Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘nice to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from Botox for migraines to the hidden “grey army”.

Clinical trials have shown that Botox can help people with chronic migraines

We still chuck away 10m tonnes of packaging waste a year. Nearly 67% is supposedly recovered

Approximately 60 per cent of couples live together before they get married

There are about 300 million micro-bloggers in China, and the most popular blogs have readerships that dwarf the circulation of the largest newspapers

There is a hidden “grey army” of over-65s bolstering employment figures – with some 891,000 in work, the highest figure for 20 years

Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘need to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from Chinese eating habits to the lingerie market getting a boost.

Chinese eating habits have started to mimic those in the west – the growing middle class has started having cereal for breakfast rather than rice

Every year 250,000 people go missing

800,000 people in the UK suffer from dementia

59 per cent of adults now sip sports drinks to combat fatigue or to get a boost

The £3.6bn UK lingerie market will be boosted this summer by brands expanding in London

Jeremy Basset, Unilever

This week we meet Jeremy Basset, Director – New Business Unit, Unilever.

What’s your golden rule?
If you’re not uncomfortable then you’re probably not trying hard enough.

Who has been your biggest influence?
My uncle. He turned a dairy farm into Australia’s most awarded ice-cream business, then closed it down to focus on his family.

What is your most hated business expression?
“Can I be honest with you?” …what does that say about everything you just said!?

What’s the smartest business idea you’ve ever had?
If I told you I would have to kill you :)

Which leader do you admire most and why?
Jeff Bezos – spotted the internet as an opportunity, made a mid-career switch to pursue it & then created the worlds largest online retailer.

What’s your favourite word?
“Yes” – except in India where ‘yes’ often means ‘no’

What’s your favourite quote?
“Good artists copy; great artists steal” – Picasso

Tell us a secret
Vegemite is actually better than Marmite:)

We’re looking to profile all our members here, so please do email Will to get involved if we haven’t yet been in touch.

Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, continues his weekly search for innovative marketing ideas that get people talking. This week we lower the tone with Dog poo wifi in Mexico and toilet time gaming in Amsterdam.

Dog Poo Wifi

A make-you-look-twice campaign, created by Mexico based internet provider Terra, has started to get noticed online. The frankly named “Poo Wifi” campaign encourages dog walkers to clean-up after their pooches by offering free wifi access when dog do-do is deposited in a special bin.  Yes, you did read that right!  Actually, with the rise of mobile web devices this is a rather neat way for Terra to communicate its wifi presence and stay on the side of the community by cleaning up the park. Beyond the novelty, this is apparently not a one off stunt, the dog-dependent wifi devices are supposedly being trialled at 10 parks across Mexico City.

Queen’s Day Toilet Break

Waternet, a Dutch water company, wanted to stop people from using the canals as a toilet during the national Queen’s Day celebrations in April. The party atmosphere that surrounds the holiday meant that something fun was called for.  Dutch agency Achtung! decided to turn toilet breaks into a game!  Several bright orange urinals were placed around the city. The stalls were connected to a large digital screen that displayed a specially designed game and turned peeing into a race of measures!  The more you got rid of the quicker you’d reach the finish line.  The grand prize for the ultimate winner was the return of their water taxes!

Read more BEcause blog posts. Visit their website, and tweet @becausexm.

As part of our partnership with Marketing magazine we spark debate amongst senior members of The Marketing Society. This week, as a state-owned Chinese group, Bright Food, has bought a 60% stake in cereal company Weetabix. We ask will foreign ownership of British brands affect their marketing?

MAYBE
Celia Pronto
Marketing and Ecommerce Director, Ford Retail Group

British brands have expanded internationally by exploiting their reputation for quality, design, creativity and heritage, making them prime investment targets.

Given their success has been built on these qualities, most investors will not fundamentally want to change a brand’s essence or positioning, but will look at opportunities to use these in both new and existing markets.

The marketing strategy may, however, need to be reviewed to ensure cultural fit, especially where a brand has had a presence only in the UK.

Any change will need to balance what is appropriate in new markets with a desire to not alienate customers in existing markets.

NO
Mel Cruickshank
Chief Executive, LIDA

Before we get paranoid about the sale of British brands, we should remember that Bright Food is buying Weetabix from Lion Capital in Texas. It simply reflects the shift in global economic power away from the West.

