The Times: The mystery of the missing £2

Jez Groom

This case study describes how The Times, the UK newspaper, used behavioural economics to increase sales.

The Times: The mystery of the missing £2

Jez GroomOgilvy & Mather

Synopsis

This is one for the little guys.

It's a little story, full of little ideas to help solve a BIG behavioural problem.

The Times newspaper was critically aware that new 'norm' for commuters on their way to work is to check their emails and often they don't have the inclination to buy and read the paper.

The simple solution was to change casual daily paper purchasers to annual paper subscribers.

But boy, didn't The Times make it difficult to choose, offering an array of 6 packs...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands