The following excerpt is transcribed from the Zoom event that took place on 24 September 2020.

Key points

• Behavioural Science helps map and understand human behaviours. It utilises the patterns of language and human behaviour to help address new-age problems such as social and economic. 
• A framework used at Ogilvy is the MINDSPACE framework. This was developed by the Behavioural Insights Team at the Institute for Government. The framework contains the tools to understand and influence behaviour change. Through its application, it shows how heuristics and language can help people navigate the world more easily to respond to and initiative change.

 

Speaker

Sam Tatam is a Consulting Partner at Ogilvy Consulting, Behavioural Science Practice in London. A practice that combines the gravitas of leading research in cognitive psychology and behavioural economics with the creative expertise of Ogilvy. Sam’s experience stems from a background in organisational psychology and brand strategy, with a clear focus on understanding consumer behaviour on both a macro and micro scale. Today, he brings this thinking to Ogilvy’s clients across the globe, developing behavioural interventions and shaping the communications of some of the world’s most influential organisations.

 

Looking to the world around us

In order to accelerate innovation, we need to begin asking different questions so that we arrive at different answers. By asking questions such as, ‘How might we direct change by borrowing code from a familiar concept?’ or ‘How might we break down a process to make it easier to understand?’, we build a better understanding of how our behaviours are influenced. 

 

Rethinking revolutionary innovations

When we’re faced with solving big or complex problems, it is easy to fall into the trap of starting from scratch to generate new solutions. From disruptive technology to viral campaigns, people are constantly chasing after the “The Next Big Thing”.

We can challenge the notion that big problems always need big ideas, and instead, start appreciating the value in what already exists. Behavioural Science is a key practice in helping us to map existing patterns and trends to re-engineer and reapply to a new context. 

 

Evolving solutions

To find inspiration, we only need to look at the world around us. An example is Biomimicry, a method for creating solutions to human challenges by emulating designs and ideas found in nature. Some of the most innovative solutions adapted to our technology have been inspired by nature. Technology such as the Japanese Shinkansen was inspired by the Kingfisher, and the development of powerful adhesives took a page out of the gecko’s glass-climbing ability.

 

“What we say, we see; what we see, we can apply”.
— Sam Tatam

 

Language is another tool that is used to describe and categorise how we see our world so that we can process information more easily to trigger instinctive and faster responses. A great example of this method of categorisation of language is the MINDSPACE Framework. MINDSPACE is an acronym and boils down decades of psychological research into nine core principles of human behaviour by codifying the principles of human behaviour and bias.

The principles can be applied to problem-solving for initial ideation and retrospectively. They can be used to stretch people’s thinking to enable fresh thinking to lead to innovative solutions. This is especially applicable to creative problem-solving. A break down of the principles: 

• Messenger, using the communicator of information to influence.
• Incentives, creating incentives to trigger action, for example, the use loss aversion or scarcity.
• Norms, creating the conditions to influence as we tend to do what those around us are already doing to reinforce trust in an outcome.
• Defaults, making the decision process easier to take advantage of people’s pre-conceived natural bias and notions to make the application of new behaviours easy.
• Salience, gaining attention to what is novel and seems relevant.
• Priming, creating subconscious cues for influence.
• Affecting, creating emotional associations to shape actions.
• Commitment, ensuring consistency with public promises and reciprocation.
• Ego, inciting behaviour to make people feel better about themselves.

By applying any of these principles to a challenge helps reframe questions to lead to different answers. Allowing us to make sense of what is already in front of us to generate new ideas. Which leads to the opportunity to drive innovation through evolution by reapplying what already exists rather than revolution, seeking something that’s a complete novel step-change.

Where do you see the future of your work going in regard to Behavioural Science, how are you preparing?

ST – What we’re learning this year more than most is that far more challenges are behavioural challenges. For example British Airways. Typically Ogilvy would be approached to help build the brand. In this instance, due to circumstances around COVID-19, the question is more behavioural focussed, eg. How do we get people back onto flights?

I think as we continue to progress our understanding against the evolution of the theory it will help validate our confidence in the practice of Behavioural Science, especially in the creative domain. Obviously, these frameworks aren’t taken verbatim. There are individual differences and cultural differences that will continue to moderate outcomes. The goal at Ogilvy is to lead toward a better understanding to access and inspire more universal solutions. Then ask the question of how might these be reframed? How might these be identified with a specific type of target audience that we believe is going to be most relevant to achieving the desired outcome.

How do you embed the discipline of Behavioural Science into the creative process?

ST – We’ve evolved our practice over many years of working with creative teams in the agency, and we know that walking into a workshop to spend an hour on complex theory is not going to work. Converting complex theory into a provocation that anyone can answer is how we roll this out into creative processes. 

We know that social norms are really important, but we don’t need to go through reams of literature every time we try to use it, we just convert verbose theory into questions, eg. how might we make it feel like their friends have already conducted the behaviour? How might we make it feel like someone has done it just before them? How might we make it look like the most popular sort of choice within a set? 

Our goal is to make it easy so everyone can answer these questions. Embedding these sorts of questions at the right stage of the creative process, whether for conversion, diversion, or starting to come into refined ideas, that’s for us the key fuel to lead to our intended provocations.

What are the default behavioural frameworks that you commonly refer to in your work?

ST – When looking at something like triggers, for example, sometimes I will merge a couple of models like the BJ Fogg’s Fogg Behavioural Model: motivation equals outcome. There is also Nir Eyal’s Hook Model. You can start to consider what these triggers might be.

If we look at MINDSPACE, an example of an external trigger could be a Messenger or a  Saliency. These triggers could be incentives. We can also look at internal triggers. If we take smoking as an example, an external trigger might be, my friends are going out for a cigarette and an internal trigger might be, I’m a bit nervous or I feel like a cigarette. 

In this way, we can start to think about triggers in a far richer spectrum than we would have done before. One of the benefits of codification is that you can break a trigger up into categories like; Salience, Messenger, Norms, Affect. Then a category such as Messenger can further be broken into concepts such as; Authority, Likability, Unexpectedness. By doing this, we can continue to waterfall into complexity and as a result, the opportunity for ideation grows.

Further reading

• Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life, by Rory Sutherland
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein
• Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

To see all our speaker Future Of Now book recommendations click here.

 

More about Sam Tatam and Ogilvy

• Ogilvy.com
• Twitter s_tatam
• LinkedIn linkedin.com/sam-tatam-psychologist