What’s the secret theory behind the most popular product hits of all time? 

The theory behind some of the massive product hits isn’t that surprising, it’s rather familiar

Why do we like what we like? We are living in an era, where we witness something new every day. But humans intrinsically don’t actually like new things. In reality, we really hate it. Let’s imagine, listening to a new song for 1 minute and then skipping it because you didn’t like it that much. You go to a nearby store and listen to that song again. Now you think that the song wasn’t that bad. The effect is called the “Mere Exposure Effect” and it is the idea behind the massive product hits of all time. The more someone is exposed to a certain stimuli, there are more chances of them getting familiar with that stimulus. Obviously we like to discover new music but the songs that we enjoy are the ones we are more familiar with. People won’t like new things if they don’t have any similarity with the old things. So how do Brands manage to maintain a balance of familiarity with novelty?

Let’s get back to music again.

In 2015, Spotify Launched a feature called “Discover Weekly” in which they would make a new playlist of 30 songs for its users every Monday. The songs were the ones that the user hadn’t ever listened to. But during the initial stages of testing there was a bug in the algorithm which let old songs (to which the user was already familiar with) slip into those lists. 

The bug was fixed after they noticed it. But by the result of that the engagement of the app decreased. It made Spotify understand that it was that significant amount of familiarity in this “Discover Weekly” feature that made it popular. 

This theory is called MAYA (Most Popular, Yet Acceptable) which was given by the father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy. People are curious about discovering new things but too much surprise and novelty will fear them and there is a fine line that needs consideration. 

The same MAYA was the principle behind the innovation of Coca-Cola Bottles, Sports cars and even NASA’s first orbiter’s interior design. 

There is Neophilia, which is the curiosity and love for discovering new things and there is Neophobia on the other hand which is conservativeness and fear of something that’s too new. And great ‘Hits’ lies somewhere in the middle of familiarity and novelty. Keeping it balanced with what is known and what is surprising was well understood by Raymond Loewy. 

Also Read: How Cartoons became a medium of Allied Propaganda during the Second World War?