12 hours of

crammed into
25 pages
25 main ideas by 25 speakers in 25 pages

and related to business application

Made for you by

 For worde
O h, Nudgestock 2021, that was really something, wasn’t it? 25 speakers shared their years of
experience and delivered the most insightful findings. What a mindblowing day!

Behavioral science can be incredibly effective, but is it enough on its own? How and under what
conditions does it work best? For which industries? For what target audiences?

You'll learn all that and more over the next 25 pages.

If you didn't manage to take notes from Nudgestock, don’t worry - we've taken them for you, so you
can look back over the most relevant information and use it in your work at any time. Keep it close to
hand - it's worth it.

We’ve also taken the liberty of preparing a BONUS - an incredible selection of business case studies
related to each of the presentations.

We at InsideBE are particularly interested in practical ways to apply the insights from science to
business, so we put together these case studies with the world's best BE experts to give you
inspiration for your own day-to-day decisions.

Companies tend to repeat the same practices and configurations over and over again, expecting
them to bring about significant changes that just don't come.

Behavioral science and psychology in marketing make that change happen. And it doesn't have to be
particularly complex.

Enjoy the contents of this e-book!

Matej Sucha
Editor in Chief of insideBE
 2021

Is everything
BS?
“ Is everything around BS (behavioral science)?” asks
Rory and follows with a simple answer “ Everything is Rory Sutherland
BS but BS isn’t everything” Vice Chairman of Ogilvy
C onsider a sale in a shop. An economist will say it is
consistent with economic theory because if you
reduce price sales go up. But a sale doesn’t work exclusively because the price is lower. Scarcity (the
product might sell out) or social proof (many people are buying it) play an important role. Sale is
therefore not purely economics nor purely behavioral.

Everything is BS but “ BS without creativity is suboptimal” says Rory and continues

BS isn’t everything. “ The bizarre sister of creativity is testing and measuring”.
Don’t just test things that make sense. Test things that don’t
make sense.

Related business reads

How 3 Changes No One Would How Ogilvy Used Psychology

Advise Had a Shocking Impact

to Increase Sales of KFC French
on a Direct Mail Response Fries by 56%
 2021

Nudging to
end poverty
In her speech, Abigail stresses that you need to
understand things from people’s perspectives if you Abigail Dalton
want to change their behavior. Mind, Behavior, and

Development Unit

The first step is diagnosing at World Bank Group

existing barriers and understanding
behavioral bottlenecks.

Abigail gives an interesting example of a project in Haiti where people were reluctant to leave their
homes and hide in hurricane shelters. Three main barriers causing it were discovered and addressed
through a creative campaign: 1.
People did not receive alert messages

2.

Messages were not adapted to the format and language that people

understood.

3. People were reluctant to leave their belongings behind

Related business reads

How To Understand What’s Decoded: The Hidden Ingenuity of

Stopping Customers From Doing Netflix’s Registration Process
What You Want Them To Do
 2021

A Safe Space for

Sustainability
C inta makes an important point that sustainability
interventions can fail because of biases from Cinta

intervention designers.
Azwiendasari
She adds that you must perfectly understand the Sustainability Communications

motivations and the barriers that prevent people and Behaviour Design

from doing what you want them to do. Professional

She gives a fascinating example of a campaign aimed

at promoting sustainable fishing. Research showed
that fishers saw sustainable fishing as a way to help their country. Therefore, instead of a traditional
“ rationally-oriented” messaging focused on fish depletion, they designed a new national
pride-oriented campaign. Cinta urges to “ Be mindful of your own biases” .

Be open to new and creative ways to change behavior.

Related business reads

Case Study: How a Clever Product Case Study: How Redesigning a

Description Boosted One Fashion Job Ad Using Behavioral Insights
Brand’s Conversions by 51% Attracted 3x More Candidates
 2021

Traps of
Efficiency
The main message of Guru’s speech is that we
shouldn’t strive for efficiency at all costs. Sometimes Guru Madhavan
it’s meaningful inefficiencies that add tremendous Senior Director of Programs,

value. U.S. National Academy

of Engineering
Bear in mind that the difference
between medicine and poison is
slight. More is not always better.

This is true not only for efficiency but for many other aspects of business too. Paradoxically, too
much information or choice might harm sales and customer satisfaction.