This deal is more an opportunity for expansion in the Chinese market than a change of UK marketing strategy, as the cereal market grew by 15% last year in China.

Retaining the current team, including chief executive Giles Turrell, will give Bright Food access to extensive brand-building, technical and product-development capability that will help it grow overseas, as well as in home markets.

YES
Simon Gore
Managing Director UK, Holmes & Marchant

Brands here are under economic pressure: acquisitions bring cash and, with it, financial stability.

Arguably, the depth of Chinese coffers brings bucket-loads of both, opening up a wealth of opportunities for brands to deliver ambitious and adventurous marketing strategies.

The moot point is whether we’ll see a difference in execution. Cardiff City FC’s suggested rebrand from blue to red by the club’s Malaysian owners is an exception.

For the Chinese, purchases such as Weetabix are a look-and-learn exercise, based on gathering intelligence that they can amplify here, and exploit in Asia.

YES
Jon Goldstone
Former Group Marketing Director, Premier Foods

The elements of the marketing strategy that have made the acquired business successful are unlikely to be fiddled with.

Weetabix’s ‘Fuel for big days’ proposition, for example, is well-communicated and has the flexibility to work across markets, so I wouldn’t expect it to change.

The broader marketing strategy will be overhauled to incorporate international expansion and long-term investment in quality communications and innovation.

Read more Marketing Society forum posts. The Marketing Society Forum is exclusive to members of The Marketing Society. Find out more about the benefits of joining The Marketing Society’s exclusive network and how you can contribute to our forum.

1959 was the year The Marketing Society was founded and the birth of modern marketing. Today, The Marketing Society is the most influential network of senior marketers dedicated to championing marketing in the UK. Fifty Golden Brands is our exploration of the changing role of brands since our foundation.

In 1995, the new order arrived in the form of two enduring brands fit for a brave new world –easyJet and Sony Playstation. Each brand has since revolutionised their industry.

No-frills airline, EasyJet, led by larger-than-life Greek entrepreneur, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, helped make the world a smaller place. By cutting out free drinks and meals on flights and cutting out travel agents, enabling travellers to book their own flights online or on the phone, EasyJet could pass on savings to its customers.

The orange-coloured budget airline was shaking up its industry. Later, even British Airways would get in on the act with a no-frills spin-off Go, an airline EasyJet would buy in 2002.

Meanwhile, Sony Playstation took the world of consoles and computer games firmly out of the children’s bedrooms into a must-have recreational habit for young men, partly helped by the arrival of cyber heroine Lara Croft.

It was a good year for technology and engineering. Microsoft launched Windows 1995 and Netscape Navigator was the browser of choice for those online. And the Dyson DCO1 made cleaning more fun as the best-selling vacuum cleaner in the UK.

Noteworthy ad campaigns came from the Ambassador who was really spoiling us with Ferrero Rocher and a more straightforward ad from Ronseal that “does exactly what it says on the tin.”

Finally, British teenagers were delighted with two product innovations from the alcohol industry – lemonade alcopops called Two Dogs and Hooch.

Brand Value – Methodology

Books: Pat Barker writes The Ghost Road

Events: British troops sent to Sarajevo; Brixton riots; Shell agrees not to dump Brent Spar

Films: The Usual Suspects

Music: Blur sings “Country House”

This week’s Challenger Project by Georgia Craib, discusses the importance of every person within a company understanding that a brand identity is more than an image, it acts as a filter for decision making.

Cranium of Cranium inc. was a ‘game’ changer in the board game category (tee hee). They flipped every convention; distribution, audience, Christmas… the list is never ending.

It really was wonderful- so much so that I got excited reading a story about it 14 years on (although for different reasons that i liked it back then, I was a pre-teen so mainly just enjoyed the purple dough).

Cranium Inc.’s mandate and every employee’s mantra was the acronym CHIFF= “clever high quality, innovative, friendly, funny.” From every innovation, through to every small piece of comms, to what kind of chairs were in the office, every decision had to go through -

Is it clever?

Is it high quality?

Is it Innovative?

Is it Friendly?

Is it Funny?

Is it CHIFF? If the answer is yes, then go forth and produce!

It’s not the best acronym, they aren’t necessarily the most compelling set of words of intent. But they did something really cool, cool enough for me not to feel ashamed about mentioning something that happened whilst I still owned a Barbie and a school uniform.

