Feel It or Forget It

Why physical media changes how we think, remember, and act

For much of the last decade, marketing has been organised around a simple behavioural assumption that if friction were removed, then behaviour would follow. The mantra is: make it easier, faster, and seamless. If people do not act, the diagnosis is usually that there is still too much effort (or ‘friction’) somewhere in the system.

But is there a case to be made that this logic made sense at a time when digital systems were new, unevenly accessible, and often difficult to navigate? While this context meant that reducing friction removed real barriers to action, today we can question whether it fits with the conditions we have now. It seems our problem now is not access, but saturation. Content is everywhere, prompts are constant, and attention is pulled in too many directions at once.

This means that while we see more than ever, perhaps we process less. If we are in a state of automaticity brought about by flow-friction environments, then perhaps, for example, we recognise brands without forming attachments, we comply with prompts but do not commit to decisions. In other words, while exposure is high, meaning is thin.

One telling cultural response to this is the rise of the ‘analogue bag’. These are everyday bags deliberately packed with physical activities such as crosswords, novels, sketchbooks, knitting, or magazines. The idea is that when the impulse to scroll appears, something else is immediately to hand. People are not relying on willpower, apps, or digital self-control tools but changing the environment around them through physical alternatives that interrupt automatic behaviour at the moment it occurs.

Seen this way, the analogue bag is less a lifestyle quirk and more a practical response to environments that move too fast and demand constant reaction. It reflects a broader desire to reintroduce friction, not as an obstacle, but as a support for attention, judgment, and agency.

Against this backdrop, we are seeing what might be described as a sensory shift. There are many examples of renewed interest in physical, tactile, and embodied forms of communication, including print, packaging, in-store environments, and out-of-home media. And while this is often framed as nostalgia or resistance to digital progress, that interpretation perhaps misses the point.

We make the case that the shift is less about rejecting technology and more about how human cognition behaves under conditions of overload, and what happens when systems become too efficient for their own good.

Living on autopilot

The overriding feature of today’s digital environments is less persuasion and more the ambition of encouraging routinised behaviours. Digital systems are encouraging fast, intuitive responses, leveraging cognitive processes that prioritise speed and efficiency over deliberation. Whilst this encourages scanning, clicking, dismissing, and moving on, behaviours that are adaptive in high-volume environments, this is less well suited to reflection and deliberation. So while this type of processing allows people to function in complex environments without cognitive exhaustion, it is also conservative. It tends to reinforce what is already familiar and habitual rather than opening space for reconsideration or change.

This distinction matters because behaviour change requires people to pause, reconsider, and update their understanding of what they do and why – the antithesis of conservative. That shift relies on slower, more deliberate thinking, which is harder to sustain in environments designed for constant throughput rather than reflection, an idea Herbert Simon captured when he argued that attention is shaped by environments, not just individual capacity.

In low-friction environments, it is simple recognition that replaces evaluation: messages are rarely interrogated because the surrounding system rewards immediate response rather than considered judgement. Information is seen, but not meaningfully integrated into longer-term understanding or decision-making, as acceleration compresses the time available for reflection. This means that digital systems will often optimise for throughput rather than transformation, shaping behaviour through repetition and habit rather than reassessment or learning.

And while much of the traditional canon of behavioural science has emphasised the power of reducing friction as a means of encouraging uptake and completion, perhaps this has failed to consider that ease is not the same as importance.

This also matters as there is signalling value in effort: if something takes time, attention, or engagement, then it is more likely to be considered as serious or consequential. When everything is instant and endlessly refreshed, the absence of effort may often signal that nothing appears to have cost anything, and as such particularly worth holding onto.

This creates a paradox as systems designed to remove friction can struggle to signal significance. On the other hand, physical experiences, whether through print, packaging, or spatial design, reintroduce friction. Changing the conditions under which attention operates.

Physicality as a processing intervention

Holding an object, opening a letter, moving through a space, or repeatedly encountering a poster requires effort and slows people down. This disrupts intuitive processing and moves attention into a more deliberate mode. As such, it seems that physical is less about persuasion and more about changing the mental state in which information is received.

This speaks to the findings of embodied cognition, which sets out the way that touch, weight, resistance, and presence are not peripheral to our cognition but are an integral part of how meaning is constructed. Physical engagement activates sensory and emotional systems that digital interactions rarely engage to the same degree.

Emotion matters, telling the brain whether something matters enough to store, revisit, and act upon later. Experiences that remain emotionally neutral are easily forgotten, regardless of repetition.

Physical experiences tend to be emotionally richer because they are felt with the body registering effort and presence before the mind evaluates arguments. That embodied signal of importance shapes what follows.

What physical media signals before it speaks

Beyond cognition, physical formats carry meaning semiotically, not simply transmitting messages but also creating cues on how those messages should be interpreted by shaping expectations about value, seriousness, and relevance. Physical artefacts tend to signal scarcity rather than abundance, effort rather than automation, finiteness rather than endless flow and ownership rather than simply access.

This feels important as the signals operate in advance of any content being read which means they function as ‘interpretive frames’. Scarcity cues value, effort cues sincerity, boundedness supports sense-making, and ownership increases psychological attachment.

Digital formats, by contrast, risk signalling immediacy, replaceability, and low marginal cost. While these cues support speed and scale, they tend to privilege rapid consumption over reflection and depth of processing. This helps explain why identical content is often perceived as more serious or trustworthy when delivered physically.

Effort, intent, and trust: Trust is often discussed as a function of claims or proof points. Behaviourally, however, trust is frequently inferred from signals of commitment: we implicitly ask what something took to produce, not only in monetary terms, but in time, coordination, and attention. Signals that are costly to generate tend to be read as more sincere because they imply that the sender had something to lose.

Physical artefacts make these costs visible. Effort is legible in a way that digital communication often is not. The material presence of an object, document, or format signals intent before any content is read, shaping credibility at an early, pre-evaluative stage.

In low-cost digital environments, making claims is cheap and easily reproduced. This has contributed to growing scepticism toward stated values, purpose claims, and institutional messaging, as audiences discount signals that require little commitment. This helps explain why physical formats often feel more credible: trust is often felt before it is reasoned.

Ownership and attachment: One of the most robust findings in behavioural science is the endowment effect: people value things more simply because they own them. Once something feels like mine, giving it up is experienced as a loss rather than a neutral exchange.

Carey Morewedge and colleagues suggest that ownership arises through control, personal investment, and intimate knowledge. Of course, physical artefacts support all three: they can be handled, positioned, retained, or discarded with even brief interaction generating feelings of ‘mine-ness’, independent of legal ownership.

Ownership changes the relationship between person and object with stability and persistence, strengthening attachment. Physical objects endure but digital content is episodic. Over time, endurance produces psychological weight.

Extending time: Physical media changes how people experience time. If we consider digital environments as compressing time where everything feels immediate and urgent, physical artefacts stretch time as they endure, are revisited, and offer postponement rather than instant reaction.

This has significant consequences as longer time horizons support different kinds of thinking: reflection rather than impulse, commitment rather than novelty. This makes physical formats particularly powerful for behaviours that require consideration rather than reflex. In this sense, physical media does not just slow attention but lengthens the decision window.

Agency: Another dimension of the sensory shift is control. When people perceive that their freedom is being constrained, whether through controlling language or repeated persuasive prompts, they experience psychological reactance, a motivational state aimed at restoring autonomy

Algorithms determine what appears, when it appears, and how often it reappears. That repetition and opacity can function as a subtle freedom threat, activating counterarguing and anger even before conscious deliberation.

By contrast, physical formats preserve behavioural choice. We decide when to open something, how long to engage, and when to stop. There is no adaptive optimisation and no invisible escalation of persuasive pressure.

This matters because reactance is energising and defensive. When perceived threat is reduced, the motivational need to resist is reduced

When people feel less constrained, they are less likely to counterargue and more likely to engage voluntarily. Physical media can therefore feel calmer and more trustworthy, not because it persuades more forcefully, but because it preserves the experience of freedom.

Publicness, norms, and legitimacy. Digital communication is often largely privately experienced, but physical media, by contrast, operates in shared, visible spaces such as homes, streets, stores, and workplaces. This visibility matters because social norms are shaped less by private attitudes and more by what people observe others doing in public.

Research by people such as Betsy Paluck suggests that behaviour spreads through visible environments and social networks, not simply through individual persuasion When behaviours or signals are publicly observable, they help define what is acceptable, expected, or legitimate. Physical artefacts very tangibly anchor these signals in space. A poster in a workplace, a brochure left in a communal area, and signage in a store all make expectations visible. They transform norms from abstract beliefs into environmental cues.

Ritual, transition, and moments of openness: Physical artefacts often function as markers of transition: opening a letter, unwrapping a product, entering a space. These moments act as behavioural thresholds, interrupting ongoing context–response associations that normally guide behaviour automatically.

When environmental continuity is disrupted, habitual control weakens and behaviour becomes more open to evaluation. The disruption itself does not guarantee change, but importantly, it creates the conditions under which deliberation becomes more likely.

At that point, something else also happens. People do not passively absorb change; they subjectively diagnose whether a moment represents a tipping point. As Ed O’Brien notes, individuals determine for themselves when comparison shifts, when background noise becomes a meaningful signal. The interpretation is constructed, not imposed.

We can make a good case that physical media is effective because it does both things at once. It disrupts routine and invites diagnosis. The material act of opening, unfolding and entering signals that a new episode is beginning. In that window, people are less governed by automaticity and more likely to interpret what is happening as consequential. That makes physical formats particularly powerful at moments of onboarding, renewal, or reconsideration, all points at which people are already deciding whether this is “just more information” or something that warrants response.

Conclusions

If you are a market leader seeking to defend your share and only incrementally grow, then marketing is more about reinforcing and slightly ‘nudging ‘buyer behaviour. But in a world where even low growth is hard to find, challenger brands are eating into your share, and innovations coming to market require consumers to act quite differently (e.g., dry shampoo), then reinforcement will not work. Instead, change is needed, and this requires deliberate attention, emotional engagement, memory that persists, trust in intent, a sense of agency, and a social context that supports legitimacy.

Physical media does not, of course, guarantee change. But it creates the conditions of change readiness, as it shifts people out of autopilot, signals importance, invites ownership, stretches time, restores agency, and raises the stakes.

Discussions about physical media often focus on effectiveness, attention, or engagement. Those are valid concerns, but they do not fully explain why interest in physical formats is resurfacing now. Judgement takes time. Considering alternatives, weighing implications, and deciding whether something aligns with one’s values or intentions all require space. Environments that move too quickly can make those processes harder, not by preventing them outright, but by constantly pulling attention forward.

Physical media introduces a different rhythm to digital. It arrives at a slower pace, remains present, and requires a more deliberate form of engagement. It does not adjust itself moment by moment in response to behaviour. Decisions about content, tone, and intent are made in advance, which makes those decisions more visible to the audience.

Seen in this light, the renewed interest in physical formats is not because it resists technological change, but because it supports a way of thinking that remains essential: the ability to stop, consider, and choose.