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- [00:00]
Phil Agnew
My partner and I have just bought our first home. We'd seen dozens of houses, but none of them felt right. Then we viewed a three bed, modest house with some garish paint and a botched extension. It wasn't perfect, but it seemed like a good option, assuming we didn't overpay. After the second viewing, something interesting happened. I mentally started to imagine moving in. I pictured the slow Sunday mornings, drinking coffee in bed, summer barbecues in the garden. I mentally designed the podcast studio in the garage. I'd spent so long imagining living there that I started to feel like I already owned the house. Now, the sale price was well within our budget and we were able to bid 5% over that price. But when the estate agent said it was going to best and final offers, we panicked and we offered 10% more. We got the house, but I think we also learnt a lesson. After the first viewing, we'd set our limit of how much we'd pay. But over time, we imagined that house as ours. And that feeling of ownership, it warped our perception. This is the endowment effect. The moment we feel something is ours, we start valuing it higher than we did before. Sutherland describes this clearly with a study cited in his book Irrationality. In the study, employees were sold $1 lottery tickets. Some got to pick their own lottery ticket numbers. Others were given a lottery ticket with random numbers already filled in. The researchers offered to buy those tickets back before the draw for the lottery would be made. Those who didn't pick their numbers were willing to sell it back, but for $1.96, showing that we value things more when we own them. However, those who did pick their numbers wanted $8.67 to give up the ticket. It was the same ticket, the same odds, but a huge difference in how much they were valued. Why? Because we overvalue things we own and we overvalue things we've created. And that feeling of ownership can change all sorts of things, from the homework our kids complete to to the vaccines we give them. But can I use this principle, the endowment principle, to increase sales for my business? Can I use it to nudge you? Find out in today's episode of Nudge. The world famous blogging site Tumblr had a problem. To succeed in marketing, they needed to move quickly. They needed to create content that was trending. But their marketing team was stuck waiting for engineers to build out every email campaign. That was until they switched to HubSpot's customer platform to send trending content to millions instantly. Rather than waiting for the engineers, they could use HubSpot to send all their email comms as efficiently and as effectively as possible. And the result? Well, they have tripled their engagement while doubling the output they produce. If you want to move faster, like Tumblr, then head to HubSpot.com the endowment effect encouraged me to bid over my limit for our house. It makes lottery players value their tickets irrationally high. Auctioneers like Christie's and Sotheby's thrive on this. Bidders often overpay as the auction goes on, as the bidders start to feel like the item is theirs. Job seekers who fail at the final interview feel a similar sting. Getting close to a job offer makes the rejection hurt much more than never getting an interview in the first place. But can this effect be used to tackle a nationwide behavioural challenge? Could it be used to solve a problem like this?
- [03:28]
Giulia Tagliaferri
The overwhelming majority of cervical cancer. So over 95% of cervical cancer is caused by HPV infection.
- [03:38]
Phil Agnew
That's my first guest on today's episode of Nudge.
- [03:41]
Giulia Tagliaferri
Hi, Phil, My name is Giulia Tagliaferri. I am the head of evaluation. I actually work across BIT and nasta.
- [03:48]
Phil Agnew
Julia is joined by her co worker at the Behavioural Insights Team, Niall.
- [03:52]
Niall Daly
My name is Niall Daly and I am a quantitative research advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team uk.
- [03:58]
Phil Agnew
The Behavioural Insights team, often dubbed the Nudge Unit, was set up inside the British government in 2010 to improve policy and public services with behavioural science. They've since grown, left government and now function as an international organisation tackling global behavioural challenges. Just like this.
- [04:16]
Giulia Tagliaferri
Cervical cancer is the third leading cause of female cancer deaths in Georgia, so it's quite an acute issue in the country. Adequate vaccination coverage could eliminate the cervical cancer.
- [04:30]
Phil Agnew
The vaccines were available to girls in Georgia, but an astonishingly low number of girls were being vaccinated.
- [04:36]
Giulia Tagliaferri
Coverage for this vaccine is very low in Georgia. It's the lowest among the ones paid by the state, so it's a free vaccination. And nevertheless, especially after the pandemic, vaccination rates plummeted to like about 14%. That's like a decrease of more than 60%.
- [04:58]
Phil Agnew
But Niall and Julia and the Behavioural Insights team were confident that they could use behavioural science to help.
- [05:04]
Niall Daly
In general, we know that behavioural science can help us to address a lot of those barriers and so we've seen that nudges that offer incentives to parents and healthcare workers can be effective. Nudges that make information more salient and use trusted messengers to deliver information can be very effective. And there's growing evidence from the US and other high income countries that this can be a kind of cost effective method of encouraging vaccination and attendance at appointments as well.
