A behavioural science masterclass? | Nudge Newsletter


Only One Ingredient

Read online


Popular British supermarket, M&S, launched an eye-catching new product range.

Breakfast cereal, with one to six ingredients, listed plainly on the package.

It's created to compete against the high UPF alternatives¹.

Yet, I think this cereal range will succeed for entirely different reasons.

Show your costs

In 2020, Harvard researchers² tested the effects of showing a product's costs.

Rather than just listing the price, they showed ingredient cost (and profit margin).

Students were 21% more likely to buy the soup when the costs were shown.

Even the profit margin didn't put them off.

Wallets sold with a profit margin of 55% still saw a boost in sales.

Show your ingredients

The Harvard researchers concluded² that showing costs boosts trust.

And that boost in trust makes consumers more likely to buy.

I reckon the M&S cereal will do the same.

In a famously unhealthy category³ where products often contain dozens of unfamiliar ingredients, the "Only" cereal will stand out and garner trust.

And compared to other launches in this highly competitive space, I'd gamble that the cereal should see ~21% more sales.

What do you think?Phill

¹van Tulleken, C. (2023). Ultra-processed people: The science behind food that isn’t food. W.W. Norton & Company.

²Mohan, B., Buell, R. W., & John, L. K. (2020). Lifting the veil: The benefits of cost transparency. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1105–1121.

³BBC News. (2010, April 19). Many cereals ‘have more sugar than desserts’. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8630446.stm

As a behavioural science practitioner, I believe in the peak-end rule*

Tune into Nudge | Advertise with Nudge | Unsubscribe

Nudge Newsletter

I spend 18 hours each week turning marketing psychology into readable newsletters.

Read more from Nudge Newsletter

The Faith Effect Read online Watch an England football match and you'll see a lot of praying. Madueke, Toney, Guehi, Rashford and Saka from left to right. How many players are religious? Well, the evidence is thin. The Telegraph¹ confirms that at least four players are openly Christian. And Woman Alive² (a slightly less reputable source) claims as many as 50% of the team follow a god—higher than the UK average. Regardless of the true number, if you watch England, you'll see a lot of praying....

The Authority Bias Read online Here are some not-so-surprising stats. 20% of trades on the stock market are from brokers copying other profitable brokers¹. 60% of traders say they started trading by copying expert online². But do these financial experts really know more than the rest of us? That's what Richard Wiseman looked at in his great book, Quirkology. Investors vs Chimp Back in 1994, a Swedish newspaper ran a light-hearted experiment. The newspaper gave $1,250 each to five experienced...

Disrupt Then Reframe Read online In his fantastic book 59 Seconds, Richard Wiseman¹ explains the “disrupt, then reframe” approach. The tactic briefly jolts someone out of autopilot with something unexpected, then follows with a straightforward request. In several experiments, researchers went door to door selling notepads for charity. The salesman would either say: 1️⃣ “They sell for $3. It’s a bargain.” 2️⃣ Or, they would introduce a small disruption: “They sell for 300 pennies — that’s $3....