32 dog-phobic children were split into 3 groups and shown 8 videos of either one child playing with a dog,  many children with different dogs or no dogs, and then asked to interact with a dog themselves.

Those who watched another child play with a dog performed far better. Those who watched many children also kept this up a month later.

Provide mental shortcuts through the judgements of others; the more people, the more persuasive.  First-time consumers of your product will benefit the most from this approach. 

Persuade with similarity. We're most influenced by those who we deem similar to ourselves. Communicate characteristics relevant to that segment, such as proximity, gender / age, profession or social class to successfully direct behavior. 

Use role-models. Understand the emotional drivers of your audience and seek out positive, aspirational individuals to direct specific consumer decisions and reinforce behaviors.

142 people were split into 3 groups and were shown either 72 nouns, abstract words or pictures on a projector for a split-second each, with 5-second pauses in between. They were then asked to recall as many items as possible.

Results showed that those in the picture group recalled far more than either word groups.

Boost your message.

‍Visual ads are remembered better in the long term than verbal ads, especially when we are under greater cognitive load (Childers and Houston, 1984).

What emotional message can you convey more powerfully with a striking, visual metaphor over mere words?

Boost learning by adding in visual references, and not relying solely on text-based language.

This can help broaden understanding across cultures and age ranges.

Where are you trying to change behavior?

What image do you want to stick in peoples’ heads to simplify understanding?

Make product choices distinct.

Images are internalized twice, both visually and verbally (see Dual Code Theory), so they stick in the brain better than just words.

This holds as long as the images aren't abstract or similar to one another (Reder et al, 2006).

So if you sell a large product range that looks similar, consider modifying their design or how they're presented to heighten relative differences and create a more distinct range of choices.

153 New York pedestrians were approached by someone dressed as either a civilian, a milkman or a police officer and were asked to help out a stranger by covering the cost of his / her parked car ticket.

The more authoritarian the uniform, the higher the chance they’d give the money. The civilian succeeded only 33% of the time, whereas the police officer managed 89%.

Determine an authority figure with relative expertise in relation to the group and behavior you’re looking to influence.

Ensure that the individual is credible and trustworthy.

Communicate their authority clearly.

For instance, using authority indicators like “Doctor,” “Judge,” “Award-winning” etc. Complementing this with a suitably-dressed photo of said individual will make any request much more effective.

Add a quotation too to bolster the effect, along with any extra reputational labels they might have (e.g. academic background, specialisms, career duration etc).

Compliance varies depending on demographics.

Older people are more compliant than younger people, for instance. For the young, use culturally-relevant aspirational models to mask authority whilst also nudging desired behavior. 

249 supermarket customers were invited to one of two tables, displaying either 24 jams or 6 jams. They were then asked how attractive the jams were and observed as to whether they bought one.

The results found that though customers considered the 24 jams more attractive, they were far more likely to buy when there were only 6 jams to choose from.

Reduce choice difficulty. If customers are time-poor, reduce the number of dimensions along which your products are compared. Present choices in an organised, non-random order, especially with visual layouts. 

Tidy up choice relationships. Highlight one dominant option, align the attributes along which products are compared, and eliminate products from your range that overly complement each other to decrease deferral and increase purchase likelihood.

Adapt to product expertise. Who is your audience? To what extent can they weigh up the benefits of each possible choice? Experts prefer more choice and the lesser-informed crave less.

Build around intent & focus. Intent: are they buying or merely browsing? If browsing, they’re not making a decision, and are less likely to feel overloaded. Focus: a single purchase or a bundle? Bundlers want more options, but Singles want fewer.

77 people were asked to choose between an entirely certain win of $30 and an uncertain 80% chance of winning $45.

78% of people opted for the significantly smaller, certain reward, despite the risk-adjusted payout being higher for the uncertain reward (0.8 * $45 = $36).

Certainty is valued highly.‍

What ways can your business create reassurance or guarantees that make consumers feel safe?  How can you use exclusive certainty to reward and foster a sense of status with your brand?

Stick to your promises!

Letting consumers down, even once, will trigger uncertainty in the quality perceptions of your brand. If making claims about being the best at something, don’t ever give consumers reason to question that and turn a selling point into an unsustainable headache.

Reframe uncertain offers to appear certain.‍

The uncertain frame here requires consumers to calculate proportional savings, but the certain frame removes this by showing certainty of a zero-priced third lemon.

42 people were either asked to make 35  'A or B' choices that would inform the design of an educational course they were attending, or instead to just read the course material. Both were then tasked with solving math puzzles and were timed until they gave up.

Those who had to make the choices beforehand persisted for less time on the puzzles and also got fewer right.

Protect your decision capacity.

Prioritize your day around and take breaks before making harder decisions. For example, restaurant inspectors can reduce errors by scrutinizing sites at higher risk of failure at the start of the day (Ibanez & Toffel, 2017).

Create product contrast.

‍When no option in a set offers a distinct advantage from the others, we're most at risk of not choosing at all (Dhar, 1997). How can you improve your choice architecture to offer variety that actually makes deciding easier? 

‍

Order matters for revenue.

‍Prospective Audi owners given a high number of customization options early on more readily accepted, higher-priced defaults in later steps (Levav, 2010). Though be careful not to trigger Reactance by pre-selecting defaults that are seen as too expensive.

‍

We call Reciprocity the glue that binds us as a society.

No surprise then that it’s a powerful tool to help people make decisions that are both pro-social and a win-win.

When the Behavioural Insights Team were asked by the UK Government to increase the rates of job-seekers turning up to interviews, they applied the principle of Reciprocity to boost rates.

They changed the text message being sent out from:



“You’ve been booked an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am”

to:

“Dave,
‍

I’ve booked you an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am. 


Good luck. 


Roxy”

This shift from a passive tone of voice to an active tone, where Roxy had done something kind for you (and you then wanted to reciprocate by turning up), increased attendance from 10% up to a whopping 27%.

We call Reciprocity the glue that binds us as a society.

No surprise then that it’s a powerful tool to help people make decisions that are both pro-social and a win-win.

When the Behavioural Insights Team were asked by the UK Government to increase the rates of job-seekers turning up to interviews, they applied the principle of Reciprocity to boost rates.

They changed the text message being sent out from:



“You’ve been booked an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am”

to:

“Dave,
‍

I’ve booked you an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am. 


Good luck. 


Roxy”

This shift from a passive tone of voice to an active tone, where Roxy had done something kind for you (and you then wanted to reciprocate by turning up), increased attendance from 10% up to a whopping 27%.

407 pedestrians in Brittany, France were approached by a young woman and asked to complete a survey. Before the request, half were offered candy and the other half were not.

The results found that people - especially women - were far more likely to reciprocate and answer the survey after receiving a gift than when not.

Act first.‍

Find ways to initiate reciprocity with consumers.  Merely asking those satisfied to go tell their friends will work (Söderlund et al., 2015).

Make it a ‘common habit’.

When we’re told that a behavior is a social norm shared by others, we’re more likely to reciprocate. Households in USA and India consume significantly less electricity when told that their neighbors are consuming less (Sudarshan, 2014). In the long-term, any consistent, successful behaviors will be adopted as the default for others.

Do it in person.

Reciprocation appears to be more powerful when requests from strangers are made face to face rather than online. This is due to the persuasive impact of immediacy that physicality affords, the higher levels of digital suspicion and the sheer number of emails people receive (Meier, 2016).

11k people were offered a new job that had a 50% chance of doubling income for life, but it wasn't without risk, with an equal chance of it falling by either 20, 33 or 50%. Questioning started with the 33% gamble; if people took it, they were asked if they’d take the bigger 50% gamble too. But if they didn’t, they were asked about the smaller 20% one.

