Behavioural insight

What we know about consumer decision making

Article • WARC Best Practice, December 2018

Looks at the processes through which people make decisions, often sub-conscious, instinctive and driven by bias, and how to work with these processes effectively.

What we know about behavioural economics

Article • WARC Best Practice, December 2018

This article provides marketers with information and guidance about using behavioural economics (BE) to inform marketing strategies.

What we know about gamification as a research method

Article • WARC Best Practice, March 2018

This article explores the reading around gamification as a research method, the attempt to make surveys and questionnaires more engaging, enhancing both the experience and ideally the quality of data.

How to use behavioural science to build new habits

Article • Crawford Hollingworth and Liz Barker, WARC Best Practice, June 2017

This article explains the lessons from behavioural science about the formation of habits and lists six strategies that marketers can employ to build, maintain and disrupt consumer habits.

The Higgs Boson of creative effectiveness

Article • Orlando Wood, WARC Webinars, January 2019

Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System 1 Group, shares how brands can predict the market share growth associated with advertising over the long-term.

Barilla: Look for yourself

Case Study • Viviana Sampugnaro, WARC Media Awards, Entrant, Best Use of Data, 2018

Italian pasta and sauce brand Barilla turned to a digital video campaign managed in programmatic to persuade 'rejectors' to revisit the brand in Italy.

How intensity of cause-related marketing guilt appeals influences consumers: The roles of company motive and consumer identification with the brand

Research Paper • Jaywant Singh, Benedetta Crisafulli, and La Toya Quamina, Journal of Advertising Research, Digital First, December 2018

When exposed to cause-related marketing advertisements that use guilt appeals, consumers actively try to interpret the motives behind the company’s message and consequently accept (or resist) the persuasion attempt. This study demonstrates that high-emotional-intensity cause-related marketing advertisements create suspicion that the company truly might not be committed to the social cause. If the advertisement is low in emotional intensity, however, guilt appeals lower negative inferences and act as a stimulus to foster consumer identification and positive perceptions of corporate image.

How pharma brands can leverage behavioral economics

Article • Marylyn Donahue, Event Reports, Eyeforpharma conference, October 2018

Pharma brands should tap the power of behavioral economics as they seek to drive a change in habits among their patients.

How the Palau Pledge effected true behavioural change

Article • Brooke Hemphill, Event Reports, Mumbrella MSIX, November 2018

Palau Pledge, one of 2018’s most celebrated campaigns, made a real difference to the environmental fortunes of tiny Pacific Island nation, Palau, and how it managed tourists.

Marketing Brexit: An exploratory study of young voter engagement in relation to the EU referendum

Research Paper • Christopher Pich, John Harvey, Guja Armannsdottir, Mojtaba Poorrezaei, Ines Branco-Illodo, and Andrew Kincaid, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 60, No. 6, 2018, pp. 589-610

This article presents a study of young voter engagement in relation to the EU referendum—a democratic vote on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.

Listerine: When data brings out the bold

Case Study • MMA Smarties, Finalist, LATAM, 2018

Listerine, a brand of antiseptic mouthwash product, segmented its audience to deliver targeted ads on Facebook, achieving an ROI of 3.2%.

Schroders: investIQ – What is Your Investment Personality?

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Financial Services Research

Schroders, a multinational asset management company, created a behavioural finance and investor education platform in the UK, which produced bespoke research to offer a new approach to investor support.

CPNI: “All aboard – “See it. Say it. Sorted”, a public vigilance campaign to support the transport network”

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Public Policy/Social Research

The Centre for the Protection for the National Infrastructure (CPNI), the lead government authority for protective security advice, embarked on a four-year research programme to support the government’s counter-terrorism (CT) strategy in protecting the transport network from terrorism in the UK.

Fruttare lands the first programmatic OOH in Brasil

Case Study • MMA Smarties, Finalist, LATAM, 2018

Fruttare, a brand of frozen fruit snacks, reinforced key attributes of the brand and pushed technology through innovation to increase its market share by 4% in Brazil.

Baileys Real Treats: Unlocking mental associations to enter a new category

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for New Consumer Insights

Baileys Irish Cream, a cream-based liqueur, combined a diverse set of approaches to create a single, compelling story about behaviour change to make a compelling pitch to UK retailers.

Future consumer trends in 2019: Insights from WGSN

Opinion • Andrea Bell, November 2018

WGSN’s Andrea Bell, head of Mindset, strategic insights, gives her views on what will be the drivers of change from a consumer point of view in 2019.

Why marketers need to align emotions with consumer goals

News • 19 November 2018

Advertisers are frequently encouraged to use emotions in their advertising but they should not think that an emotional campaign is necessarily the same as a successful campaign.

The Magical Body Mirror: Linking personality, clothing preference and nonverbal cues to understand decision-making

Research Paper • Alejandro Salgado-Montejo, Ana María Moreno, Rodrigo Salgado, Daniela Greiffenstein and Jorge Alvarado, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Neurosketch, a market researcher, analysed how people in Columbia dress in order to predict how they will respond to different strategies, brands and products.

The Value of Machine Learning in Privacy: Results-oriented machine learning solution in securing PII data anonymisation

Research Paper • Carlos Ochoa and Ezequiel Paura, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Netquest, a market researcher, designed a new method to detect Personal Identifiable Information (PII) based on "learning from experience" with participants from Brazil, Mexico, Spain and the United States.

Of Mice and Men: Revealing the Unconscious with the MouseTracker: Using novel research software to understand physicians’ implicit attitudes towards antibiotic treatment

Research Paper • George Cox, Daniel Rayner, Genevieve Hall, Jon Osborne and Vivek Banerji, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Shionogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, introduced MouseTracker technology in the UK, a method that it has integrated into classic in-depth interviews to gain richer insight on critical business decisions.

Breaking the Blue Ocean Barriers: Using behavioural economics to drive customer acquisitions – A unique perspective!

Research Paper • Ameya Saxena, Archana Pai and Priyanka Bhargav, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Myntra Designs, an e-commerce store for fashion and lifestyle products, launched group workshops and online consumer diaries to gain consumer insights to help it promote its brand to offline shoppers in India.

Michelob Ultra: Making Michelob Ultra famous in eight weeks

Case Study • Yuridia Ruiz, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Best Use of Data, 2018

Beer brand Michelob used an influencer strategy to grow awareness and sales in Mexico.

Why emotional response does not guarantee advertising success

Article • Lona Meza, Event Reports, Brainy Bar, November 2018

To optimise communication effectiveness and resonate with audiences, there should be a combination of emotion and motivation, as emotion is “only a vehicle, not the motivational message itself”.

Virgin Trains: Hot Spots and Hell Spots

Case Study • Sarah Whitehead, WARC Media Awards, Gold and Data-Driven Insight Special Award, Best Use of Data, 2018

Virgin Trains, the British trains operator, increased journey numbers with a data-driven, targeted campaign using TV, radio and DOOH.

How emotional and informational ads perform in print

News • 09 November 2018

Emotional print ads are typically more persuasive than informational appeals, except when the goal is to highlight a brand’s unique selling proposition, according to a study published in the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR).