Nudging is an umbrella term for measures that “make it easy to do the right thing.” A good example is reducing food waste by switching to smaller plates. Other examples include placing healthy foods within easy reach or at eye level in the store or increasing sales of healthy fish dishes by placing them at the top of the menu.
Nudging is also a useful marketing tool. If you place the product you most want to sell as the default option or placed top-left in your product listing, the majority of customers will likely buy that product. Making an active choice is simply too demanding. It’s the same mechanism that makes you continue paying your gym membership even though you’ve stopped going to the gym, or that makes you accept the book club’s monthly selections simply because you don’t feel like making your own choice.
Nudging is a powerful method for creating changes in people’s behavior. It is no coincidence that governments in most countries now have nudging specialists on their staff.
It is possible to influence other people in even more ways. Here are some unsorted techniques:
- A background image that conveys the same feeling as the advertising message increases the effectiveness of an ad, for example associations with finance or security
- Rapid image cuts in a commercial cause the recipient to constantly receive new impressions, which prevents competing thoughts
- In video advertising, attention is greatest immediately after a cut – place your sales message there, not at the end of a long sequence
- It is important that TV commercials are not placed next to programs whose content conflicts with the advertising message
- Employees who are shown images of winning or success in connection with their work perform better than others
- Students in classrooms with colorful images, drawings, and posters on the walls perform worse than students in visually calmer classrooms. The same applies to, for example, trade fair booths – if you can create a calm environment for conversations, the likelihood of your sales messages being well received increases
Many people believe that suggestive images linked to sex strengthen influence, and this is true – but only for certain types of products such as cosmetics, fragrances, and clothing.
Fear-based messages, for example about the dangers of smoking or the risks of drowning, work only if the messages are linked to concrete information about what individuals themselves can do to eliminate the problem.
If you want to discuss communication that makes people act in the right way, you are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxagency.se