Related business reads

Decoded: Uncovering the Hidden Decoded: How Netflix Makes Us

Genius Behind IKEA’s Product Choose With Ease and What
Display and Design Businesses Can Learn From It
 2021

The ergodicity
alarm
Would you do a coin toss if you could gain a 50%
increase on your current assets every time you get Ollie Hulme
heads but lose 40% of your assets when you get tails? Researcher at Danish

Well, you shouldn't. Research Centre

On average, people gain money in this game. But only for Magnetic Resonance
the ensemble average (over a lot of people) rises. The
average declines over time (so an individual probably
loses money). Basically, a few lucky ones get a lot of wealth while the majority loses. With this
example, Ollie explains you should be real careful about the types of averages that are presented to you.
People can change their risk attitudes based on context, which means
our intuition is more ad anced than the economic theory proposes
v .

Related business reads

Decoded: How Netflix Makes Us Think About What Your Customers

Choose With Ease and What Might Lose Before Thinking About
Businesses Can Learn From It What They Might Gain
 2021

Fundraising
secrets
In her short speech, Maddie gave a quick overview of
5 key strategies for effective fundraising: Maddie Croucher
Make it relevant - personally meaningful.
Senior Consultant

Make it appealing - increase perceived value.

at Ogilvy Consulting
Make it intuitive - create mental reference points.

Make it social - use contextually relevant messengers

and tailored norms.

Make it easy - put important information upfront and

repeat your request.

Together, they make up the acronym RAISE. Thanks to these principles, they managed to create
surprisingly effective campaigns.

Related business reads

Case Study: How 3 Changes No How to Nudge Customers to Take

One Would Advise Had a Shocking Action? Lower the Perceived
Impact on a Direct Mail Response Effort
 2021

Rethinking
psychopharmacology
and behaviour change
David Nutt
Head of the Centre for
Why is alcohol socially accepted while psychedelics
Neuropsychopharmacology,
aren’t? Both have been a part of human history for as
Imperial College London
long as we can remember.

We all know alcohol is a dangerous drug. It has a lot

of negative side effects, yet we still drink it. David explains that we still do it to achieve the positives,
which are an increase in sociability and relaxation. Together with his team, they developed a
botanical alternative to alcohol, which checks the boxes for positives but with no side effects.

He also makes a parallel to psychedelics and briefly explains their healing potential and why we
should pay attention to them, claiming that “ psychedelics will be the next great revolution in
psychotherapy.”
 2021

BE Sci and
Headspace
Headspace is a digital meditation and mindfulness
application that aims to improve health and Claire Purvis
happiness in the world. But to truly bring a Senior Director of

meaningful difference by building healthy routines, Behavioral Science

people need to use the product.

at Headspace
Claire pointed out that most people refrained from
using the app because of cognitive overload.

Short term gratification is really important. Find a short term reward,

that will sustain the long term reward.

Users resorted to Headspace in states of anxiety. So, Headspace ran a ‘5-day stress program’ and used
behavioral science techniques to calm users on the spot. This resulted in a 9% increase in the
likelihood of members using the app in 24 hours.

Related business reads

How To Understand What’s Decoded: How Netflix Makes Us

Stopping Customers From Doing Choose With Ease and What
What You Want Them To Do Businesses Can Learn From It
 2021

How’s Your
Form
When someone asks us “ How are you?”, Rob
Stephenson says we rarely answer this question Rob Stephenson
authentically. To make us more intentional about our Wellbeing consultant and
thoughts and behaviour, he tells us to add a simple
CEO at FormScore
word. He asks, “ How are you today?”

Rob has been working as a mental health campaigner

to improve and help people prioritise their mental wellbeing at work. Having suffered from mental
illnesses since a young age, Rob says that proactively managing your own mental wellbeing is the
most effective way to improve it.

Proactively managing your own mental wellbeing is the most

effective way to improve it.

In his stride to break the stigma around mental health, Rob developed Form - a self-reflection tool to
evaluate one’s own mental wellbeing and support one another in the workplace.
 2021

Influencer
Marketing is
full of BS Ian Randolph

4/10 consumers scroll past advertisements on social & Luca Tornese

media and no longer trust them. It’s unnatural for Heads of Strategy and
humans to trust and get influenced by a marketing R&D at Tailify
channel talking to us.

With increasing content and our brain still being that

of a caveman, we filter out information and pay attention to the people who we trust: influencers.
Even though smart marketers have been leveraging influencer marketing, they failed.

Influence is built on To build great relationships on scale, brands need to

take value congruence into consideration. Data shows
relationships, not conventional
that 90% of high-performing influencers shared core
marketing rules. values with the brands they were associated with.

Related business reads

Case Study: An Ingenious Restaurant Case Study: How Maritz Achieved a 40%
Menu Redesign That Increased Increase in Click Through Rate Using
Average Customer Spend Recommendation Transparency
 2021

The Subway Line

VS the High Line

Consulting firms are great at defining problems

through a rational thinking process. For example, to Mark Read

revitalise a part of Manhattan, a consulting firm

& Rory Sutherland
suggested building infrastructure and seeking out

state support. Chief Executive

Officer- WPP and Vice

WPP’s creative approach included turning that part of Chairman, Ogilvy UK

the city into a yard that now attracts thousands of

people every year.

“ Simplifying what we do has made WPP powerful as a company.’’

We are in the imagination business. Rationality is a great thing, but

ultimately we need people who can imagine and create for the future.

Related business reads

Case Study: An Ingenious Restaurant How to Nudge Customers to Take

Menu Redesign That Increased Action? Lower the Perceived Effort

Average Customer Spend

 2021

Frazzled
500 years ago we didn't die because
of stress, now we do.

“ Frazzled” is a term for being stressed about stress.

Ruby Wax
Nowadays, we need to set up boundaries on how The Author of Sane New
much we can take and learn how our brain works, as World and A Mindfulness
it can hijack us. Guide for the Frazzled

Being frazzled herself, Ruby ended up launching

Frazzled Café in partnership with Marks & Spencer.
It’s a place where you can be human and talk yourself out of stress.

Ruby recommends that anyone feeling frazzled meet up with people and do something nice. Do a
good deed every single day, even if just for yourself. If we want to feel better, we need to be open,
and we need to change the way we think.

We're not teflon, and the bad doesn't have to stick to us.
 2021

Evolutionary

Ideas

In order to accelerate innovation, we need to start

asking different questions so we can come up with Sam Tatam

different answers.
Global Consulting Partner

and Head of Ogilvy

Consulting's Behavioural
We assume that big problems need

Science Practice
big ideas.

One way to find a solution is through biomimicry. Biomimicry is a practice that finds inspiration in

nature in order to solve modern design problems. One of the most innovative designs, the Japanese

bullet train, was inspired by owl feathers and a Kingfisher.

Thanks to the language of Behavioral Science, we’re able to map existing patterns and re-engineer

them in a new context.

Related business reads

How Ogilvy Used Psychology

How 3 Changes No One Would

to Increase Sales of KFC French Advise Had a Shocking Impact

Fries by 56% on a Direct Mail Response

 2021

How to become
more creative
Great ideas don’t come from logic, they come from
playing; because fiddling around with something is John Cleese
how you untap your unconscious mind. Actor, comedian,

screenwriter, and producer

John can’t stress enough the importance of staying
playful when being creative and trying new ideas.

It takes longer for creative people to make decisions.

He recommends postponing a decision for as long as possible, within the rules of the real world.

John points out the need to build barriers to create a

When you’re being space without interruption and to un-busy your mind.
creative, there’s no such He says if you get too critical too soon, you’ll kill the
creativity. Creative ideas are like newborn babies: very
thing as a mistake.
fragile.

Related business reads

When Science Meets Creativity: Decoded: Uncovering the Hidden

The 6 Most Creative Nudges Genius Behind IKEA’s Product
According to Experts Display and Design
 2021

Decarbonization
Shazeen’s works focuses on what people understand
about climate change and how we can motivate them
to do something about it.

The thing is, there is quite a knowledge gap. People Shazeen Attari
underestimate the effect of behaviors that can Associate Professor at

actually help and think the most effective things the Oneil School of Public

they can do are the easiest behaviors, like turning off & Environmental Affairs
the lights, which has very minimal impact.

So, Shazeen and her colleagues provided participants in

their research with “expert heuristics,” stating that appliances used to heat or cool things use a lot more
energy than people think.

And it worked. People's estimations really improved. The knowledge gap decreased, which is the first
step towards behavioral change.