- [05:32]
Phil Agnew
Offering incentives certainly encourages people to get vaccinated. Using trusted messengers works as well. But Niall was more interested in an even more cost effective method, one that plays on the endowment effect.
- [05:45]
Niall Daly
In particular, framing a vaccine as being reserved for someone or reserved for a person in your care has been found to be particularly effective in high income countries. And I think we were excited to try and test that in a country where this kind of literature hadn't necessarily a lot of coverage.
- [06:03]
Phil Agnew
Niall's referring to research conducted by behavioural scientists Katie Milkman, Angela Duckworth, Mitesh Patel and 17 others before the pandemic. The this big group of behavioural scientists ran a study testing 19 different messages aimed at increasing flu vaccination rates. One message shared a joke about the flu that one didn't do particularly well. Another said, the flu shot makes you more healthy. A different version said that getting the vaccine would help you and your loved ones. However, the most effective message out of all 19 was one that simply said that the vaccine was reserved for you. Just adding that line reserved for you boosted vaccination rates by 4.6% compared to the control group. So why did this work? Well, the researchers believe that the word reserved makes people feel like the vaccine already belongs to them, triggering that sense of ownership and a reluctance to miss out on their dose. So the Behavioural Insights team set about testing this exact principle in their own experiment, this time using text messages.
- [07:08]
Niall Daly
The SMS reminders were chosen in collaboration with UNICEF Georgia and the National Centre for Disease Control in the country, ncdc, because it allows for easier variation so the testing of variants of the intervention. So in the end, we tested four versions of the intervention alongside a control. It's also very cost effective. Each individual SMS cost less than 1 US cent to send, so very effective way of direct mass communication rather than a more passive form of intervention like a notice board or an advert on a bus stop or on the radio.
- [07:40]
Phil Agnew
In September 2022, Niall, Julia and their team put their ideas to the test.
- [07:45]
Niall Daly
The trial was a nationwide trial in Georgia, which was very exciting. We had the full support and cooperation of the national center for Disease Control along with UNICEF Georgia, which meant ultimately we had access to all girls aged 10 to 12 who had not yet received any dose of the HPV vaccine. And with the caveat that they had at least one caregiver contact number in the NCDC's data system. Ultimately, with these stipulations in place, this met a sample of over 55,000 girls, which represented over 60% of the girls in this age group in the country at the time.
- [08:19]
Phil Agnew
This is a very large scale trial. It would provide the team with some very conclusive results. Does the reserved messaging work? Well, to find out, they needed to create several messages. They couldn't just send the reserved for you message to everyone, they needed variants to compare the results. In total, they created four variants of the text message.
- [08:40]
Niall Daly
There was a short SMS with no additional information that just notified the caregiver that their daughter was due for a free HPV vaccine, which will protect against cervical cancer and encourage them to contact their local clinic or health centre to arrange an appointment. There was a second one which built on this, which had the same information and then also linked to the national center for Disease Control's website and the relevant web pages on HPV and vaccination. So this incorporated a little bit more of a messenger effect as well, because it referenced the nctc. There was a third version which we call the reserved for her version. In the paper that used a framing of the vaccine, the vaccine was reserved at the specific clinic. We didn't say specifically named, we're just reserved at your clinic. And that the caregiver should contact the clinic to arrange an appointment. And then also linked to the NCTC's website as well. And then the fourth version of the intervention was the same SMS as the original one, not with the framing of the vaccine being reserved for her, but with some safety information. So it mentioned that the vaccine had been safely administered to more than 100 million girls worldwide. So maybe some kind of social norm or social proofing going on there.
- [09:51]
Phil Agnew
So the four versions are at first a short SMS encouraging people to get the vaccine. The second was that same short sms, but this time with a website link which triggered that messenger effect. As Niall said, the third version was the reserved for her version and this featured all the information and links from the previous version, but specifically added that her vaccine is reserved for her at the clinic. And finally, the fourth version was the social proof version. It was identical to the previous text, but instead of that reserved for her line, it said 118 million girls worldwide have safely been given this vaccine. So a bit of social proof. The results from all four of these texts would be compared against the control.
- [10:35]
Niall Daly
So alongside these four intervention arms, the control group did not receive any SMS reminder.
- [10:41]
Phil Agnew
And in late 2022, the texts were.
- [10:44]
Niall Daly
Sent the National Centre for Disease Control in the country essentially sent out all of the SMS reminders to the four treatment groups at the same time.
- [10:53]
Phil Agnew
And then the Behavioral Insights team started to measure the results.
