As we settle into 2026, I’ve been thinking about an unlikely source of marketing wisdom: the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Recent neuroscience research reveals that this simple game, which we’ve all played as children and adults, is actually a microcosm of human decision-making under competition—and the insights have direct implications for how we approach marketing strategy.
The Hidden Patterns in Our Choices
To the casual observer, Rock, Paper, Scissors seems random. Each move should have equal odds of winning. But here’s what’s fascinating: human players are not random at all. Researchers at Western Sydney University had people play 15,000 rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors while recording their brain activity (Moerel et al., 2025). The results revealed predictable patterns that any marketer should understand.
First, more than half of the players over-favored “Rock” as their throw. Why? Game designer Greg Costikyan (2023) explains that inexperienced players pick Rock more than one-third of the time—your hand literally starts in a fist, “rock” feels strong, and it’s the first word in the game’s name. This is default bias in action: humans favor what comes naturally or appears first.
Second, players hate repeating the same move. Even though each round is statistically independent, people avoid throwing the same choice twice in a row. This is the gambler’s fallacy—our brains mistakenly expect change after a streak (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).
But the most striking finding? Losers fixate on the past; winners don’t. Brain scans showed that players who just lost were preoccupied with what happened in the previous round, making their next move predictable. Winners, meanwhile, stayed more random and intuitive (Moerel et al., 2025). This is loss aversion at work—losses sting about twice as much as equivalent gains feel good (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), pushing losers to overreact and telegraph their next move.
Why This Matters for Marketing
The same cognitive biases that show up in Rock, Paper, Scissors permeate business strategy and consumer behavior. Understanding these patterns is what separates reactive marketers from strategic ones.
Pattern #1: The Familiarity Trap
Just as players irrationally favor Rock, consumers favor familiar brands. This is the mere exposure effect—what we know feels safe. For established brands, this is your moat. For challengers, you must differentiate so clearly that you become impossible to ignore. Brand recognition isn’t about being remembered; it’s about becoming the mental default.
Pattern #2: The Repetition Paradox
Marketers tire of their own message long before customers even notice it. I see CEOs and CMOs change campaigns not because they stopped working, but because the internal team is bored. Remember: when you’re getting sick of saying it, your audience is just starting to hear it. Consistent repetition builds familiarity and trust. Our aversion to doing the same thing twice can sabotage an effective strategy.
Pattern #3: The Overreaction Cycle
One failed campaign triggers a complete pivot. Last quarter’s dip spawns a panicked messaging overhaul. This is the business equivalent of the Rock, Paper, Scissors loser who can’t stop thinking about what went wrong. But knee-jerk reactions to every fluctuation create scattershot, incoherent strategies.
The best marketers—like those winning players—take a longer view. They distinguish meaningful signals from random noise. They adapt based on data, not fear.
The Power of Strategic Unpredictability
One of the clearest lessons: in competitive settings, predictability is exploitable. The optimal Rock, Paper, Scissors strategy is pure randomness. In crowded markets, if you do exactly what everyone expects, you become invisible. Competitors can anticipate your moves, and consumers tune you out as “more of the same.”
This doesn’t mean being erratic or inconsistent with your brand. It means finding opportunities to surprise and delight in ways competitors wouldn’t dare. Think of Apple’s iPhone announcement—a computer company launching a phone caught industry giants completely off-guard. Or consider guerrilla marketing campaigns that break the mold and capture disproportionate attention.
Strategic unpredictability keeps rivals off-balance and makes consumers take notice. Our brains naturally perk up at novelty—use that.
When Consistency Counts
Here’s the paradox: while you want to be unpredictable competitively, you need to be consistent relationally. Your relationship with customers is cooperative, not adversarial. Here, consistency builds trust.
If your brand message and values are all over the place, customers get confused or suspicious. Brand consistency turns your message into a familiar refrain, and familiar refrains feel truthful—this is the illusory truth effect, where repetition increases perceived truthfulness (Kahneman, 2011).
The trick is combining consistency with novelty. Maintain your core message but refresh the creative expression. Think jazz improvisation over a steady bass line: customers get the solid foundation of who you are, but you still surprise them at the right moments.
The Takeaway for 2026
Rock, Paper, Scissors teaches us that to win in business, you must understand the human brain as deeply as any market analysis. People aren’t purely rational actors—they’re influenced by subconscious biases, pattern-seeking instincts, and emotional reactions to loss and gain.
As you refine your strategy this year, watch for these patterns:
- Are you defaulting to what’s familiar when differentiation would serve you better?
- Are you killing messages that work simply because you’re tired of them?
- Are you overreacting to recent setbacks instead of looking at longer trends?
- Are you predictable to competitors when strategic surprise would give you an edge?
Marketing isn’t rocket science—it’s human science. The companies that master the psychology behind decision-making will consistently outperform those fixated on tactics alone.
Who knew a playground game could yield such strategic insight? Sometimes the most profound lessons come from the simplest sources—if we know how to look for them.
About Rich Smith: Rich Smith is an executive advisor, behavioral marketing strategist, investor, and CMO known for helping leaders finally understand not only what strategies work, but why. With three decades of experience leading growth across financial services, healthcare, technology, and consumer brands, Rich has guided companies through crises, rebuilt brands from the ground up, and helped position organizations for nine-figure exits. Connect with him on LinkedIn, at RichSmith’s.blog, and The Revenue Science Podcast.
Costikyan, G. (2023, July 18). The psychological depths of Rock-Paper-Scissors. MIT Press Reader. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-psychological-depths-of-rock-paper-scissors/
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291. https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185
Moerel, D., Grootswagers, T., Chin, J. L. L., Ciardo, F., Nijhuis, P., Quek, G. L., Smit, S., & Varlet, M. (2025). Neural decoding of competitive decision-making in Rock–Paper–Scissors. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 20(1), nsaf101. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf101
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124
