Weekend Wrap-up #01 - Water Fuss!!!

So as I wait for my LinkedIn poll to decide the name of this weekly series - I thought it may be a good idea to decide on what I wanted to write about. (Well it is now unanimously in favour of the above name.)

The toss up for me was between the impact of Cristiano Ronaldo’s action on Coca Cola and the much discussed leadership skills of  Simon Kjær, the captain of the Denmark soccer team.

Now while the latter would make for more inspirational reading, the former seemed like more fun to write about.

I guess we’ve all read more that enough on the incident, but here is a look at the cognitive biases that I felt came to the fore in its context. I have focused on just three biases - read on to see them in action.

1. The Band Wagon Effect

The Bandwagon effect refers to our habit of adopting certain behaviours or beliefs because many other people do the same.

Now in the last week we saw brands, bloggers and everyone possible (including yours truly) writing about the incident. This is a classic demonstration of the Band Wagon Effect in action.

2. The Authority Bias

The Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion.

As soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo sat down for a press conference at the European Championship Monday, he pushed aside two Coca-Cola bottles placed in front of him.

“Água,” he said in Portuguese, picking up a bottle of water and seemingly encouraging others to do the same. “No Coca-Cola.”

Being a renowned health and fitness fanatic his action and words had an immense impact on fans. So much so that it is believed to have shaved out $4B off the market value of Coca-Cola. This in-fact brings us to the third bias for the day.

3. Illusory Correlation

Illusory Correlation is when we see an association between two variables (events, actions, ideas, etc.) when they aren’t actually associated.

Now while the jury is still out on this one, a lot of experts seem to suggest that the stock price of Coca-Cola was already  dropping before the excitement around the incident began to build up.

This is the first in a series of Weekend Wrap-ups that I intend to write about. Going over the week that was and pulling out an interesting occurrence and analysing some aspect of it. Hope you enjoy it.

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