In 1927 British cinemas specified that a proportion of films shown had to be made in Britain. So to avoid losing out, American studios set up production facilities locally and churned out ‘quota quickies’. Many of the films, like the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, were so bad that they were screened to empty cinemas while cleaners were working.
All Threads
If you’ve ever come up with your Bucket List then you have Hollywood to thank for it. Computer programmers had occasionally used the term in a different context, but its current meaning – the things you want to do before you die – originated from the 2007 film with the same name.
Budweiser had a problem at the 2022 World Cup: Qatar, the host nation, banned the sale of beers. Rather than letting millions of litres of beer go to waste, the brand created a campaign called #BringHomeTheBud, stating that the company would send all the beers to the winning nation. A smart way of standing out and earning publicity during a potential crisis.
Actually, bulls are colourblind to red, so it’s not the bullfighter’s cape that makes them angry – it’s the movement of the cape.
In the early days of Bumble, founder Whitney Wolfe Herd noticed signs banning social media apps in university classes. So she decided to hang additional signs, with Bumble included on the list of forbidden apps. “No one knew what Bumble was yet, so when we associated ourselves with these products … we inserted ourselves into the assumption that that would be the app that they would want to use in class,” she said. “All of a sudden, those downloads started going up.”
At age 22, Whitney Wolfe helped launch Tinder, but left a few years later before filing a lawsuit against the company alleging sexual harassment. The ensuing attention from the media – and cyberbullying from strangers – prompted her to launch Bumble, a dating app where women make the first move.
In 1519, Hernán Cortés (literally) burnt bridges when he and his men set foot for the first time in continental America – a surefire way of avoiding desertion during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and an early example of commitment devices in action.
99% of UK businesses have fewer than 250 employees, and 75% have no employees whatsoever.
The drumming gorilla is one of the most iconic campaigns of the 21st century. Yet the “Trucks” sequel failed to engage audiences, despite sharing exactly the same campaign idea. Inanimate objects simply don’t resonate as much as (seemingly) real animals.
Consider these two statements about lung cancer outcomes. 1) The one-month survival rate is 90%. 2) There is 10% mortality in the first month. Although the information is identical, surgery is much more popular in the former frame (84% of physicians choose it) than in the latter (where 50% favour radiation).
Charles Douglass invented canned laughter in 1953, as a way of signalling funny moments within TV shows. By hearing others laugh, the audience knew when they should laugh. But this was long before the term ‘social proof’ was invented.
Residents of Notting Hill, west London, received more in capital gains than the combined population of Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. More broadly, the top 0.1% of UK adults received 86.4% of gains (FYI this is money received from selling an investment for more than the purchase price).
1769 Captain Cook wanted sailors to eat sauerkraut to ward off scurvy, but they disliked the foreign ‘kraut’ and wanted to stick to their own food. So Cook made sure it was only served at the officers’ table, and after a week all the sailors wanted some: authority bias in action.
After watching a video of a car crash, people estimate the cars to be going much faster (40 mph) when they’re asked about the cars ‘smashing’ into each other, versus ‘hitting’ each other (34 mph). One simple word has a big impact on our memory.
The danger of car collisions isn’t linear. You’re very unlikely to die when going at less than 20 miles per hour. But at 30 miles per hour, about one in five pedestrians will not survive. And at 40 miles per hour, this goes up to half.