The Hunter Blog

Finding and sharing impactful behavioural science insight, action, approaches, and knowledge since 2009.

Money (but not called that, and how it changes behaviour).

Advertising agencies make a lot of advertisements for well-known brands, businesses, and governments. And sometimes they make them for businesses and...


Reading ease is not as easy as all that – comprehension shows the way

It's easy to make text readable, right? You just use the embedded check in Microsoft Word, and make sure the reading ease or grade level is what you want? Maybe


The ‘Hollywood hello’ – and the importance of context when communicating

When communicating we all like to be as precise as possible (unless we're being evasive or in an argument we know we don't have a leg to stand on!). Precision in most cases is good, and welcomed.


When research turns into promotion – the Mere Measurement effect

...Simply asking about the strength of desire disproportionately increased action. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The actual rates of car purchase among the...


We don’t make decisions based absolutely on what we want – school children and fruit show us proof

We don't make decisions based absolutely on what we want – we make decisions based on what is offered. Find out how in US schools.


You are the best person to talk to your customers (and the worst!)

You are the best person to lead communication – because you are so knowledgeable! (You are the worst people to lead communication – because you are so knowledgeable...)


Asking with the right incentive

Football fans in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city Brazzaville, and a Brazilian solution to graffiti...


Construal Theory in communication: Tailoring your messages for maximum impact

Construal theory is a psychological theory that explains how people think about objects and events that are close to them (psychologically close) versus objects and events that are far away (psychologically distant).


Well, this is one way of explaining what we do! Ari Melber explains Jay-Z lyrics

What does a behavioural insight & communication agency do? What is behavior change marketing? Sometimes I answer by describing the output – digital ads, brand…


The invisible salience of Brewdog and Belvedere

The odd Belvedere ‘story’ is a smooth pebble in the shoe, not the immovable boulder of Brewdog.We have a very strong, shared mental model of what advertising…


Words that work: Email subject headings that increase and decrease response

Email is a common way to communicate. The stats are eye popping: There are 4 billion daily email users. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025…


Are you a horse or anorak?

In 1898 the first car advertisement appeared, in Scientific American, headlined ‘Dispense With A Horse’. An odd way to describe a car today, however, back...


Mental models, and seeing the world

“Consumers. Sophisticated, they are” says a small, green, wrinkled alien in a galaxy far, far away. You know immediately that this portrays…


We are ancient creatures in modern times, fit for a world that no longer surrounds us

‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ -- 1. AN ITALIAN OFFICER --- Vittorio was under attack. Ethiopian tribesmen had pushed him back up the hill of Daga Roba, near Galla in Ethiopia…


Improving comprehension in a simulated real-world environment

Many people receiving home claim process emails are considered vulnerable, especially individuals with Alzheimer’s or dementia. A reputable insurance company requested our help to review…


The Good, the Bad and the Perverse

Physics is a tough subject. The laws are complex, the mathematics involved even more so. Still, these laws can be verified. And they can often predict the...


Glasgow: From murder city to friendliest city

Glasgow was dubbed the murder capital of Europe by World Health Organization. Consequently, Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) was set to tackle knife..


What’s colour got to do with it?

At any given second, you are being constantly bombarded by sensory stimulants in your surroundings. In most cases though, you’re not paying attention to the tr…


How behavioural insights inform a process designed to stop an epidemic: The 100% condom program from Thailand

Thailand would have been a very different kingdom today had it not been for public health official Wiwat Kojanapithayakorn. The first HIV case was reported...


Video Conferencing: The good, the bad and the ugly

Countries with a developed technological infrastructure are witnessing video conferencing transition from sitting on the bench to becoming a star player in…


Choosing the perfect gift

Giving any gift is better than nothing at all, right? Wrong. An impulsively selected and ill-considered gift may actually damage interpersonal…


Nudging by banks – is it today… or is it 1943 ?!?

In a collection of personal items we found a letter sent to one of our grandfathers by a bank in the middle of wartime Britain. It's an extraordinary good…


How many people do I need to test on? (Answer: It’s not as many as you think.)

An RCT (Randomised Control Trial), an online survey (e.g. a Semantic Pairs survey, or Comprehension-Motivation Test©, or Implicit Attitude Map©), or…


Can bin setup in your office affect recycling behaviour?

Up to 45% of municipal waste is generated in the workplace and according to the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), almost all of the waste in an.…


The ABC of RCTs

Nearly 70 years ago, the first ever modern randomised controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in the UK 1. The 6-month long investigation took place in...


Trying to find the tallest jockey: A/B testing can be problematic

'There's nothing wrong with A/B testing'. This statement is both true and not useful; better is, 'there's nothing wrong with A/B testing if you're A/B testing…


Brilliant idea – but how do you know it is marketable?

A mental model is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality or the mental imagery of things that are not actually present to,..


Online reviews: How to get people talking about your product online

We all do it. We look at the star ratings and read the online reviews before we buy. Of course, we do – it's good. Helpful, even. But do you ever go back...


The nightmare of contacting customers? Behavioural science turns it into a dream come true.

You’ve been having the same nightmare, over and over again – the one where, all of a sudden, a big, bad monster won’t allow you to contact any of your…


Cold-call emails: 3 gold-standard tips from our behavioural science experiments you need to know

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing tactic. $44 for every $1 spent, say Campaign Monitor: Email marketing is a tactic that's hard to...


Brands! Now you can reliably predict customer’s perception of your brand – *and* that of your competitors

Personality traits have been used and abused by Cambridge Analytica1, but those traits offer positive benefits – especially when mapped to brands...


Conjoint analysis: how to correctly predict consumer purchase price of new products

You’re about to launch a brilliant, innovative product and everyone is going to love it. Of course they are – they told you so! This is what many companies ten…


Big Data (but not a Big problem solver)

You don’t know who your customers are? You don’t know who your customers could be, what they want and how to seduce them? A common problem for many…


A behavioural science April Fool with The Center For Advanced Hindsight – and knowing where to put the chalk cross

The excellent behavioural scientists, Ingrid M. Paulin (@iwmelvaer) and Aline Holzwarth (@alineholzwarth), from The Center For Advanced Hindsight (@advncdhindsight)…


Why do we need behavioural science? Because we’ve created a way of life we no longer recognise

‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’1. An Italian officer was under attack. Ethiopian tribesmen had pushed him back up the hill of Daga Roba, near…


How to make a New Year’s resolution that will last forever – the science of habit formation

Most New Year’s resolutions have a success rate in the teens – in some studies fewer than 8% of us ever stick to our plan (Journal of Clinical Psychology...


Keynote: Inspiring sustainable behaviour

I was very honoured to the be the keynote speaker at the ‘Together Towards A low Carbon Future’ Conference run by @ESBGroup & @iiea on the 23rd Nov…


Your behaviour is unsuitable (because our lives are better).

It’s nothing personal. We’re good at living short and brutal lives. Indeed we’ve even codified an approach to life that ameliorates the shortness and...


The smartest choice of all? Teaching organisations to make smarter choices

Until recently, behavioral insights research has typically focused on developing solutions for public policy problems. It has also been applied to…


The financial sector has confused users that need help

This means that financial communications are governed by different rules than general comms. The scope for undue influence and misinformation...


Not so added value: Don’t show all your product’s features.

Imagine you’re working in an electronics shop. A new gadget just came out – say, an iPod – and you’re in charge of putting together an offer for the first...


Where does your brand sit in your consumer’s subconscious?

Wouldn't you love to have a solid, reliable map of where your brand sits in relation to its competitors in your consumer's subconscious? Of course, it's...


When crowds know best: greater predictive power than expert forecasts of voting intention

Voting is a timely topic. Britain just voted out of the EU, and the US is electing a new president in a few weeks. Next year, there are elections in France…


Trump’s unlikely ally – recognition heuristic

While Trump’s black-and-white simplicity and promises of great deals for America certainly helped, he owes a lot to a human mental shortcut called recognitio...


Amazon’s Dash for affordance

Amazon Dash launches today in the UK. It’s a physical button pre-programmed to have one function, and one function alone – you push it and it…


Sān rén chéng hǔx: Three men make a tiger

Qin Shihuangdi first ruled China in 221 BC. He was the first Emperor, and laid the foundations for the world’s oldest continuous political entity. However…


A step-by-step approach to reducing suicide among men

If you have been following any media outlet over the past year, you’ve heard about it: male suicide is a serious problem. With men accounting for up to 78%…


Feel the pain – guaranteed | Spüre den Schmerz – garantiert

We work harder to avoid loss than we do to achieve gain. This could be loss of time, or loss of social status, as well as the more obvious loss of money. This…


Russian dolls, danger, and behavioural economics

Popularised, praised and increasingly applied across a range of sectors, behavioural economics is becoming the new It-discipline...


