’s Curiosity Daily gonna be like after this episode? Who’s gonna host it? What’s it gonna sound like? Well like I said before, thanks to a linear progression of time and space… we don’t know. Because that’s in the future, and according to science, we can’t predict the future.
If you already follow Curiosity Daily, then you won’t have to change anything; you’ll automatically get new episodes. That way, you’ll be hearing the same thing a bunch of whales listen to when they go on a long journey together: podcasts. What, you didn’t think I’d leave you one more pun for the road?
[ad lib optional]
CODY: The writer for today’s story about praising competitors was Steffie Drucker. The Curiosity Podcast and Curiosity Daily were originally created by me, Cody Gough. And, for the last time, I’ll say that I produced and edited this episode. Curiosity Daily is distributed by Discovery.
I hope you learned something. And I hope you had fun. Thank you for listening. And stay curious.