Results put people into four risk categories showing the majority were not willing to take any risk at all.

Focus on an improvement metric. 

We prefer the certainty of what we’re used to, so the benefits of switching to a new product need to feel substantial.

Outline a goal (relative performance, efficiency etc.) to anchor your product strategy around.

Doing so will reduce uncertainty and boost comparisons against better-known, lower risk alternatives.

Offer a trial or free sample...

...to create familiarity and reduce the risk around a new product.

This sets the cost of new product usage at zero, during which the consumer will adjust their future preferences.

Utilize your brand umbrella.

For any new sub-brands, reduce risk by clearly indicating the relationship to existing, familiar brands you own (Erdem, 1998).  

Product brands take note. Risk aversion is higher for material purchases than for experiential ones such as restaurant meals or holidays (Roche et al., 2015).

67 people were asked if they prefer Coke, Pepsi or have no preference, split into taster groups and given 3 rounds of both in either unlabeled or labeled cups.

Taste preferences were split evenly when the drinks were unlabeled, but when labeled, they exhibited a strong taste preference for Coke, underlining the bias of brand attachment in consumer choice.

Test your assumptions. Decision-Makers often start new projects under judgements that are both unproven and erroneous. Bring key Decision-Makers together to list assumptions honestly. Use these as a basis for testing the validity of the idea in its simplest form. This avoids unnecessary costs further down the line. See the Lean Startup Model for further details.

Consider conflicting alternatives to strengthen your strategic decision-making process. Seek impartial feedback from trusted others who are less emotionally invested in the chosen route than you.

Repeatedly point out what you do well, especially with attention to small details around customer care or craftsmanship in process. Consumers will begin to notice and start to look for further evidence to support these newly-held beliefs.

108 people were told they were the head of an airline that was either 90% complete on a $10m plane project, or shown an equivalent $1m proposal to research and develop this plane. In both cases, a competitor had created a similar plane of superior quality.

In either case, should they still invest the $1m? Those in the 90% sunk cost condition were far more likely to keep on spending than those who had yet to invest anything.

Remind consumers of past personal efforts or the amount of time spent with the brand to increase feelings of a sunk cost. Reframing past efforts as incomplete or as ongoing progress will also induce the effect and assist sales. 

Test your product ideas sooner using a more agile product methodology. This will minimize time, cost and effort wasted on unproven potential failures to which you will become increasingly attached, especially if you’re personally accountable for their success.

Take 15 mins for mindfulness practice - focusing on the present moment and less on the past and future - to increase your resistance to the Sunk Cost bias. (Hafenbrack et al., 2013). Check out the Headspace app. 

You’re walking down the street. Consider two realities:

A: You unexpectedly find $10 in your pocket. 

You feel positively-surprised!

Or:

B: You left the house with $10 in your pocket.

But you reach in and it’s gone.

The pain you feel from its loss is greater than the good feeling of finding it.

Prospect Theory explains that our perceptions of value differ based on how something is framed, and losing things feels worse than getting them feels good.

As one of the grand concepts that underpinned a lot of the early ideas within behavioral science, Prospect Theory is a beast with many aspects to it, such as Loss Aversion, Framing, Certainty, and Risk.

But for now, take your practical understanding a step further by reading the Aggregation Effect and Segregation Effect Nuggets.

You’re walking down the street. Consider two realities:

A: You unexpectedly find $10 in your pocket. 

You feel positively-surprised!

Or:

B: You left the house with $10 in your pocket.

But you reach in and it’s gone.

The pain you feel from its loss is greater than the good feeling of finding it.

Prospect Theory explains that our perceptions of value differ based on how something is framed, and losing things feels worse than getting them feels good.

As one of the grand concepts that underpinned a lot of the early ideas within behavioral science, Prospect Theory is a beast with many aspects to it, such as Loss Aversion, Framing, Certainty, and Risk.

But for now, take your practical understanding a step further by reading the Aggregation Effect and Segregation Effect Nuggets.

