Neoco

The Neoco team went to The Royal Society of Medicine for an event hosted by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) on the concept of ‘choice architecture’ a core aspect of behavioural economics. The event featured a talk by a leading academic in behavioural economics Richard Thaler, co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

A choice architect, effectively navigates the public/consumer through the choice process that will eventual produce an outcome. At the talk, Thaler discussed a series of scenarios where choice architecture is found in every day life. Understanding how people and in particular consumers choose and make one choice over another is key in the understanding the marketing process. Choice architecture, Thaler argued is the basis of effective communications. Choice architects and the options they produce are everywhere, even if we are not consciously aware of it. From a restaurant menu to transport maps and websites – it is their method or of way of presenting the information that influences how a decision is made. This is where people can be guided or ‘nudged’ in a particular direction and Richard Thaler, the co-author of Nudge believes that this can be an effective tool in a marketers arsenal.

For Thaler the easiest choice is often the best choice to motivate people to action. Often the default choice, where people do not need to do anything, will get the biggest results. So by making things easy like for example application forms, insurance renewal policies, pensions and to subscribe more organ donors – by making the default option the desired outcome for the choice architect will usually yield more. It is easier to opt out than to opt in!

Another nudge outlined by Thaler was to make something fun. He used a great example of getting people to use the stairs rather than the escalator at a train station in Stockholm. By transforming the stairs into a musical piano, where each step played a note on the scales, produced definitive results. A dramatic rise in the use of the stairs turned an everyday journey into a surprising, pleasurable and mildly memorable event. So the nudge there was to turn behaviour away from the easy alternative, which was the escalator to a novel, fun and nostalgic (if you’ve seen Tom Hanks in Big that is..) experience.

The talk was really insightful and provided some backbone to what we do as marketers, however often take for granted or perhaps take the tried and tested option. What choice architects do is deconstruct behaviour to more than brand choices and looks deeper into the cause that eventually plays a part in the motivating effect.

Tags  Behavioural Economics Choice Architecture Default IPA Nudge