- [10:57]
Niall Daly
Broadly speaking, we tracked two things, tracked the dosage, so whether each SMS that was sent was actually delivered to the phone number in the database, the local healthcare system database. Overall, we had 99.5% delivery, which is great. Then we also tracked the outcome, which was each girl's vaccination status for HPV at the end of the trial period.
- [11:19]
Phil Agnew
And that trial period was exactly 62 days. So 62 days, about two months after the text was sent, how many of the girls had got the vaccine? And did one of those messages work better than the others?
- [11:31]
Niall Daly
So the third version of the SMS reminder, which I mentioned being the reserve for her, turned out to have a higher rate of vaccination. So the control group had a rate of 2.4% of vaccine uptake across the period. So, in absolute magnitude, these numbers will seem quite low. But it's important to remember that ultimately this is a very low cost, low invasive prompt to begin with. Then the time period of the trial is only two months, so it's not an extended tracking of vaccination over a year. And furthermore, these were the girls for whom a reminder was necessary because they weren't vaccinated already. So while absolute magnitude might seem a bit low, any increase is certainly very valuable and very promising for scale up. So the control group had a vaccination rate of 2.4% after the trial, and then the four treatment groups had ranges between 3.9 and 4.7%. And the highest of these was the reserved for her framing. So version three of our SMS reminder, which had 4.7%, we find that this reserved for her framing had approximately 65% greater odds in terms of a girl receiving the vaccine relative to the control group.
- [12:41]
Phil Agnew
Niall and Julia found that the reserved for her message worked just like the Katie Milkman study from 2021. If you hear that a vaccine is reserved for, you will be more likely to get vaccinated. But why?
- [12:54]
Niall Daly
Before they knew about the vaccine being reserved for their daughter, or that their daughter was due to the vaccine they didn't particularly value, had no importance to them, they didn't feel possession of it. But once we imbue that sense of possession or reservation for you or a family member, our brains value things more.
- [13:13]
Phil Agnew
Once you have a sense of possession, you'll value things more. It's what I experienced with my house, but also what three researchers found in a great 2010 study in the study by Patel, Cooper, and Wynne, some high school students were given a choice over which homework assignments they could complete. They were given this choice, what homework do you want to do? While another group of students were simply told, this is the homework you need to complete that very simple act. Letting some of the students choose their homework gave those students a sense of ownership over the task. The results from this test were striking. Students who choose their own homework were reported enjoying the work more. They felt more confident in the material, they completed more assignments and even scored higher on the related exams. And it doesn't just apply for homework. People will like your product more and be more likely to choose it when they're physically holding the product. In one set of experiments, researchers found that people were 48% more likely to choose a chocolate when holding it, and nearly 40% more people were likely to choose a Fanta when holding a can. So whether it's a house, a homework assignment, or a can of Fanta, the principle holds the closer something feels to being yours, the more you'll want it. But will it work for me? Can I use the reserve for you framing to increase my sales? We'll find out after this break. And genuinely, the results surprised me. Content is Profit, hosted by Louise Anfonsi, is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the home of business shows that don't ramble on and give you any insights as quickly as possible. Content to Profit is one of those real, practical listens. You'll get tips on selling things that actually work. You'll hear frameworks, tactics, and you'll learn from guests who have done it all before. I would suggest if you want to get started, listen to the how to get your first 500 email subscribers. That's a great example of how wonderful this show is, a good mix of insights and ideas. So go and listen to Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back. You're listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. Today, Niall and Julia have shared how writing that the vaccine is reserved made girls 65% more likely to get vaccinated. It's an incredible finding, one that's backed up with multiple studies and proves how perceived ownership motivates people to act. But can I use this principle to increase my sales? Can I use this principle on some of you listening? Well, I ran a test to find out. I've got an online course which is admittedly rather old now, but it covers the science behind marketing. Take the course and you will learn how to apply behavioral science across the marketing funnel. Most of you listening will have probably heard of this course. Many of you have bought it. But my most recent newsletter subscribers, they probably haven't heard of it because I haven't promoted it in over a year. So I decided to run a test on my most recent 1000 Nudge newsletter subscribers. So these were all the people who signed up over the past 100, 180 days. I split that group of 1,000 people into two separate groups. Now, both of the groups received a message with a 50% discount code to the course. Very generous. But it's an old course, so 50% made sense for 500 of my subscribers. I emailed them the coupon code halfoffforme with a subject line that said A thank you, 50% off. The other 500 received almost the exact same email. Same copy, Same design, same 50% discount, but with a few subtle changes. Their subject line read a thank you, 50% off reserved for you. Instead of a generic discount code, their code was reserved for me. And instead of saying here's 50% off, I wrote, I've reserved you a 50% discount. I mentioned the word reserved four times in my variant and not at all in my control. So what happened? Did the reserved 4U framing perform better? Did it encourage more people to go and use the coupon and buy the course? Well, no. The reserved version of the email received a slightly lower open rate at 0.1%, but I think that's fine. That's not statistically significant. However, the Click rate was 14% lower. Clicks on the email to go and look at the course and apply at a discount were 14% lower. That's very significant. And what's even worse is the reserve framing led to zero sales. So no one who received that email went on to buy the course. While the control version, the one that didn't say the coupon was reserved for you, that actually did generate two sales. Now look, I'll be the first to admit that this isn't a massive Test. It's only 1,000 subscribers. A lot of them haven't been following me for a while, so would be very unlikely to buy something from me. And obviously it was just two sales overall, but that 14% drop in click through rate, I think that was quite significant. It really surprised me. I was wondering, how did I get this so wrong? And then listening back to the conversation with Niall and Julia, I think I discovered my mistake.
