In one of my recent posts I discussed the fact that 90% of our decision-making in life is irrational and that marketers could use this fact to benefit their marketing efforts. Why am I telling you all this again? Because Evan Spiegel (Snapchat’s CEO) just acted as a live case study to prove it.

23 years old Evan Spiegel, CEO of a revenue-less app turned down a $3 billion offer. Why you ask? Because Mark Zuckerberg didn’t treat him nicely. Because of EGO.

Triggered by the “Self-image” emotional trigger, Spiegel decided to give up on what may have been the deal of a lifetime.  Self-image is an emotional trigger that exists in most of us on all different levels. People who are motivated by “self-image” are people who think highly of themselves, do not appreciate being put down, will not settle for second place and care a lot about people’s perception of them, they want to be the winners or at least look like winners.

At conversioner we recognize these triggers and use them. After running our psycho-emotional research we profile our client’s users and find the right emotional triggers that will motivate their users. For example, a self-image person, like Spiegel, may need to be dared.

In one of our most successful tests we used the sentence: “Real winners play for real” – meaning: You’re only a winner if you’re playing for real cash.  It’s all about the messaging and the design. Trigger your users, light up a fire you know exists in them and wait.

For years now offline advertising is based on exactly that; don’t show the product, make them feel it. Think about all those perfume ads on TV, when was the last time you understood one of them?

People buy a product or service for what it makes them feel. Not its features, services or cost, they might say they do but they don’t. People will spend a lot of money to feel good.

And, people will give up on a lot of money ($3 billion to be exact) to feel good too.

Use it or it will use YOU.