Prospect theory is explained with a graph. Negative losses and positive gains recorded on the horizontal are set against a vertical intensity of feeling for those losses or gains.

As we gain more, we feel less for each gain. In contrast, even a small pain (shown in red) feels a lot more negative than an equal-sized gain feels good.

Package pain. Consumers will feel less overall pain from any costs incurred when you package and deliver them all together rather than when they're felt as separate, smaller pains.

Spread out rewards.

Instead of offering larger, chunkier benefits to consumers, break these down into smaller pieces, spreading them out across time.

$10 given 4 times feels more valuable overall than $40 given once.

Offer mixed product bundles.

We feel less good with each thing we consume. Therefore, the first can of soda tastes better than the fourth.

This means we'd get more complimentary value from a bag of chips instead.

Look for ways to offer relevant, mixed product bundles to offset diminishing consumer sensitivity.

City Planners of Garden Grove, California installed Active Radar Speed Signs at 5 locations to provide real-time feedback on the speed of 58,000 drivers. LEDs would also flash if drivers exceeded speed limits by more than 5MPH.

After installation of the feedback systems, average speed dropped 22% from 44 to 34mph.

First, determine the behavior to change. Measure, capture and store the relevant data. 

Communicate it back to the individual in a relevant, context-sensitive way that ultimately provokes an emotional reaction.

Provide clear consequences for action or inaction. It’s critical to get the right balance between not being too subtle and not being too intrusive or authoritarian (which we filter out).

Lastly, allow for opportunities to immediately rectify the behavior - which should also be tracked - completing the loop and eventually changing the behavior pattern.  Remember to reward compliance as much as you penalize inaction to increase effectiveness.

212 Iowan households had their energy use tracked for a year with the aim of reducing it. Half who agreed to reduce were told their name would be shown publicly in the local paper.

Those publicly committing demonstrated a 15.5% larger average reduction in energy use over winter.

Anchor any request with a leading question that supports others’ positive judgements of themselves or their past decisions.

Start with a small request that allows the respondent to remain consistent with their answer to this question. Commitments are self-reinforcing and build over time, so build slowly on this initial commitment with further, larger requests such as a future product purchase.

Make it public. Declaring an opinion to others on a subject or product will compel consumers to remain consistent with and even strengthen this opinion in future, especially if written down. e.g. asking others to tweet why they love a product will strengthen attachment to it, as well as fostering social proof for others.

72 people were split into 3 groups: Humor, Neutral or Contentment and shown a respective video: Mr Bean (a British comedy show), an educational  video or a beach scene. They were then all asked to solve a secretly-impossible puzzle.

Those humored spent 50% more time and made 2x more attempts trying to solve the problem than others.

Make it funny. Consumers have more positive attitudes towards humorous ads and their brands, increasing intentions to buy (Eisend, 2008). However, levels are dictated by product category and how related the humor is to the product.

 Funny stories are more memorable than other positive emotions  like admiration or respect.  Puns are particularly memorable because they force us to simplify our humor delivery to a single line, reducing mental effort (Summerfelt et al., 2010).

Bring humor into the workplace. It helps boost employee satisfaction (Decker 1987), leads to higher productivity (Avolio et al. 1999) and boosts creativity (Brotherton 1996).  Ben & Jerry’s, Southwest Airlines and Sun Microsystems are well-known for their use of humor within organizational culture (Barbour, 1998). 

100 people were split into groups and shown a list of sayings about human behavior that either rhymed or didn’t (e.g. “Woes unite foes”  or “Fools live poor to die rich”). They were then asked how accurate the sayings were.

Those in the rhyming group believed their sayings to be more true than those in the non-rhyming group.

A little play to make them pay.

‍Where can you use rhymes to heighten belief and persuade in a playful way?

Combine with the Humor Effect and a short jingle for an extra boost.

Repeat to defeat.

