Latest Unthinking - May

Endless exhibition rooms, 4 genius marketing moves, 96 Love Sundays, Again applicants and 3 highlights from the last 4 weeks at Unthink 🚀

Are you ready?

The Museum Fatigue Principle.

Those in the world of experiential design, including Unthink, will know about the Museum Fatigue Principle.

When you go to a museum, there’s generally more than one room.

The more rooms, the more susceptible you are to Museum Fatigue.

Even the most avid museum goer suffers from the Museum Fatigue Principle.

Museum Fatigue Principle: A decline in attention, interest, and energy as people move through an exhibition.

The result: Low attention being paid to the final rooms, and people rushing through as the smell of coffee and cake beckons.

Sound somewhat familiar to your traditional workshop?

Before we go into the solutions for us in L&D, we need to know why this happens:

Attention Economy: Your cognitive and physical resources are limited, and they're front-loaded into the first part of the visit UNLESS your design doesn’t allow it…

So what?

Without intervention, people remember the first part of an experience better than the middle or end.

So what?

Behaviour change starts with knowledge retention, so we as L&D professionals must pay attention to how we’re engaging learners throughout the WHOLE day to avoid the Museum Fatigue Principle.

Whether you’re in L&D or not, it’s something to be aware of if your tasked with holding peoples attention for a period of time.

At Unthink, amongst a smorgasbord of tactics, there’s one we frequently pull on to avoid the Museum Fatigue Principle.

That is the Peak-End rule: people judge an experience based on its most intense moment (the "peak") and how it ends, rather than the entire event as a whole.

Craft these memorable moments into the day to combat the Museum Fatigue Principle, anchor learning, and boost knowledge retention.

Puresport. One of the many challenger fitness-come-wellbeing brands on a mission to “build a movement that encourages people to commit to a long-term, sustainable approach to well-being”.

It’s a busy market nowadays with brands in the space looking to capitalise on the overnight interest in running clubs, supplements and apparel.

And the marketing spend from the big players is enormous.

So for companies like Puresport that want to stand out, you have to play at your own game. Or run your own race to use their language.

And that’s exactly what they did at the London Marathon this year.

Here are 4 smart moves Puresport made to capture the sideline headlines:

1. Roadside Recovery Activation - Puresport planted petrol station styled electrolyte pumps for runners at mile 24 to give them a final top up.

2. Harmonious partnerships - Teaming up with The Savoy, Oliver Proudlock, Xiaoxuan Jerry Sun and Mitch Tucker, Puresport met their audiences where they are by bringing three trending names together to deliver room service with a marathon twist. By commenting on their Instagram post the night before the marathon you could have bagged yourself room service direct to your door with a puresport care package.

3. Heathrow takeover - welcoming runners from around the world who arrived in style. A wholesome way to get a good first touch with new international audiences.

4. Carbs on the cards - taking over an Italian and covering the bill for any marathon runners.

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See you again in June!

Team Unthink 🫶

Graphic of the month chosen by Tom Mitchell: