Planoma

As the IPA continue to develop their Behavioural Economics program, it is becoming apparent that the industry has forgotten about some of the simplest processes it once carried out, allowing for this common sense approach to appear stand out for many people.

Should you have attended any IPA event for Behavioural Economics, you will find that it is in danger of death by anecdote. We’ve all heard about the fly in the urinal, the placement of baskets around Boots, and providing pills in a white and blue forms in order to encourage patients to complete the course.

The problem here is that so far many in our industry have then asked ‘how do i put Behavioural Economics into use for my clients?’, at which point the IPA has responded with ‘wait until stage 3 (engaging with clients)’.

I feel the answer is simple.

Simplify. Define the little issues, not the big umbrella problems, ensure you are tackling things you can change and then go about changing them in simple ways.

It’s all about keeping it simple, realistic and small (unlike this post!).

If you wish to skip the example, my point is that if we take the time to define what behaviour we can actually change and look at tackling that change in small steps, we find ourselves in a situation that is far more realistic and straight forward than big solutions to big problems (that often can involve big budgets too, but that’s another of Rory’s angles).

For example, the famous case of the fly on the toilet.

If we consider what that problem would have been initially, it would be fair to say that cleaners were taking too long to clean the toilets. There could have been a number of triggers to bring this problem to peoples attention:

• people complaining about the state of the toilets
• the costs of employing cleaners increasing
• cleaners more visible to the airport staff and customers due to their increased work loads

Regardless of how the problem was acknowledged, it is fair to say that it wasn’t obvious from the initial problem to place a pretend fly on the urinals.

Only when the problem was defined in terms of what could be changed was the solution more apparent.

It would have been difficult to try and change peoples anti-social behaviour if the problem was defined as people being untidy in the toilet, from peeing on the floor, not flushing toilets or failing to put hand towels in the provided bins.

Big problems like this would be extremely difficult to resolve by placing signs and warnings asking people to keep the facilities tidy..

We can expect people using the facilities to have the attitude that ‘the cleaners are there to tidy up’ and subsequently lose sense of their own responsibility.

It also adds to the crowd culture. A sign has been placed there because there are problems with cleanliness in the bathroom which can act as a catalyst of reassurance that this behaviour is socially accepted by the majority of those people using the bathroom.

Therefore, the need to refine the problem to something that communication (in any form) has the power to change is crucial.

This brought the need to find out the over-riding problem, which when all was considered, was defined as men missing the urinal when they pee.

Pee on the floor triggered other cleanliness issues within the bathroom as it was the first thing that men were seeing when they went into the bathroom.

There was a simple problem. A need to help men stay focused on peeing.

Hence the target – it made peeing a game in mens minds with the need to hit the fly (playing on mens tribal instincts – like throwing a spear!).

A simple solution to, when it was considered and refined, a simple problem.

And this is what Behavioural Economics is reminding us. Stop over complicating issues. Start to think about the simple processes that are currently occurring within what may appear to be big problems. Break it down, consider what you can change, accept what you can not, and start to tackle each individual problem in a simple manner one at a time.