USING BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE TO GET AHEAD

Everything we do sits on a platform of robust, evidence-based behavioural science. Knowing what people do, why they do it and how to 'nudge' them your way, produces more effective marketing and advertising – gut feel and intuition are not enough.

We call this understanding, 'Instinct in Action' and apply it to all of your marketing, advertising, digital marketing, social media marketing, creative and PR.

Why behavioural science and behavioural economics?

Communications are designed to get people to do something: visit a website, make a purchase, join a college, give to charity, etc. So an understanding of why people do what they do and how they make decisions is critical. As Richard Chattaway stated in his book, The Behaviour Business, “If you are in business, you are in the business of behaviour”.

Our approach to business uses this consumer insight combined with applied creativity to create behaviour change. There are three reasons why we use behavioural science:

Benefits of using behavioural insights (or ‘nudges’):

Gain an advantage over your competitors who are unlikely to be using them
Experience increased response rates and ROI in your communications
Easily and affordably test these insights in a live environment (online or offline)
Provides a framework for marketing – from brand strategy, advertising and PR to any kind of communication
Backed up by 130 years of robust, reliable evidence

What is behavioural science?

Behavioural science is the study of decision-making. Knowing what makes people tick and going with the grain of their behaviour can be powerful when used in advertising.

People are overwhelmed with the sheer volume of choices they have to make each day – up to 35,000! We simply cannot process each decision with complete rationality, so we rely on short-cuts or ‘heuristics’. These short-cuts allow us to make quick decisions but they are prone to biases, such as scarcity, social proof and distinctiveness.

In advertising, these biases can be applied at all stages of the consumer journey to ‘nudge’ people in the right direction.

Our behavioural science workshop

We have developed a workshop in conjunction with the marketer and author of The Choice Factory, Richard Shotton. Richard is the go-to person for the applications of behavioural science in advertising.

Our workshop provides a thorough understanding of these biases within a framework. There is a very wide range of experiments, insights and biases available to businesses. The question most people ask is: “Where do we start?”.

The EAST Framework

In 2015, the U.K. Government's Behavioural Insights Team (The Nudge Unit) produced the EAST framework, which can be used to think about and manage behaviour change. The EAST framework tackles four areas: “Make it [the behaviour] Easy”, “Make it Contextual”, ”Make it Social” and ”Make it Timely”.

We add to this existing framework by including two additional pillars: “Make it Contextual” and ”Make it Relative”. These extra pillars provide further insights to tap into when applied to business settings.

How our client Royce Lingerie used the workshop to help their business get ahead

We held a behavioural science, half-day workshop with our client, Royce Lingerie, in December 2020.

Starting with their business challenges, we explored each part of the behavioural science framework, CATERS. The behavioural insights from this framework and global business examples were discussed and applied during several working sessions, developing a number of ideas for Royce Lingerie.

These concepts were whittled down to 12 actionable ideas which were prioritised and are being implemented over the course of this year. The application of these insights included using social proof and scarcity on the website.

Since implementing these changes, Royce Lingerie has seen record-breaking revenues.

“Big Cat’s CATERS Workshop was extremely engaging. It had been carefully put together to combine expert insight and some fun breakout sessions. It has made us rethink some of our marketing strategies and implement some quick-fire changes to our retail website, taking consumer behaviour into consideration. We were left hungry for more!”

Francesca Fleming – Commercial Director

Send us your brief

How does it work?

Discovery session

Our behavioural science specialists will start by hosting a FREE, 1 hour ‘Discovery’ workshop, where we ask you to tell us about your business challenges. What’s preventing you from reaching your targets? Do you need to be more distinctive or convert more visitors to sales? Whatever the challenge, behavioural science can help.

We then provide a taster of our knowledge of behavioral science, including the relevant biases within the CATERS framework.

CATERS workshop

If you want to know more, the CATERS workshop is where we will help you dive deeper into relevant biases. Our strategy team will take your business challenges discussed in the Discovery Session and tailor the workshop around them and your organisation. This personalisation includes several ‘working sessions’, where you’ll get the chance to implement what you’ve learnt alongside our strategists.

Following this workshop, we will create a report with all of the ideas discussed mapped against relative ‘ease’ and ‘impact’. This step helps us form an activity plan using behavioral science.

Proof of concept

The next phase of activity is proof of concept, where we recommend testing one bias to establish its impacts. Small-scale testing on digital channels can be applied quickly and cost-effectively. We can help shape the strategy for your team to implement or do it all for you, using our creative and digital marketing teams.

Test, learn and adapt

The most effective way of applying behavioural science is testing. Certain biases may work very well or not so well, depending on the product, service and audience. Some brands land on a bias that works and stick with that one whereas others are constantly testing to see which behavioural insights drive them the most returns.