Paper or Plastic? Neither, Please.

How do we change behavior? It’s a question of interest for many, working in disciplines ranging from psychology and sociology to market research. At least one sure fire way seems to be by directly impact their wallet – either positively or negatively.

In some cases, this means paying people to do something we want them to do. For instance, the Federal Government, along with many states offer tax credits to adoptive parents, designed to encourage the adoption of harder to place infants, especially those in the foster care system.

Alternatively,  we can penalize those who don’t do what we’d like – speeding tickets come to mind for me, personally. But, the interesting thing is that the benefits or costs don’t always have to be very dramatic – consider the results from Washington D.C. where a bag tax has been levied on the use of plastic grocery bags. Essentially, this placed a price on a previously free good. The cost? 5 cents per bag. Not going to break the back, yet the USA Today quotes a WSJ report that suggests that bag use is down 60%.

Not only are these results instructive for social marketing (a small incentive for health lifestyle or parenting choice, perhaps?) But, retailers are beginning to use them, too, particularly in the social media domain. In what may be the penultimate encouragement for procrastination, Bing gave away Farmville currency to anyone who became a facebook fan. Papa John’s did something similar – but in exchange for your fanship you got a free medium pizza. In return of course, Papa John’s and Bing hope to cut through the clutter and get direct access to customers, the holy grail in marketing these days.

By Amanda on 9/23/10, In Consumer Insights, Market Research, Social Psychology