Coaxing from the cocoon post lock-down

Every science has its very own immutable laws, unchallenged and incontrovertible. There is the Archimedes principle discovered by the Greek mathematician of the same name after noticing the upward buoyant force exerted by his own irregular-shaped body while bathing. The next time you’re on a plane (hopefully soon), the Bernoulli principle partly explains the upward lift you’re experiencing on the wings. Last but not least who could forget Newton’s laws of gravity and motion?

The first law of behavioural science is undoubtedly that human behaviour follows the usual pattern or status quo. People are a lot like water in the sense that we quickly default to the path of least resistance. We take the escalator instead of the stairs, eat the burger at the work canteen instead of the salad and prefer to chill and watch Netflix instead of burning some calories on the treadmill.

Fortunately human behaviour is a little more pliable than Newton’s law of gravity. The caveat to our law must be that our behaviour will follow the status quo unless we remove friction or add a little fuel. Basically make the preferred action easier or provide some valued incentives. We can “nudge” people to do things slightly differently. This sounds pretty straight forward, perhaps even a little trite?   

But the impact of friction costs should not be underestimated. David Halpern explains in his acclaimed book, Inside the Nudge Unit, two powerful examples;

1.     In the 1980’s the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) started fining motorcyclists for not wearing helmets and noticed a dramatic reduction in motorbike theft of 60%. This trend was followed in places like Texas (44% reduction) and the Netherlands (33% reduction); and

2.     In the early 1960’s suicide rates in England and Wales were falling fast (by roughly 1/3rd). The reason became clear when researchers investigated the types of suicide. A “preferred” suicide method at the time was to pop one’s head in the oven and leave the gas on resulting in death by carbon monoxide poisoning. At the same time the UK was moving over from illuminating to natural gas.

Big decisions like whether to commit serious crime or take one’s own life were being impacted by friction costs. The government was unknowingly making theft and suicide far more of a mission. Would-be assailants were now forced to take helmets with to the scene of a crime and unfortunate souls seeking reprieve by suicide were now forced to leave their homes and find alternative means as natural gas was not suitable for the task at hand.

This leaves the other side of the coin – fuel. From neighbours walking the dogs at random hours to people circling their houses with a firm eye on their smartwatch step counter, it is fairly obvious that the incentives added for being healthy have changed behaviour. Interestingly a Harvard Medical Review study agreed with the efficacy in behaviour change of these step counter products but only when paired with small and regular rewards. A coffee or smoothie here and there is enough to keep us interested in those daily milestones.

COVID-19 has added a tremendous amount of friction costs to doing everyday things. Social distancing is a serious mission, there are longer queues, wearing masks and ritual sanitising.  Even talking to someone at two meters away is more difficult – do you lower your mask or try and talk “through” it? There is now a social anxiety of even appearing in public. Remember the “cocktail party effect”? Your brain will focus your auditory attention (an effect of selective attention in the brain) on a particular stimulus which is how you’re able to hold a conversation in a noisy setting and how other people can get your attention by mentioning your name. Cocktail parties are temporarily a thing of the past but try coughing in supermarket and watch the heads snap around to spot where this danger is coming from. There are many anxious people around suppressing a little tickle in the back of their throats.

The net result is that COVID-19 has rapidly changed the society behaviour status quo en masse. People are now cocooned at home and are searching for ways to consume products and services within their four walls and for those that give them an experience in that consumption. As lock-downs lift around the globe, businesses will need to use the principles of fuel and friction to coax customers out of their cocoons and to shift that fulcrum to what it was before the global pandemic. Until then make sure your customers can have just as much fun with the box as consuming whatever it is you’ve sold them.