Related business videos

Out-Innovating Your Competitors

With Behavioral Science
 2021

Humanomics: A new
& old way of looking
into the economy
Deirdre McCloskey
Deirdre argues that “ not everything can be Former professor of English
quantified in a classical way,” as some phenomena and Philosophy, Economist,
are hugely subjective. Humanomics, as a wider Historian
economic science, should take this into account.

A quarter of national income is earned through the sweet talk

of managers and advertising agencies.
According to Deirdre, “ a 3000% increase in real income per head among the poor since the 1800s
didn’t come from trade or investment, but from new ideas and inventions.” She continues: “a quarter
of national income is earned through the sweet talk of managers and advertising agencies”.

Humanomics, a new way of economics, should put more emphasis on the historical impact of such
inventions and not reduce them to cost-utility analysis and statistical significance testing, which can
be very misleading.

Related business reads

How To Use Time, Effort, and

Language To Increase Your
Product’s Value in the Eyes

of Your Customers
 2021

Noise
When we measure length with a fine
ruler, we won’t get the same result twice.
There will be variability. The variability
Daniel Kahneman

of human judgment is noise.

& Rory Sutherland
In a justice system, for example, there are 3 sources Psychologist & Author and
of noise influencing a judge’s decision: personality Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK
differences, variability (bad mood), and differences in
“ taste” for different types of crimes.

So, not only are individuals biased in different ways, sometimes even the same person is biased
slightly differently. This unwanted variability is what the Noise is about.

To reduce the noise in business meetings, individuals should write down their opinions first
because as soon as they start talking, these opinions converge.

Related business videos

Out-Innovating Your Competitors Biases in Strategic Decision-Making

With Behavioral Science and 7 Ways To Counter Them
 2021

BIT: A New Manifesto

for Applying BS

The Manifesto is BIT’s work in progress and suggests

principles for using Behavioral Science (BS). Michael Hallsworth
Managing Director at
These include using BS more as a lense that improves
Behavioral Insights Team

any private and public action instead of as a tool we

in North America
occasionally pick up, making predictions on which
intervention will work the best and adjusting it based
on results, replicating studies, and letting go of
concepts if they don’t work out, or moving beyond understanding the biases as separate entities and
understanding how they interact together.

We should also use data science to identify

Use BS as a lens that improves groups in which interventions could do harm

any private and public action. or have a disproportionate effect. For more
principles, definitely check out the Manifesto
once it comes out.

Related business reads

When Science Meets Creativity: Decoded: Uncovering the Hidden

The 6 Most Creative Nudges Genius Behind IKEA’s Product
According to Experts Display and Design
 2021

Happy Hour

“ Wine is much more than the sum of its flavor

components,” says Joseph, as he takes us on a

fascinating journey explaining why flavor preferences

depend on the situation, all while uncovering a

Joseph Fattorini
disheartening truth: “ What makes wine taste better

is bad for the environment.” Managing Director

Trade at Pix

We enjoy it more when it's poured from a heavier

bottle into a fishbowl-sized glass and when the whole

ritual is carried by the loud sound of a cork pop!

Meaningful value creation in the wine world is only going to come from

behavioral science. Not from making wine taste objectively better.

The challenge is to figure out how to make us enjoy it equally, no matter whether it comes from a

hefty bottle or a bag-in-box.

Related business reads

When Science Meets Creativity: Case Study: An Ingenious Restaurant

The 6 Most Creative Nudges Menu Redesign That Increased

According to Experts Average Customer Spend

 2021

Pandemic
Networks
The Spread of germs is the price
we pay for the spread of ideas. Nicholas Christakis
Director of the Human
The virus shows our need to come together and share Nature Lab

ideas, but this human proclivity also allows us to

& the Co-Director of
fight back!
the Yale Institute for
Network Science
Information, behaviors, and variants are spreading
through social networks; different layers of spreading
create a dueling contagion: social and biological.

Social ties mean the more vaccinated friends you have, the more likely you are to get vaccinated
(social proof), while the biological contagion makes you more likely to get vaccinated if you see more
of your friends getting sick. The layers of a dueling contagion interfere with each other, the question
is which one is going to win?

Related business reads

Think About What Your Customers Case Study: How a Job Search Portal
Might Lose Before Thinking About Increased Conversions by 154% Without
What They Might Gain Changing a Single Word in Job Ads
 2021

Ogilvy
on Vaccines
If someone doesn’t understand
Chris Graves
what's in a vaccine and how they
The founder of

work, you can’t blame them the Ogilvy Center for

for being hesitant. It’s logical. Behavioral Science

at Ogilvy Consulting
Ogilvy decided to mitigate fears about how the COVID
vaccines were made so quickly and used different
analogies to explain how different vaccines work.
To make the message resonate, they needed to find the right frame of reference, i.e. linking it to
something people know, like… Star Wars.

