The Halo Effect

The science of communication, how small things make a big difference

What is The Halo Effect?

The halo effect is a cognitive bias in which someone’s overall impression of a person (or company) influences how they perceive their character or ability in other areas. While it sounds logical and straight forward, this bias affects our decisions every day in ways we never realise.

The halo effect works in both positive and negative directions. This means if an observer likes one aspect of something, they will have a positive predisposition toward everything about it. If the observer dislikes one aspect, they will have a negative predisposition toward everything about it.

In the digital world we are bombarded with messaging and our attention is stretched. We all understand that the quality of our content makes a difference, but we completely underestimate the impact of tiny changes in experience. We decided to run an experiment in partnership with content production agency AMOVEO, where we combined video and neuroscience techniques to test the effects that making small changes had on the overall experience.