Whit Alexander, one of the co-founders, was working on a new concept for a board game piece. It was going to be pretty elaborate – so it was going to need its constituent parts glued together. He started to explain to the manufacturer in China. Before he was interrupted with…

“It’s not CHIFF!”

…the supplier halfway around the world chastised the Co-founder of Cranium for not being brand aligned, and he was right! Glueing bits of plastic together wouldn’t be high quality or innovative. Instead the manufacturer made suggestions to make it ‘CHIFF’ and helped develop the design- openly sharing his expertise and adding value far above and beyond the relationship required.

When we help people develop Challenger Lighthouse Identities we always ask the team to think of the effect their brand identity will have internally, because it is so important that every person understands that a brand identity is more than an image, it acts as a filter for decision making.

Often a brand identity starts as words on a page, but it is when the people who make up the business embrace it as a beacon of behavior- that’s when interesting things happen and the untapped potential is discovered.

Story found in the book Make it stick by Chip and Dan Heath (I know – again!).

Read more Challenger blog posts on the Marketing Society blog. Visit their website, and tweet @challengerproj.

Daianna Karaian, Brand Strategy Manager at EDF Energy and blogger at Sexy Or Susty sums up our latest Green Think Tank.

It was one of those ‘I was there’ moments when you get the feeling great things are going to happen.  A room full of leading marketers.  A palpable buzz.  A flurry of flip charts.  An early morning breakfast discussing sustainability?  Indeed.

Things kicked off with Malcolm Evans of Space Doctors talking us through the evolving semiotics of sustainability, the way ‘communication codes’ are changing as sustainability matures.

- From worthy to compelling

- From greenwash to transparency

- From lecturing to celebrating

- From rational to emotional

- From talk to action

- From nature as fragile to nature as powerful

- From niche to normal

- From us-versus-them to win-win

- From problems to solutions

In many ways, the BRIC countries are leading the way.  Emerging trends in emerging economies include upcycling, ‘eco-chic’ design, money-saving innovation, community-based collaboration and a value placed on heritage.  In more developed economies, demand is growing for brands that offer quality, meaning and authenticity combined with aesthetic appeal.

So how do you reach beyond the hard-core green consumer to a mainstream audience?  With Malcolm’s guidance, 60 marketers set about the task of weeding out the worthy wind farm and polar bear cliches.  Armed with DEFRA’s attitudinal and behavioural green segmentation, we uncovered the themes that can make a brand’s sustainable innovations fresh, relevant and compelling.

- Stalled Starters: Those who neither know nor care much about the environment, but whose lower incomes result in accidental green behaviours, could be turned on by competition, aspiration, celebrity and community.  For example, the football kit Nike makes out of recycled plastic bottles.

- Cautious Participants: People who want to help but don’t want to go it alone can be turned on through practical, affordable, easy-to-understand sustainability that normalises ‘green’ behaviour.  For example, M&S’s ‘buy one, give one’ Shwopping initiative.

- Waste Watchers: The mature, thrifty crowd may be turned on by upcycling, knowledge sharing and community engagement.  For example, Futerra’s Swishing (i.e. clothes swapping) parties.

- Sideline Supporters: Believers who make excuses for not doing much are happy to be led by brands that make sustainability normal, accessible, effortless and fun.  For example, brands participating in the Start initiative.

- Concerned Consumers: The high-income fast followers who are open to green choices, but often make unsustainable buying decisions, are turned on by smart solutions, great design and convenience.  For example, Method’s pretty, effective, non-toxic cleaning products.

- Honestly Disengaged: Sceptics who can’t be bothered might be turned on by appeals to their ego and intelligence, status and entertainment.  For example, the American Express ad featuring the adventures of Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard.

We ignored the Positive Greens segment who are all talk and no action on sustainability.  They’re just as annoying as brands that don’t walk the talk.

A toolkit containing Malcolm Evans’ slides and a summary of the table discussions will be available on our website.

Source: Summarised from DEFRA segmentation 2007 by BMRB and GreenBabel

John Gilbert, business analyst from JGFR, looks at the challenges arising from this unique summer of events.

There are so many things to comment on both from personal experience and from analysing the last quarter’s datasets that this month’s blog tries to weave various themes together.

This summer the unique combination of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics are set to dominate much of the news media. In the City, analysts are trying to quantify the impact on an economy that is currently in a double dip recession while marketers and businesses assess the financial impact on their plans.