‍Fluency Shortcut says that short, easy-to-understand sentences are believed and repeated more.

Where can you use short rhymes to speed up familiarity of new ideas and create memorable vocal repeatability?

Localize to vocalize.

‍Consider the 1970s ad in the UK by vacuum manufacturer Electrolux. Though the claim might have been true, 'to suck' more isn't always a good thing.

However, the negative meaning hadn't yet entered British English, so rhymes can be crimes, but only in certain climes!

What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.

For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.

But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.

Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.

So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.

Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.

Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.

What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?

Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.

What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.

For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.

But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.

Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.

So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.

Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.

Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.

What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?

Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.

Over 10 days, millions of people using online ticket marketplace Stubhub were put into two groups, where 15% ticket fees were either made salient up front during ticket browsing, or hidden until checkout.

Results found that for those with delayed salience of the fee, revenue increased by 21%, with a quarter of this due to higher priced tickets being bought.

What is seen is what is done

Surfacing key information in a timely fashion can prompt us to do more of what we aspire to. For instance, Amazon have redesigned their Kindle so that when it's not in use, the screensaver becomes the cover of the book you're currently reading. This acts as a salient reminder to read as one notices the Kindle throughout the day. We can use the same approach to boost healthy eating, having a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table over one filled with salty cashews. What do you want users to do more of? How do you want them to feel? What unique or delightful features can you surface that will help inspire action and make Tiny Habits that much more likely to form?

More knowledge isn't necessarily better

There's a trade-off between what's presented to us now and making good decisions for our future. For instance, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase choose to omit the % gained or lost from one's investments. Research shows that if they instead showed this, people may incorrectly sell coins that have increased in value, while keeping coins that have dropped in value, known as the Disposition Effect.

Differentiate by removing information

Whereas knowledge can be power, it can also demotivate. For example, weight loss scales Shapa does away with the number telling you how much you weigh, instead providing 5 colour bands denoting averaged performance. Omitting the number shifts us away from short term fluctuations in weight that can lead to feelings of failure causing us to give up. What information or options could you hide that could otherwise lead users to short term or harmful outcomes? What can you remove that could confuse or overwhelm?

Delayed salience can trigger shock

Also consider the ethical implications of hiding key information, as in the study above. In this case, any reactance felt will be relative to the proportion of the extra fees incurred, customer expectations, industry norms and how frequent the transaction is. Hidden fees on more regular transactions like grocery shopping will be subject to higher levels of reactance than one-offs like a car purchase. There is an art to surfacing such painful information at the correct time in order to generate a sale. Try adding an explanation of why the fee exists to reduce drop-off, like Airbnb do.

52 people were split into two groups and given IKEA boxes: either fully-assembled or unassembled that  they were asked to put together.

Those tasked with assembling their box were willing to pay a 63% premium for it during the subsequent bidding process over those given the pre-assembled boxes.

Provide personalization options early in your order flow to engender a sense of ownership and significantly improve conversion. Apple do this with their customizations for a new computer, as do new car showrooms. How can you add a low-risk, satisfying sense of creation into your existing products or services, especially around your USPs?

Don’t create choice overload and stress with too many pre-purchase customizations. Similarly, keep any post-purchase building effort simple, fun and low risk.  What core parts of your product manufacture should always remain out of customer hands?

Frame involvement as a value-add experience and not a labour-cost-saving exercise. How much this is felt may depend on your brand, your product and what you allow to be crafted by customers. 

274 people were shown 10 t-shirts, split into 4 groups and then asked to rate the shirts on either likeability, casualness, colorfulness or how much it matched with a cap. They were then asked how fun the task was.

Those given the ability to express their like or dislike rated the task as much more fun than the other groups. Simply, we value ways to express how we feel.

Personalization pays.

Bold, scaleable self-expressive features increase loyalty and sales.

Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke campaign - switching out the product name for a person’s name - led to a 10% rise in 2014 sales and a 7% spike in Facebook growth.

