How The Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

Forbes:

Many people will be familiar with signs by the side of the road exhorting drivers to take their litter away with them. In the past, those signs would remind transgressors of the penalties they faced if caught. Nowadays, they are more likely to feature a statement along the lines of “other people do”.

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Of course, this attempt to persuade people to do or to buy things that they might not otherwise have done or bought has been at the heart of the advertising and marketing industry for half a century or more. After all, a 1950s critique of the business was called The Hidden Persuaders. But, for all its use of psychological techniques, advertising has lacked a scientific basis – prompting the quip that everybody knows that only half of advertising works, but not which half. Consequently, it is perhaps not surprising that Steve J. Martin, a director of INFLUENCE AT WORK and a co-author of The Small Big, says that he and his colleagues are attracting a lot of attention from companies in creative fields, such as marketing and public relations, because they want a better understanding of behavioral insights and the actions that might result.

Read the whole story: Forbes