That the economy has double-dipped is no surprise given the recessionary level that consumer confidence has been at in the past six months.

The GfK April consumer confidence survey was especially weak in London, down 6 points to -31, and is at its lowest level since February 2009. This comes as a surprise given the great celebrations Londoners have in prospect. Perhaps worries over the choice of London Mayor may have been a factor. A’ Boris Bounce’ in confidence next month will suggest that Mayoral worries did have a notable effect on the mood of Londoners.

As London prepares to welcome the world, with the Olympic Torch now en route, and Boris Johnson elected Mayoral host, one factor that will play a key impact on Londoner’s mood is ticket allocation.

In the run up to the ticket ballot, over a third of Londoners and a similar proportion in the South East indicated they would apply for tickets. Across the nation some 17% of adults (around 8.8 million people indicated they would apply, although actual registration (some 2.5 million) was much lower. The massive demand for tickets – many people would seek multiple tickets for family and friends – has meant great disappointment for millions whose plans were thwarted.

Only around 6% of adults have received tickets nationwide with the highest proportion of ticket holders in the South and East – but with many frustrated in London (28% disappointed) and in the South East (24% disappointed).

So is the Olympics all about money?  The association with the Olympics brand, symbolising the pursuit of excellence and attracting global TV audiences, together with the corporate marketing and promotion opportunities presented, make it a compelling partner with a potential pot of gold.

The UK public will be a good judge of the role of the corporate sponsors. Relatively few consumers are directly moved to react to sponsorship. Currently some 11% of adults are more likely to switch to / purchase from / regularly use Olympic sponsors’ brands, compared to a high of 16% in 2009 and unchanged on a year ago. For sponsors, the people most likely to change are their ideal target market- young, ABs and upper middle income earners.

Many of these groups will be hoping that they can get tickets from corporate sponsors. Currently some 5% of adults will seek tickets from corporate sponsors with the young (15%) having the highest demand.

For sponsors they have a key role to play in the Olympics legacy, contributing to the social and environmental impact of the Games. For food and drink sponsors theirs is a particular challenge given the importance of health and wellbeing and the need to get people more active to combat obesity.

A GfK survey last year found 68% of the public believed that the NHS should use the London Olympics to promote sport / exercise. Indeed as part of ‘Beyond 2012’, improving the nation’s health and well-being is set to become a post-Olympics policy objective. Already government funding is in place to build the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine with major corporate sponsorship now sought to support the delivery  of an on-going multi-faceted  health and wellbeing legacy programme across the country.

Many opportunities to help support the Olympics legacy are likely in the coming years. While focus in the past has been on improving sports participation – currently 57% of adults believe that the Olympics will boost sports participation, down from 67% a year ago and falling more steeply among the young – monitoring the social impact of the Olympics, especially in the inner cities, will be high up the political agenda, with charities set to play a bigger role as they seek partnerships with corporate sponsors.

As the nation prepares for  three months of wall-to-wall events – including also Euro 2012 and the Cultural Olympiad – the  focus will increasingly be on July 27^th and the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium.

An invitation to the Sainsbury’s UK School Sports finals this week held at the Olympic Stadium provided a first-hand feel for what the public may expect. Getting there was not a problem – the directions to the Olympic Park were very good from Stratford station- although within the Park there are significant distances between venues. Entering the Park will be time consuming and require considerable patience. To help while away queuing time, all the staff are trained to humour visitors Disney style. What was a surprise was the exposed seating in around half of the Olympic Stadium to the weather – which was wet and miserable. Despite excellent views in what is a splendid athletics stadium, the rain won in the end and forced an early exit.

Indeed the depressing weather this month will have done little for retailers and is the one aspect to the Games that LOCOG have little control over. A check back over Met Office weather records for Heathrow airport as a proxy for London, a useful source for all marketers whose products may be weather effected – www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata – shows that in the past decade rainfall in August has progressively increased while hours of sunshine has decreased.  The motto for all attending the Olympics will be ‘Be prepared’. In the last London Olympics of 1948 the Opening ceremony took place on a sweltering day – July 27^th – with many people fainting – only to be followed by a fortnight of mainly miserable and cool weather.

Read more from John Gilbert

Crawford Hollingworth, founder, The Behavioural Architects on unlocking the strategic power of Behavioural Economics.

