Richard Shotton
Marketing decisions are still made on what customers say they want, not what they actually do. The gap between stated preference and behaviour is where most campaign budgets quietly underperform. Closing it requires evidence from psychology and field testing, not another round of focus groups.
Richard Shotton is the founder of behavioural science consultancy Astroten and the author of The Choice Factory and The Illusion of Choice, helping marketing leaders apply psychological evidence to pricing, advertising and brand decisions.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Richard Shotton
- Translates academic behavioural science into specific marketing moves, tested against named consumer brands including Google, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays and Sky through his consultancy Astroten.
- Runs original field experiments rather than recycling textbook biases, giving senior marketers fresh evidence on questions like pricing, costly signalling and admitting weakness.
- Author of two best-selling behavioural science books, with The Choice Factory translated into 15 languages and named Best Sales and Marketing Book at the 2019 Business Book Awards.
- Speaks the language of working marketers, not academics, after starting his career as a media planner on Coca-Cola, Lexus and comparethemarket before turning to behavioural science.
Biography highlights
- Founder of Astroten, a behavioural science consultancy advising Google, Facebook, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays, Sky and Santander.
- Author of The Choice Factory (Harriman House, 2018), available in 15 languages.
- Winner, Best Sales and Marketing Book, 2019 Business Book Awards; voted #1 in the BBH World Cup of Advertising Books, 2018.
- Author of The Illusion of Choice (Harriman House, 2023) and co-author of Hacking the Human Mind (2025).
- Behavioural science columnist for Marketing Week; published in Campaign, The Drum, Admap and The Independent.
- BA in Geography, University of Oxford; MSc in Development Studies, SOAS University of London.
Biography
Most marketing budgets are still allocated on what customers say they prefer. The behavioural science evidence is now overwhelming that what people say and what they actually buy are different things, and that the gap is exploitable. This is the territory Richard Shotton has spent two decades mapping.
He started in the industry as a media planner on Coca-Cola, Lexus and comparethemarket, before specialising in behavioural science. In 2018, he founded Astroten, a consultancy that has since worked with Google, Facebook, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays, Sky and Santander on questions of pricing, advertising and customer acquisition.
His first book, The Choice Factory, set out 25 cognitive biases with concrete examples for marketers. It was named Best Sales and Marketing Book at the 2019 Business Book Awards, voted #1 in the BBH World Cup of Advertising Books, and is now published in 15 languages. The Illusion of Choice followed in 2023, with Hacking the Human Mind co-authored in 2025.
What sets his work apart is the mix of sources. Alongside academic studies, he runs original field experiments, then writes them up for Marketing Week, Campaign, The Drum and Admap. The result is a body of work that gives commercial leaders evidence they can act on, not theory they have to translate.
Key speaking topics
- Behavioural economics in marketing
- Cognitive biases and consumer choice
- Pricing and willingness to pay
- Advertising effectiveness
- Brand building and distinctiveness
- Customer habit formation
- Behavioural field experimentation
Ideal for
- CMOs and marketing directors are making advertising and pricing decisions under tightening budgets.
- Brand and customer teams in consumer-facing categories are rebuilding their acquisition strategy.
- Insight, research and strategy leads who want evidence stronger than stated preference.
- Agency leadership teams responsible for creative and media effectiveness.
Audience outcomes
- A working catalogue of cognitive biases with named examples of how brands have used them commercially.
- Sharper questioning of stated-preference research and traditional focus group outputs.
- Specific tactics for pricing presentation, costly signalling, habit formation and category framing.
- Evidence-led arguments to defend brand investment and creative quality inside the business.
Talks
A counter-intuitive look at how owning a flaw can make a brand more credible and more chosen.
Key takeaways:
- The psychological mechanism behind the pratfall effect and where it works
- Worked examples from real campaigns where admitted weakness lifted preference
- Practical guardrails for when self-deprecation backfires
What behavioural science says about the conditions under which buying behaviour locks in.
Key takeaways:
- The role of context, cues and friction in habit formation
- Why launches, life events and category disruption are habit windows
- Tactics for converting trial into routine purchase
A critical look at the research underpinning purpose-led marketing and what stands up.
Key takeaways:
- Where the original purpose studies overstate their case
- What the data actually supports about values in advertising
- A more defensible way to think about brand meaning
Methods for getting past the gap between stated and revealed preference.
Key takeaways:
- Why traditional surveys mislead on price, ethics and intent
- Field experiments as a sharper tool for marketers
- How to build a research stack that triangulates claim and behaviour