Three steps to thinking more like a behavioural scientist

Heart surgeons need to know about the heart. Mechanics need to know about cars. Marketers need to know about humanity, or at least they should, because those marketing departments that have a professional understanding about how humans really work can be more influential and more impactful.

But it’s not enough to simply read a few popular behavioural science books you bought at the airport, it’s a way of thinking to be developed. I want to show how you can learn to think like a behavioural scientist and start seeing the unseen opportunities it opens.

When used correctly, behavioural science goes beyond ‘nudge tactics’ and offers a perspective that opens up the solution space for the thorniest of challenges, powering significant creative and commercial opportunities.

I have 12 commandments, if you will, to get through, but let’s start with three.

1. Always analyse the context first

Everyone hates to queue at airports, but the person who hates it most is the airport CFO. A standing passenger is not a spending passenger, and even though nobody wants queues they are tough to eradicate.

A Canadian airport spent years trying to fix their lengthy check-in queues where passenger behaviour was clogging up the system. Queues go quickly if passengers are ready with their passport and confirmation email, but many instinctively keep them safe in their bag for as long as possible so as not to risk losing their critical travel items.

To get passengers ready at check-in, the airport tried all the typical solutions. They tried repeating tannoy announcements. They printed signage interventions in the queues. They paid multilingual staff to go down the queues with verbal instructions. But behaviour was stuck.

Why It Works: How two meerkats made insurance memorableThe behavioural scientist, however, found a solution right under their feet. They extended the check-in desk carpet ten feet into the queue so passengers at the front had a change in context. All of a sudden, they ‘felt next’ and they automatically took out what they needed to check-in.

Changes in context can be huge triggers for behaviour change, and sometimes it’s something as unlikely as carpet that drives compliance, customer experiences, and happier airport CFOs.

2. Never default to discounting

Many marketeers have an overreliance on using the price lever as their primary way of increasing demand. But there are hundreds of psychological levers to drive engagement that are costless which should be pulled before we harm profits.

Let’s take the coffee chain loyalty card which requires eight stamps to get a free coffee. To supercharge the completion rate of the card it’s tempting to spend more on media to advertise it, or even to increase the size of the prize to drive engagement. But when a psychological lever is employed it causes a doubling in customer engagement with just a small tweak in card design.

Rather than eight stamp holes, we have ten stamp holes with two pre-filled. We’re still asking for eight stamps, but on a psychological level you feel halfway there. It’s a phenomenon known as the ‘goal gradient effect’. People love completing things more than they love starting things, and the closer they feel to their goal, the more motivated they are to complete it. Even rats run faster in a maze when they see the finish line.

If you think like a behavioural scientist you try out the psychological levers before you decide to discount, and in an era where marketers are expected to achieve more with less, it’s never been more important to start with persuasion ahead of margin plummeting discounting.

3. Don’t just do as customers ask

One of the key thinking traps you can fall into without a behavioural science approach is to assume customers want what they are asking for.

One charity that had a five-year decline in donations had thrown the kitchen sink at saving the organisation. If you ask customers what would make them donate more you hear a lot about needing motivating causes, for proceeds to go directly to those in need, and even to add Gift Aid so you can give even more for free.

The Bear is more than a good TV show – it hides some behavioural science truths tooBut behaviour change is not as simple as doing what customers ask. The intervention that drove a whopping 17% increase in donations was to simply reorientate the donation envelopes given out to households. People stop giving when they get that ‘full envelope feeling’ as it’s a cue that they’ve done enough. A landscape envelope feels fuller quicker than a portrait one – and so people keep filling it up.

We can not rely on what people think will change their behaviour, in fact, adding the option to give more via Gift Aid actually reduced donations. To be successful we need to read between the lines when analysing customer research. With customers, why they think something is often more insightful than what they think.

What to take away

Thinking like a behavioural scientist often means reimagining the marketing rulebook.

In a world of customer centricity it seems counterintuitive to not do exactly as the customer asks, it doesn’t compute that a small tweak to a loyalty card can have disproportionate results, and carpets are certainly not on any marketer’s channel mix to communicate a message.

The better that we know people, the more influential, intelligent and imaginative our businesses and brands will be.

Stop defaulting to discounting, don’t immediately do as the customer asks and watch out for those pesky carpets influencing your unconscious mind.

Dan Bennett runs the world’s most awarded behavioural science team at Ogilvy Consulting