The Power of BE

There is a huge buzz around behavioural economics (BE) and a high level of expectation in our industry not seen for many years.  We are all aware of the powerful insights on brain function and are prompted almost weekly by another penetrating insight into human behaviour and cognitive biases.  We are also conscious that many marketing and market research approaches based on rational economic man are somewhat challenged by these new insights into human behaviour.

But whilst the global column inches given to this new understanding and its conceptual importance are growing, many people still feel that they are not quite sure how to embrace the learning practically and unlock the power of behavioural economics - particularly at a deeper strategic level.

At its heart, BE provides a framework for exploring behaviour, showing us how we are cognitive misers (or cognitively efficient, depending on your point of view), and that we use various anchors, rules of thumb and short cuts to make decisions and are subject to a whole plethora of cognitive biases. BE encourages us to consider a person’s behavioural journey and the influence of different contexts from social to purchase. It challenges us to explore both the conscious and unconscious influencers that guide people and make them do one thing versus another. Adopting a BE led approach delivers a dynamic map of consumer behaviour and penetrating insights into how habits are formed and broken.

Harnessing this power

This article aims to show how BE constructs can not only provide quick executional wins and simple methodological enhancements to existing research approaches such as qualitative research – what we call a ‘level one’ application - BUT critically can also provide a ‘level two’ application - in the form of powerful strategic frameworks for thinking about behaviour and behaviour change.

Applying BE: Level One

A behavioural tool kit for ‘nudging’ or ‘steering’ behaviour in certain directions – for simple behavioural wins

Over the last few years accessible books about BE such as ‘Nudge’ and ‘Predictably Irrational’ have created a lot of excitement. The long-standing assumption about rational economic man has been challenged and it has been proven that we are susceptible to a whole range of cognitive biases. If leveraged, these biases can allow us to nudge or steer someone’s behaviour in a particular direction.  Governments have been quick to grasp these new insights using them to help steer us towards healthier eating, to go out and vote, to fill in questionnaires on time and even to encourage us to spend rather than save. (1)

There are many successful examples of level one BE, such as the online ‘nudging’ used by booking.com.. Website design can make great use of simple, applied BE to nudge or steer consumers. Booking.com has an extremely well-designed website which makes use of many cognitive biases. Below you will see how they use the power of now by telling us someone else booked ten minutes ago, how they leverage social norms by telling us 20 others are looking at this hotel and that it has an 8.4 out of 10 rating average from nearly 300 reviews, and finally making us click to book that room by tapping into both scarcity bias and loss aversion by telling us that there are only x rooms left at that rate.

Applying BE: Level Two

Harnessing the power of BE at a deeper, strategic level

Beyond these simple, powerful quick wins, BE and the behavioural sciences have provided us with the structural architecture for analysing consumer behaviour.  BE directs us to focus on understanding the consumer’s behavioural rather than their attitudinal journey and provides a framework or architecture for investigating and defining this behavioural journey – a strategic framework and set of constructs underpinned by science.

BE directs us to consider a wider holistic view of the influences on behaviour, not to get over-focussed on one particular context e.g. purchase or consumption but to consider all of the different contexts that could influence behaviour.

At The Behavioural Architects (TBA) we have developed a model which breaks out the different contexts around an individual, being mindful that different contexts can be more powerful at different times. We look at the social and cultural context, the purchase and consumption contexts, and the brand context, exploring and defining the influencing architecture within each. The model allows us to map the consumer journey across different levels of context.

This model directs how we set up research and analyse consumer data.  And as BE tells us that most of these behavioural influences are subconscious it challenges us to think more laterally about how to unlock consumer insight using priming and disruption techniques to surface behavioural triggers and barriers.

The case studies below illustrate how this ‘level two’ application of BE can inspire new strategic approaches to understanding behaviour and behavioural change along with new methodological research approaches.

BE is used to define behavioural objectives and to help achieve them.

The UK Training Development Agency ran a successful campaign with DDB utilising BE for its Teacher Recruitment in 2010. Insight from research showed there was no attitudinal problem in the recruitment of teachers, in that there was no shortage of people who wanted to make a career switch and become a teacher, there was, however, a behavioural problem.  Potential recruits were finding the task of determining how to go about a career switch into teaching too large and daunting and were consequently failing to convert their interest in teaching into actively training and qualifying as teachers. So the task became a behavioural one – the TDA needed to find ways to break the journey down into steps and then help people travel along it chunk by chunk.

