CONSUMERS CONSISTENTLY LOOK TO THE BEHAVIOUR OF OTHERS The tendency of people to want to behave in a manner they believe is consistent with the norm has already been addressed in this series of article. As such I will not dwell on it here. That said, consensus or the attraction of behaving as the majority […]

CONSUMERS CONSISTENTLY LOOK TO THE BEHAVIOUR OF OTHERS The tendency of people to want to behave in a manner they believe is consistent with the norm has already been addressed in this series of article. As such I will not dwell on it here. That said, consensus or the attraction of behaving as the majority behave can be a powerful tool in persuading consumers to behave a particular way. The best known example of this relates to a series of studies in hotels in the United States, where customers were encouraged to reusing bath towels. Customers who were told that reusing was good for the environment – displayed a 30% reuse rate over 4 days. On the other hand, customers who were told that 75% of customers reuse towels (with no mention of the environment at all) – displayed a 56% reuse rate over 4 days. I would argue that…