An Australian store sold 400,000 customized jars of Nutella for $10 each, becoming their top seller.

Tie it back to emotions.

Though there are successes like Kraft Heinz personalized soup “Get Well Soon ___”, with consumers happy to spend five times more, know that personalization has upper bounds on price and has less impact as it becomes more common.

Like Heinz, the smartest brands will tie personalization to underlying product emotions - care and sympathy in this case.

What emotions do you want end consumers to feel? Use personalization to help express these publicly.  

150 teachers  in Chicago were either offered a cash incentive up front or after their students’ math test, with better results leading to more money. Subject to results, the money-up-front group would suffer deductions for unmet targets to create a feeling of loss aversion.

Teachers receiving  money up front were found to have much better results than those rewarded at the end.

Increase conversion with trial offers. Though some consumers might not be willing to pay the market price for your product, they may pay the market price to avoid it being taken away.

Offer delayed payments to shift consumers’ judgements from paying to get the product to paying to avoid losing it. For instance, a month delay in paying subscription fees. This means that any extra budgetary cost is then re-estimated as a question of how it can be fitted into an existing budget.

Replace faulty products immediately with an identical or superior model (Novemsky & Kahneman, 2005). Doing it quickly will limit the pain of loss aversion, which builds over time (Strahilevitz and Loewenstein, 1998).

435 people were asked to go to a restaurant and split into four groups. They were then either given a surprise free dessert or not, and then finally either given an explanation of the reason for the surprise or not. All were then asked to rate their level of delight.

Those given the explanation rated the surprise as more delightful than those who weren’t.

Surprise sparingly.  The more frequent the surprise, the less positive it will make customers feel. Give your staff creative autonomy to make small, personal & unexpected gestures that strike deep. 

Provide an explanation for the surprise to suppress future unrealistic customer expectations, avoid mistake misconceptions and heighten the sense of personalization. 

Reframe problems into surprises. During a busy Christmas, Lush (a UK soap store) had a long queue, which an elderly lady holding one item had joined. A shop assistant noticed, pointing out the queue length and that she didn’t need to pay. After he insisted she accept, she hugged him and left the shop with the free item. Another customer then told him that witnessing his kindness  had made her day. Both will recall compassion, positive surprise and stress relief in future perceptions of the Lush brand.

682 colonoscopy patients were split into two groups, with one undergoing a longer procedure but with a period of less discomfort added on at the end.

After, patients were asked to recall the total pain felt. The peak-end group reported 10% less pain and a 10% increase in attending a follow-up procedure.

How do you want to be remembered in customers’ eyes?‍

How do you want to leave them feeling? What little touches can you add to your product or service to leave customers feeling amazing and want to share with their network?

Create a Customer Journey Map

Identify positive experiential opportunities to exploit and painful weaknesses to remedy.

Some pains may be small or cheap to fix, yet play a big part in a person’s memory.

Negative experiences are a hidden opportunity...

...to re-establish a positive peak and / or end. Things will go wrong, whoever’s at fault, so allow flexibility and an authentic humanity to surface, not just to save the relationship but to allow the brand to shine.

Handle a problem well enough and that’s what customers will remember, not the problem itself.

733 new employees of a health company used a single opt-in process to subscribe to a retirement plan. Results were compared to a multi-step phone process used with 455 and 407  employees from the two previous years.

Participation rates were 5% after one month and 8% after three months. With the new process, they rose to 19% and 35% respectively.

Perform a friction audit.

Identify all the hurdles and delays your user may feel while using your product and attempt to minimise them. How many barriers to a near-effortless user experience can you find?

Adding friction can help people from making mistakes.

Add barriers to counter System 1 mode, prompting users for conscious reflection to validate important information (e.g. monetary transactions). What strategic friction can you create?

Add friction to make waiting times feel shorter.

Houston airport reduced the number of luggage waiting times complaints by moving the luggage area further away so that passengers spent more time walking and less time waiting.