Reframing the task as a behavioural problem led to a radically different media strategy: from selling teaching (the result) to creating an effective and easy behavioural journey to encourage people to take the necessary steps to train and qualify as teachers. A series of behavioural triggers to nudge career switchers into and along this journey was devised, turning a big decision into a series of small steps—a chunking approach.

The communication strategy was devised to act like a behavioural pinball machine – trying to keep people ‘in play’ or engaged for the length of time needed to carry out the full career change. The communication strategy was to nudge people along the journey to teacher training by breaking down each research or pre-application task into a series of smaller steps.

Further, real teachers who had also made career changes were deliberately featured in the ads to capitalise on social norms – reassuring career switchers that teachers were people like them.

The campaign evaluation showed that every behavioural metric had improved: from web visits, to enquirers, to eligible enquirers, to applications. The campaign achieved a minimum payback of £101 for every £1 spent, increasing teacher inquiries and applications to record-breaking levels on a smaller spend. The campaign won Best in Class IPA Effectiveness Awards 2010.

BE methodological inspiration to unlock understanding of lower tier consumers in China

Lower tier Chinese cities represent a vast opportunity for companies that can understand the lower tier consumer psyche and behaviours. Around a quarter of China’s population live in tier 3 and 4 cities, accounting for over 40% of the

country’s GDP. Extrapolating only existing knowledge and experience of better-known tier 1 and 2 cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, could prove disastrous for companies looking to grow in China.  China’s lower tier cities have a different economic structure, consumer culture and retail landscape from the larger metropolises. In other words, the context for brands entering the lower tier market is radically different from that in higher tier cities.

TBA used a BE-inspired research methodology to explore and contrast the consumer behavioural journey of lower tier consumers versus tier 1 and 2 consumers in China in relation to snacking.

The core aim was to think more holistically about how snack products fit into  the lives of people in tiers 3 and 4 – the behavioural journey – and not to fall into the trap of assuming a basic lifestyle trajectory with the same end point as those in tiers 1 and 2.

BE states that it is critical to understand the context around behaviour. The methodology was structured specifically to unlock the different contexts, which influence consumer behaviour – the cultural context, social context, purchase and consumption context and brand context. Our hypothesis was that we needed a holistic view of the consumer behavioural journey to reveal critical differences in behaviour between the upper and lower tiers. To further deepen our brand contextual understanding a semiotician was employed to define brand cues and short cuts.

In this project, deep behavioural observation, behavioural priming and disruption techniques were used to make consumers more aware of their own behaviours and to surface subconscious tirggers and barriers.

The study showed that lower tier cities are contextually different from tier 1 and 2 cities and that significant elements of the different contexts are not simply transitional.  This means that the most effective innovation and positioning will straddle both the old and new.

The study also showed that the way in which higher and lower tier consumers eat is fundamentally different. Context is everything and the big difference between the tiers is the constant availability of food. In lower tier cities, food comes to you, food is around you and therefore snacking is very instant and spontaneous. People eat whenever they feel like eating.  In fact the Chinese definition of a snack – ‘little eating of scattered food’ sums up their approach to snacking perfectly.  There is no guilt associated with snacking, it is simply how you eat – food on the street, unpackaged and quick, plus an increasing amount of packaged food to take home to eat.

Using TBA’s BE framework delivered a more structured and strategic level of investigation.  The output was presented as a consumer’s behavioural journey, highlighting the conscious and subconscious influences on this journey. From this a behavioural opportunity map was developed to guide future lower tier marketing and innovation strategy.

In summary

BE can be applied at an executional level one – playing to one or more cognitive biases to nudge or steer a person’s behavior.

And BE can also be used at a strategic level two:

Firstly, it provides a framework for considering the behavioural journey a person goes on when making a decision and the influence of different contexts.  Secondly, it challenges us to think more deeply about how to surface conscious and subconscious behavioural influences within these contexts.

And overall it promises that if used in this strategic way BE led approaches can deliver penetrating insights into how decisions are made and habits formed and that’s when everyone gets excited.

(1) For example the government’s Change4life programme drew heavily on BE in its approach and strategy, as did collection of the UK census recently. Obama has also made use of BE in both his 2008 voting campaign and tax rebate policies.

Read more from Crawford Hollingworth