From Darth Vader as the agent of evil, baby Vader as its weakened form, to training Jedi knights
using Vader’s empty helmet or a “ how to make mRNA manual,” it looks like the creative team really
had fun with it while doing something worthwhile.

Related business reads

When Science Meets Creativity: Case Study: How 3 Changes No

The 6 Most Creative Nudges One Would Advise Had a Shocking
According to Experts Impact on a Direct Mail Response
 2021

Covid vs.
Global South
Is behavioral science universal or is there diversity
we need to take into account when designing Neela Saldhana
effective interventions? Founding Director of the Centre

for Social and Behaviour Change,

Ashoka University, India
Context matters. We should test
Sakshi Ghai
our messages locally so they
Doctoral candidate in psychology

don’t backfire. at the University of Cambridge

Context matters. We should test our messages locally

so they don’t backfire. There are questions we need to ask when designing solutions (especially during
COVID): Who counts?

What’s counted? In the Middle East, coronavirus was linked to stigma, so people were
underreporting cases

What’s reported? In Kenya, gender violence is underreported by women because they don’t use
official channels

How does context shape risk perceptions?

How does a culture shape response?

How do class & culture shape response?

Context and asking the right questions are key for effective solutions.
 2021

The Secret Life

of Social Norms
Michele’s research focuses on loose and tight
cultures in countries, organizations, and groups. Michele Gelfand
Professor at University

Loose cultures have less order and more autonomy, of Maryland and authorof the

and we can observe more creativity, higher book Rule makers, rule brakers
tolerance, and openness to change in them. Tight
cultures arise in groups facing collective threats,
which is why they’re much more uniform and direct,
which helps lower crime rates.
The real question is: “ Which one is better?” Michele found
Too tight and too loose out that too tight and too loose cultures are maladaptive
and can cause higher rates of depression, suicide, higher
cultures are maladaptive. blood pressure, and less happiness. That’s why Michele
created the EASE model to help loosen tight cultures and
SECURE a model to tighten loose cultures.

Related business reads

Decoded: ZARA’s State-of-the-Art Case Study: How a Job Search Portal

Approach to Determining the Right Increased Conversions by 154% Without
Size When Shopping Online Changing a Single Word in Job Ads
 2021

Contagion

“ If you want to understand how society changes, you

need to understand how individual people interact.”

That’s why Damon focuses on how social networks

actually work.
Damon Centola

We thought that change starts with influencers on Professor, Annenberg

social media because they have a greater chance of School for Communication

discovering something new and passing it on to a

large number of people.

We thought that change starts with influencers on

social media because they have a greater chance of

Change needs to start at the
discovering something new and passing it on to a

edge of the network in small large number of people. Damon’s research found the

opposite to be true: influencers are followed by a lot

structured groups.
more people and promoting change might be risky.

Change needs to start at the edge of the network in small structured groups and achieve a critical mass, then

it hits influencers and continues to grow exponentially until it reaches the unstructured periphery as well.

Related business reads

How Leveraging Social Currency The Scientific Secret to Viral

Increases Sharing Content: Break Common Sense

 2021

Fake! Believers,
Spreaders and why
51% of us share fake news
Gordon Pennycook
because we don’t investigate
Assistant Professor, University of
whether it’s true or not. Regina's Hill/Levene Schools of
Business

Gordon says it’s not all social media that’s to blame Renee DiResta
because we’re still the agents who decide what we Technical Research Manager,
share: “ When you go on Facebook, you want a break Stanford Internet Observatory

from reality and to be able to shut your brain off.

This mindset makes you prone to not pay attention.”

One’s susceptibility to sharing fake news depends on their comprehensive thinking style (openness
to being wrong, trusting intuitions, a tendency to question our beliefs, overconfidence). Another
problem stems from our motivation to share. People want to be good informants for their
community. They try to introduce new facts and the accuracy comes second.

Related business reads

Finding the Chaos in Order: How to How Leveraging Social Currency

Write Shareable Content Increases Sharing
According to Psychology
insideBE.com