Remove friction but highlight effort.

Our willingness to pay for something increases by knowing how much work is done for us. We pay more for a cup of coffee if we see the barista working on it for several minutes.

48 people were shown 100 sets of numbers of different lengths, split up into a number of smaller chunks. After seeing each set, they were asked to recall the numbers in a memory test.

The results found that, on average, people were good at remembering about 7 numbers and 4 chunks before memory errors started kicking in.

Chunk for clarity.

‍Our short-term memory is limited, so whether you're designing a food menu or trying to share a new idea, prevent Analysis Paralysis by breaking information down into 3-5 smaller bites that are easier to process. 

Chunk requests.

‍If you're asking for a lot of info from customers, how can you break the task into more manageable segments?

Data capture company, Typeform are a great example of this, turning the concept of chunking into a core USP for its data capture products.

Chunk for long-term understanding.

Boost knowledge retention by structuring each chunk learned to build upon what was learned in previous ones. Repeat past chunks to build a strong, modular connection between fragmented bouts of learning.

Language app, Duolingo does this in an engaging visual way.

310 US Amazon Prime customers were split into 2 groups, either on a free trial or on a paid membership. They were then queried about attitudes towards and value perceptions of Prime and its benefits.

Those on the paid subscription reported greater loyalty, perceived value and exhibited a higher monthly spend than those who were on the free trial.

This is driven by two core effects:

1) Sunk Cost Bias where we seek to justify past, non-recoverable costs (of membership access) with our current actions (more spending), even when it’s not in our best interests. 

2) A desire to remain consistent with our past commitments - “I’m a Prime customer now.” 

Create a members club. Putting a price on entry heightens our analysis of the benefits of joining in a way that we wouldn’t if it were free. Limiting access to certain products or benefits can signal higher perceived quality (Zeithaml, 1998) and an increased willingness to buy.

Amazon entice with convenience (‘free’ one-day shipping), priority (30-min Early Access Lightning Deals) and exclusive choice (a vast music, video and book library). What benefits would your own customers pay for? What feelings can gaining access promote?

58 households in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had their fruit and veg shopping monitored for 8 weeks. Half were offered a 50% discount reward on all fruit and veg purchased and half were not.

Results showed that the reward increased healthy food purchasing behavior from 6.4 to 16.7 servings of fruit and veg  on average per week per household.

Rewards come in two types: Extrinsic and Intrinsic. 

‍Extrinsic rewards are economic: pay, discounts, working conditions, gold stars, healthcare, promotions etc. 

Intrinsic rewards are emotional, coming from a sense of achievement through skill and hard work, unplanned verbal praise from authority figures, and peer recognition.

Too much extrinsic will lessen internal motivation as it’s seen as controlling, especially if they’re later removed (Murayama et al., 2010). Ensure that they’re significant enough to motivate against task boredom (Hidi, 2015) and are in line with the market needs of employees / customers.

Focus on rewarding intrinsically - seen as a superior reward (Deci et al., 1999) - with greater levels of trust, choice and freedom to make one’s own decisions. You’ll be rewarded with a more motivated, loyal following as a result.

105 people were shown an online promotional offer, with the final offer value of 40% revealed either immediately or only at checkout.

Those in the extended curiosity condition were more likely to buy with the promotion than those who were told of the offer value immediately.

…curiosity will always be effective.

A recent campaign by Cancer Research UK to fill missing letters of the second-most common cause of cancer led to a 22% increase in its awareness. 

How can you use curiosity to drive a desire to learn about a new product or important message?

Create positive curiosity.

Vacation company srprs.me let you choose the number of people, dates and continent. You then get a scratch card to reveal your destination…but only at the airport!

‍

Use to convert free to paid.

‍Popular dating app Bumble uses curiosity to drive conversions. People who’ve already liked you are shown, but with their faces pixelated and no further information shown. Users are then prompted to buy BumbleBoost to close the information void.

