Why It Works: The illusion of effort is a powerful behavioural driver for B2B marketing

Biases don’t really work in B2B, do they? I get told this a lot.

Are we still fallible humans at work? Well, obviously, yes. We don’t leave our emotions at the office door. But workplace decisions can often be larger scale.

A piece of software for a 2,000-strong workforce. A million-pound contract sign-off. The stakes are high. So, where does the influence of biases stop on the purchasing scale from latte to legal counsel, sandwich to security system?

It’s a great question, and one that’s inspired plenty of discussion.

Do we think more clearly when the price goes up?

One of the most famous academic debates in behavioural science was between Ken Binmore and Richard Thaler.

Binmore, an English mathematician, argued that irrational decision-making might bedevil trivial purchases like a can of Coke, but for big decisions like choosing a car or picking a supplier at work, people have a vested interest in thinking things through more carefully.

Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler begged to differ. He argued that the higher the stakes, the more significant the impact of behavioural biases. After all, when it comes to life’s big calls, we don’t get many chances to practice. And feedback is often delayed by years or decades.

Why It Works: How Costa Coffee uses behavioural science to entice consumersSo, while Binmore believed high-stakes decisions brought out rational behaviour, Thaler contended that they expose our greatest vulnerabilities.

The academic consensus favours Thaler. But marketers seem to have gone in the other direction as behavioural science is regularly used in FMCG marketing but far less so in B2B.

Are the sceptics right? Does behavioural science only work in small-scale consumer decision making?

Working with Transmission and NewtonX I explored the impact of the field in a B2B setting. We picked 10 biases that had been proven in the consumer world and tested them in B2B. We found that 90% of them retained a positive effect.

Hard work wins hearts

One of the biases we looked at was the illusion of effort. This is the idea that exactly the same service will be viewed as better quality if we believe lots of effort has gone into it.

For our B2B study, we showed 500 buyers an identical ad for a fictional cybersecurity firm. You can see it below:

All that differed was the perceived effort behind it. Participants were randomly told one of three backstories:

• Low effort: “This ad was created in 10 minutes by AI.”
• Medium effort: “This ad took a week to make by a specialist agency.”
• High effort: “This ad took three months, involving both an agency and a Japanese origami artist.”

The content never changed — only the story behind it. And the impact on perception was striking.

Only 38% of the AI group trusted the brand. But in the high effort condition? Trust jumped to 59% — an improvement of around 55%. And it didn’t stop there. The apparently high effort ad generated more appreciation across a suite of metrics, as the table shows.

	Low Effort	Medium Effort	High Effort	Change in metric high vs low effort
Trustworthiness	38%	51%	59%	+55%
Creativity & Design	43%	54%	60%	+40%
Innovation	40%	47%	61%	+53%
Appeal of Ad	54%	57%	71%	+31%

Clearly, the illusion of effort still has a powerful influence in professional settings, even when it comes to choosing a critical business service like cybersecurity. When we see someone has worked hard — even if that effort doesn’t change the outcome — we appreciate the offering all the more.

So, if your brand is investing in craft, like creative storytelling or detailed design work, or any other high-effort endeavours, make sure you shout about it.

You customers don’t just judge you on your output — they factor in the process behind it. In a marketplace where slick shortcuts abound, effort signals integrity.

Breaking the mould

The illusion of effort is not the only bias that holds in a workplace setting.

Another bias that’s attracted attention is the red sneakers effect. Essentially, this describes the observation that people who knowingly break with convention are perceived as high status. Think Steve Jobs in a turtleneck and jeans rather than shirt and tie.

The phenomenon was originally studied by psychologists Silvia Bellezza and Francesa Gino. In 2014 they asked 159 respondents to rate the status and competence of a professor, based on a short description. In different groups, the professor was described as having either conformist or non-conformist attributes (e.g. “He typically wears a tie to work and is clean-shaven” vs “He typically wears a T-shirt to work and has a beard”).

The results? The non-conformist professor was rated as 14% more competent than the conformist.

Generative AI might not be the efficiency booster you hope it will beUnfortunately, some of Gino’s work has been subsequently discredited — and anyway, we wanted to see what would happen in a professional setting. So, we set out to test the red sneakers effect ourselves.

We showed our sample one of two images of a businesswoman presenting at a cybersecurity conference. In one, we told the participants she was conforming to the dress code, wearing a smart blue suit and sensible heels. In the other, we said she was non-conforming — casually attired in stylish sweats and red trainers.

Next, we asked participants a few questions about the speaker: about how respected and innovative they were perceived to be, along with their credibility and trustworthiness.

You can see the scale of the results below.

	Conformist	Non-conformist	Change in metric
Competency	60%	85%	+42%
Respect	52%	82%	+58%
Innovative	47%	67%	+43%
Trustworthy	54%	71%	+31%

Across the four metrics on average the non-conformist was rated 43% higher.

Psychologists think this happens because people assume you must be high status to be bold enough to flout conventions.

What to take from this — apart from, obviously, never wearing a suit if you’re presenting at a stuffy conference? Well, it’s clear that defying the status quo garners respect and conveys confidence in a business setting as much as it does among the general population.

So as a brand, don’t be afraid to break the rules of your category. Psychology shows us you’ll do your brand a favour.

And as for the Thaler and Binmore debate? It seems Thaler was right. When it comes to decisions of consequence — the kind you take at work — behavioural biases matter.