Brands and Behavioural Science: Talk to the experts

As a creative brand consultancy, we have been vested in Behavioural Science for the past ten years. Our Brand Activation Director, Sally Tarbit was the first to identify its potential for getting to the nub of why customers (and employees) behaved they way they did.

As our Applied Behavioural Scientist, Mark Hauser says in his blog Nudge, Wink, Sledgehammer, “By identifying the biases and non-physical obstacles which prevent people from doing their desired behaviour, we can design more effective solutions.”

In agency land, behavioural science, thanks to the likes of Rory Sutherland has become the new rock n’ roll.

Everyone is doing it.

As our ‘With The Team’ speaker, Professor Ivo Vlaev has pointed out, there are multiple Behavioural Insights teams worldwide applying techniques to change behaviours to improve everything from health outcomes to policy take up. It has never been more important, because as Professor Vlaev points out, “fifty percent of the time, we never follow through on our good intentions. So, what is stopping us. That’s what we need to figure out.”

Stories of behavioural science are everywhere.

So, when Ivo spoke to our clients this week, I wanted to start the event by mentioning a cautionary tale.

A friend of mine was the manager responsible for Oasis’s gigs before their volatile break-up. He was present in 2009 when Noel and Liam announced that a gig at Heaton Park would be “free of charge” due to the PA system not being up to scratch.

It wasn’t planned. It was a Gallagher moment. One born out of frustration with the kit.

The management were frantic. This was going to cost them serious money.

That was until someone had the bright idea of issuing specially branded cheques. The brand in question was the Bank of Burnage. Burnage being a Manchester suburb where the Gallaghers had grown-up, hence the significance and emotional attachment.

The reasoning was simple. Nobody would cash-in something that was such a unique piece of memorabilia. The cheque would not doubt be framed, put up in pride of place in the house, and the money would stay in the bank.

Who would want to lose out on the opportunity to keep that unique cheque?

And this story has often been quoted: how fans chose to not get the refund, so saving the management team’s blushes.

The fans were hanging onto this special piece of paper – this one-off cheque – and it was a stroke of behavioural science genius. Whoever the bright spark was at the management company, they had managed to effectively ‘frame’ the refund as a whole new product.

Many respectable publications have used this as a Behavioural Science case study, and you can understand why. It’s a brilliant story.

Except, it isn’t true.

According to my friend, the fans did apply for refunds.

And guess what, when they discovered that the Bank of Burnage – as well as not existing – wasn’t making it easy to claim refunds, it left a wake of disgruntled fans.

You’ll still find their comments online.

What the management hadn’t factored in was the photocopier. Fans simply photocopied the cheque and then tried to cash it.

And they also hadn’t factored in the real terms cash loss. As Professor Vlaev told ‘With The Team’, “people are driven more by loss than they are by gain.”

The lesson.

There are lots of Behavioural Science stories out there now. They get retold again and again and like Chinese whispers get distorted or take on a new meaning.

To understand true examples of how Behavioural Science can really applied – and how it can help us design better experiences for customers and employees – we need to listen to the experts.

Psychologists have studied the drivers of behaviour since the nineteenth century, but this science has received renewed attention since researchers have begun to show how “heuristics and biases” influence judgement and decision-making over the past twenty years.

For a brief history of Behavioural Science and Economics, read this blog in Nature.

Part of the recent (re)emergence of Behavioural Science can be put down to MINDSPACE, the UK Government Cabinet Office paper authored by, David Halparn, Paul Dolan, Michael Hallsworth, Dominic King and Ivo Vlaev.

And these experts have fabulous stories to share. Here I will share just one from Ivo’s arsenal of lessons.

Behavioural Scientist Richard Thaler won a Nobel Prize in 2017 for a masterful piece of traffic design that led to a decrease in accidents of over 30%.

In Chicago there is a dangerous curve in the road at North Lake Shore Drive. No amount of warning signs helped to change drivers’ behaviours.

So, in 2006, Chicago painted a series of lines across the road. The lines were positioned closer together as the driver approached the curve. The effect was to increase the sensation of speed in the drivers’ minds as they approached the curve, causing them to touch on the breaks and slow down.

It was a simple nudge.

The logic goes that when drivers are comfortable with their surroundings, they’re less likely to pay attention. By designing cues into the road it engages our system 1 brains to naturally change behaviour.

If you want to know more about how behavioural science can be applied for your customers or employees, contact us. Our Applied Behavioural Scientist, Mark Hauser, will be happy to chat with you.

Or if you want to join our next talk With The Team, you can sign up here.