How To Save Your Brand With Behavioural Science

Photo by Evan Brockett on Unsplash

The other day I was walking down the high street and a famous drinks company was handing out small cans of new vitamin water to passing shoppers. I thought nothing of it as I passed, but I realised something very interesting further down the street…

The entire high street was littered with empty, full, and half-empty cans of this new drink. Due to a lack of bins, shoppers were simply disposing of the cans on the floor or on top of benches/statues. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the employees of the drinks company were practically forcing people to take the drinks can which led many to simply dump it in the nearest convenient location.

After one person realised that there was no easy bin location they simply discarded the can at a location that was convenient and not too morally questionable (perhaps a bench with the idea that someone else might want to try the can). Once a number of people had placed their cans in the same place, social proof led most to consider littering to be the acceptable thing to do.

But this must be a terrible image for your brand?!