Information has a wonderful way of looking very different, depending on how it’s communicated.

From turning glasses half empty into those half-full, as Designers, we have a great role to play in using framing to help people see things differently and hopefully, for the better too.

Framing is one of your most powerful behavioral tools. Everything can be reframed, depending on what you want.

For example, online second-hand clothing marketplace Vinted has devised a clever strategy to reframe the commonly-used “Service Fee” as a “Buyer protection fee”.

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By reframing it as buyer protection and clearly communicating how this amount is calculated, this assurance goes beyond merely paying for the item.

Now, customers will also feel confident that they’re taking extra steps towards safeguarding their purchase.

Information has a wonderful way of looking very different, depending on how it’s communicated.

From turning glasses half empty into those half-full, as Designers, we have a great role to play in using framing to help people see things differently and hopefully, for the better too.

Framing is one of your most powerful behavioral tools. Everything can be reframed, depending on what you want.

For example, online second-hand clothing marketplace Vinted has devised a clever strategy to reframe the commonly-used “Service Fee” as a “Buyer protection fee”.

‍
By reframing it as buyer protection and clearly communicating how this amount is calculated, this assurance goes beyond merely paying for the item.

Now, customers will also feel confident that they’re taking extra steps towards safeguarding their purchase.

96 people were told they’d be given some ground beef to taste, with half told it’d be  “25% fat” (negative frame) and half told it’d be “75% lean” (positive frame). They were then asked to rate the quality of the beef out of 7.

‍Those presented with a positive frame rated the beef as higher quality than those presented with a negative one.

Create a frame using context, words or imagery to help others  to see things according to your needs. 

Wildly different perceptions are made possible by reframing the same evidence.

Reframe statistics as factually-accurate positives against competitors. 

Facts are dramatically reinterpreted when set amongst different data. 

• Create an opportunity to act.

We’re more likely to take up a special offer when the marketing message is framed as a potential loss than a gain (Gamliel and Herstein, 2012). 

129 people were split into 2 groups, with half asked to either write about a time when they felt nostalgic or a neutral event. After writing, everyone was given $5 to distribute between themselves and a random other.

The results showed that on average, neutrals only gave away $1.43, whereas nostalgics gave $2.

Understand what nostalgia means for your target audience. Brands, products and campaign messaging can all gain from referring to the past to loosen our wallets. Nintendo are now rereleasing their 1985 NES console, for example.

Use to promote social behaviour. Since nostalgia causes a reduction in one’s desire for money,  it can instead be used to increase charitable donations or promote participation in a charitable event. 

Digital nostalgia is growing, as our online history of archived experiences deepens. The opportunity to capitalize upon this powerful effect will only increase. e.g. Facebook is now reminding us of our past experiences, using nostalgia to keep us emotionally bound to their network.

90 people were asked to solve 50 puzzles in either 10 or 40 minutes. A time-saving notification stating that “This question isn’t worth any points. Press A to skip” would pop up for half the puzzles.

Results showed that the time-scarce group ironically were more likely to miss the time-saving notifications due to their heightened focus on task completion.

‍Time Scarcity increases conversion under a few conditions

Make sure your use of it is on-brand, authentic and not overly-aggressive to avoid harming long-term trust and loyalty.

A big clock with red flashing text may boost sales in the short-term but risks damaging brand perceptions in the longer term and will lead to Reactance in the more behaviorally-aware and in more mature markets with stronger competition. 

Use time windows for excitement.

Particularly for experiments with new ideas or for seasonal Limited Editions. Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappucino was on sale for 5 days only. It sold out in just 3 and generated 160,000 Instagram posts. 

Develop novel ways of saving people time.

‍People who spend money on time-saving purchases report greater life satisfaction (Whillans et al, 2017). 

Amazon and Sainsbury’s are exploring no-queue, no-till shopping. Just scan on the app and leave. How can you free up even a few minutes of our most precious commodity?