- [18:15]
Giulia Tagliaferri
If you think of kind of the reserved for you message, like if we make people believe that something is specifically meant for them and might be not available to others or to themselves later on, then they are more likely to act quickly to secure it.
- [18:34]
Phil Agnew
Julia mentioned that the reserved for her framing works best if the message feels like it's specifically tailored to an audience member, if it's not available to other people, and finally if it's not going to be available later on if it expires over time. That's how the girls in the vaccine trial felt. The message made out that they had reserved a specific vaccine for them at their local clinic. That vaccine was only for them, it wasn't for anyone else, and the line about the vaccine being due made it seem like the girls needed to act immediately. So there was that bit of scarcity there as well. My message missed all three of these components. Readers had no reason to think that the discount was just for them. They were aware it was available to others as the email wasn't personalized at all, it was quite clearly mass male and there was no time limit on when you could use it. I should have personalised the email. I should have made it clear why I'd reserved that specific person a coupon code and I should have limited the time frame they could have used it. That probably would have beaten the control, but then again, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe this reserved for you framing works beautifully for vaccines, but fails miserably for coupon codes. Perhaps reserved for you only works with tangible, concrete items a vaccine, a dinner reservation, a one on one coaching call. Maybe my coupon code was just too abstract. Now I should point out that I'm very certain that the reserved for you framing does work in many cases. Niall and Julia approved it in Georgia. Katie Milkman has proved it in America. We know that the endowment effect, that feeling of ownership, really does encourage people to pay more and behave differently. My test didn't work. I think I know why and I'm glad I ran it. I've learned much more about the principle by applying it. And also it's a reminder that behavioural science isn't a law book that's guaranteed to work. The world is far too chaotic for that to be the case. Instead, behavioural science provides guidance that has been proven to work elsewhere, so might work for you. Applying behavioural science isn't a foolproof way to get results. It simply helps you take an informed action rather than a random one. And of course, occasionally it won't work the way you expect. That is all for today folks. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Nudge. If you want to see those two emails that I sent for my experiments and the results of the study, you can click the link in the Show Notes. I've shared all of the data there. Massive. Massive. Thank you to Niall and Julia for coming on. They are fantastic guests and they both work at the brilliant Behavioural Insights team, a wonderful organisation that not only applies behavioural science to meaty challenges like the one we talked through today, but also shares all of their work with the public. They have these wonderful papers which you can go and read, which share not just their successes like we talked about today, but also some of their failures as well. That George and SMS experiment which we've spoken about today, it is written up in a great working paper that I've linked to in the Show Notes. It's well worth reading if you want more details on that study. But I do also encourage you just to visit the Behavioural Insights Team website and read more of their papers. I am interviewing another researcher at the team in a couple of weeks because he's written a fantastic paper on how to use behavioural science to create persuasive comms around Net zero. So do go and check that out now. If you've enjoyed today's episode, I do think you'll love my newsletter. If you sign up to the newsletter, you get a reminder every Monday when a new show goes out that's quite useful. But you also get my weekly Friday newsletter, which highlights the best, best behavioral science insight I have discovered that week. I think those are really interesting emails. They tend to be about more current stuff and maybe some of the books and papers I'm reading that very week. I do try and make them as interesting to read and as easy to read as possible. And of course, if you do sign up, you will probably end up being part of one of these experiments like I've shared today. So if you want to be part of some of these experiments, the best place to go is to sign up to the Nudge newsletter. To sign up, just click the link in the Show Notes. You'll see all of my previous newsletters there as well, so you can get a taste of what the content is like. Or if you can't find that link in the Show Notes, just search for nudgepodcast.com and click Newsletter in the menu to sign up. That is all for this week. I'm your host, Phil Agnew and you've been listening to Nudge.