The ‘why’ and ‘how’ of sustainability | Das ‘Warum’ und ‘Wie’ der Nachhaltigkeit

The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss notes that Western societies constructed distal concepts like geography and astrology before developing the…


Context, really, is everything | Kontext, wahrhaftig, ist Alles

Most of us know a bit about ‘anchoring’ – even if we don’t appreciate it as such. It’s prevalent in supermarkets: we are offered food that’s ‘75% lean’, not ‘25% fat’....


Gold! The only Gold Retail Nudge Award won by us for DAS Legal

The only Gold Retail Nudge Award won for DAS LegalThe only Gold Retail Nudge Award in 2015 is won by The Hunting Dynasty & Partner Innovationbubble for DAS Legal Expenses Insurance company.


Domestic energy efficiency – ‘buy me, for me’, and other frames

As well as explicit meaning, words carry strong implicit meaning and, as such, play a major role in how we perceive a problem. In the example above...


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A way to incentivise the growing cohort of baby-boomers to reduce water consumption

In general, baby boomers (the retired empty-nesters) have older domestic infrastructure, and this is likely poor performing. Also, there are fewer of them...


The wisdom of debate

Something interesting about Any Questions question on Radio 4 – The debate was interesting for the thing it lacked, IMHO...


Driving the wrong point? UK Gov ‘Think!’ drink drive campaign

The UK Department for Transport’s airing it’s THINK! drink drive advert again. It’s good, but is it focusing on the right area?..


Finding your target market – lessons from the ‘Nigerian scam’ email

We've all seen them – poorly constructed sentences in long winding emails about diplomats, infrastructure projects, or legal bequeathes that promise...


When ‘somewhat likely’ means a lot more likely – the mere measurement effect

I saw this YouGov poll graph recently. Nice clearly defined colours. Clearly labelled axis. It tells you everything you need to know. (Sort of.) [...]


Wisdom, and crowds: bend it like Asch

If you have a jar full of marbles, you have have a lot of marbles. Also, you have an interesting phenomenon; if you ask a group of people to guess the number...


‘Dispense With A Horse’ – the problems with a high cost-of-thought

The inestimable Maria Popova (@brainpicker) drew my attention to the very first car advert in a weekly publication, first printed in 1898, through a tweet...


The point of zero distance, pensions, droughts, and TV ads

A ‘tree top’ view, versus a ‘nose pressed against the tree’ view changes the way we construct our understanding of the world. This may be no surprise...


Habits: forming them, and breaking them

Habits are nasty, and nice. Nasty, because the habit cueing mechanism – which enacts the entire sequence of behaviour – does not require the original...


You can’t fake it until you make it – disposition and more

You are at work. You walk by a meeting room and peek inside. The voices are muffled, but it’s clear they’re shouting. A ‘he’, is shouting. You look closer...


Framing choice: The effects follow us everywhere

Rarely can you avoid the situational, group, proximal and distal influences that shape our behaviour: Our world is a spaghetti-mess of behavioural...


Missing: healthy choice

The UK House of Lords Select Committee Behavioural Change Report was released on 19th July 2011. It’s an interesting read. However, more interesting is the...


Mirror mirror on the wall

Back in the mid 1930’s Kurt Lewin described behavior as a function of the situation – as something we do based on what others’ are doing. We herd. Today, on...


Bin recycling: communications

It’s all very well talking about how you can change recycling behaviour by adjusting the bins, but what if you’ve got only paid-for media space at your...


Bin recycling: behaviour

Recycling paper in offices is such an old story you’d think we’d have it nailed by now. We haven’t. In my experience recycling bins in offices create only on...


Dead norms – the media informs our choice in way they don’t realise. (And nor do we.)

Like you, I am a fair-minded, considerate, person. The news I read, the stories I engage with, the information I glean is considered, compared, and...


Channel factors and big shifts in behaviour

Context is important. In fact, it’s one of the big three (quasi-stationary equilibria, and construal being the others). One of the surprising things about co...


Where’s our behavioural Silicon Valley?

The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) – the father of modern anthropology – notes that Western societies constructed distal...


Drinking, Driving, Brands, and hygiene: It’s not all about sales

I was reading Charles K Atkin’s ‘Mass Communication Effects on Drinking and Driving’ ink to PDF download) and a paragraph jumped out. He quotes Smart (1988)...


The Guardian Sustainable Business blog: Food for thought

I was asked to write a blog by The Guardian Sustainable Business section for World Food Day. I assumed many World Food Day blogs would focus...


We work hard to avoid loss: How to take advantage in comms and pricing

We work hard to avoid loss. Harder than we do to find gain. This discovery won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky for their Prospect...


How do you use behavioural economics to increase desire for electric cars and bikes?

It’s easy to get someone to want a sexy Tesla. It’s sexy, for a start. (What? you need more?!@?). But with a price tag of £100k it’s a lot harder to turn des...


The dinner party kit: a bluffer’s guide to behavioural economics

Here's your dinner party cheat-sheet for behavioural economics. It's short and memorable, just like a good whisky...


Sustainable behaviour in the office – making it universal and inexpensive

There are too many office recycling initiatives that revolve around 'energising the staff'. It's understandable - we're all experienced recipients of marketi...


How marketing agencies get sustainability communications wrong

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. The AIDA model. Been around forever. Since 1925 in fact. And it works. Well, half of it works. And the half that works...


How Obama, Cameron, Marks & Spencer, and B&Q are making sustainability normal

At The Hunting Dynasty we use all our communication chops to make our client’s sustainable products and lifestyles mainstream. Sustainable practice is already the ‘norm’ in...


5 incentives that create sustainable behaviour

The coming Carbon Reduction Commitment measures and demands business pay for any increase in carbon output. Most businesses see technological advance as the…


ƃuıʞuıɥʇ uʍop-ǝpısdn: I can change your answer by reversing the order of the question

By reversing the order of the question I can change your answer. Did you see what I did there? Well, yes, of course you did – Hunter Blog readers are a sharp...


Incentives: Why parachutes never fail, trains are overcrowded, and you never meet an incompetent fugu chef

The framework in which you ask people to perform has as much bearing on the outcome as their raw ability – just ask a fugu chef, a WWII parachute...


The best recycling ad I’ve ever seen. (Is it?)

Lots of communications asking for lifestyle change use emotional blackmail to inspire change: Polar Bears on ice are a good example. Our previous post about Chris Jordan’s Midway Island photographs of dead and decaying albatross chicks with stomachs full of plastic...


While you’re selling the product, they’re buying the life-cycle

You sell a 'thing'. But that's not what your customers buy - they buy the whole life-cycle. A life-cycle measured by the energy use of the raw material...


I love you because you’re predictable – I hate you because you’re irrational. The list, Part 2

If you read Part 1, you’ll know that modern societies are organised around the assumption that we all think rationally. Sometimes we do – but we do not...


I love you because you’re predictable – I hate you because you’re irrational. The list, Part 1

Modern societies are organised around the assumption that we all think rationally. And it’s true to an extent: We can all think rationally - but we do...


Why advertising will save the planet

Most people can’t swallow that title whole. You’re probably thinking that we don’t need a new dog food, or we don’t need another toothpaste. Or another handb...


Your daily routine is defined socially – so why should I appeal to you as an individual?

You are wonderful. Your friends and family – I’m sure - would say you’re an individual. Unique, even. Except you’re not. You’re a routine: One that’s...


10 words that save 7 trillion gallons of water

The psychology industry knows that our ability to understand the factors that affect our behavior is surprisingly poor – we simply can’t explain the decisions…


Advertising ostentatious economy – Ad Age’s best ad of all time

In 1959, Bill Bernbach oversaw Julian Koenig and Helmut Krone’s immortal ‘Think Small’ VW ad. They had single-handily taken...


Resetting cultural norms: A sustainable strategy

Resetting cultural norms is an important weapon in the move to a sustainable economy. It is partly a design challenge and partly a cultural myth-making...


You broke my guitar. I broke your brand and launched my career.

When Southwest Airlines broke Dave Carroll's guitar they ignored the fact that we're in the era of the friction-free social web, where...


How can drinking tap water on live television change your behaviour?

Every 15 seconds a child dies due to a lack of drinkable water. 'Music for life' - the annual charity event organised by the radio station Studio Brussles...