CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

'Nudging' consumers is a common marketing tactic, but carries risk

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2024

Study examines long-term impact of the method, which capitalises on psychology and prompts to encourage consumers to make a purchase.

Marketers have found ‘nudging’ to be an effective way to influence consumer behaviour. But new research suggests those who are prompted, either subtly or directly, to select a particular product or service may be quicker to abandon it. 

 

A recent study, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Consumer Research, is among the first to consider the long-term impact of the widely utilised marketing tactic, which capitalises on psychology and carefully designed prompts to encourage people to make a particular purchase. Examples include limited-time offers or presenting people with a ‘compromise’ option between two extremes. 

 

Study co-author Sam Maglio, a Professor of Marketing and Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough in Canada, says the research findings show nudging can have negative consequences for brands.

 

In particular, he points to subscription offerings, which are increasingly prominent across a range of products and services. 

 

“If you want someone to continue using whatever service you provide for a long period of time, it turns out that nudges backfire,” he says. 

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

 

Maglio conducted two experiments to test three of the most popular nudging strategies to see how they affected long-term utilisation.  

 

In one experiment, researchers offered participants free membership to a website that provided a new ‘fun fact’ each day. In the control group, members were offered the choice between a Trivia Expert subscription plan or a Back-to-School membership option. 

 

Nudging strategy known as the ‘default effect’ 

 

Another group of participants were automatically opted-in to the Trivia Expert plan, but were given the option to switch, utilising a nudging strategy known as the ‘default effect’.  

 

In the final group, a third decoy option was added, titled Trivia Expert for Kids, which was designed to nudge the adult participants towards the Trivia Expert option. 

 

As with a previous experiment, all the options led to an identical product and both nudging strategies proved effective at influencing participants’ behaviour. But both had a negative impact on participant retention. 

 

“In the control condition, where they just chose between Trivia Expert and Back to School, they [logged in consistently] about 14 days in a row, and then they stopped,” Maglio says.  

 

“In both of the nudge conditions – default and decoy – they were only logged on for an average of eight days, so it’s a hefty drop-off after getting nudged [to the point of] losing interest in the subscription.” 

 

Despite the findings, Maglio suggests that nudging shouldn’t be abandoned as a marketing strategy, as its effectiveness in influencing buying decisions is well established.  

 

Instead, marketers think twice before leaning on such tactics “in situations where you care about longevity, or you want the customer to use your products for a long time”. 

 

You can find out more about the study here. 

View all articles »