Price Transparency

I spent far too much time moaning about the price of pints.

I'd harp on about the £3 ales I used to buy and how they're £5.50 today.

And then I saw this image.

Taken from The Times based on figures from Ukospitality and the British Beer and Pub association

13p profit!?

Suddenly £5 for a pint seems quite reasonable.

And there's evidence to prove this price transparency tactic works.

In 2020, Harvard researchers¹ tested the effects of showing a product's costs.

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

For the test, this ad was shown in the Harvard canteen.

Real-world sales were measured directly after the student saw the ad.

Turns out, students were 21% more likely to buy the soup 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐧.

Showcasing your costs boosts trust and makes customers more likely to buy.

Big thanks to today's sponsors, GWI.

Are you stuck in a creative rut ahead of your next campaign? Or working late again to prepare for a pitch?

Don’t stress — just ask Agent Spark, your on-hand insights analyst.

Agent Spark gives you insights on your audience in seconds — so you can get inspired, validate hunches, and build smarter campaigns backed by consumer data.

The insights are backed by 2M+ annual surveys and billions of consumers — the same GWI data trusted by teams at Google, Microsoft, and Spotify.

And the best part? You can use it in the GWI platform, ChatGPT, Claude, or your favourite AI tool. You choose.

Ready to spark your next big idea?

See Agent Spark in action

Hope you enjoyed today's newsletter — Phill

¹Mohan, B., Buell, R. W., & John, L. K. (2020). Lifting the veil: The benefits of cost transparency. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1105–1121.

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

Tune into Nudge | Advertise with Nudge | Unsubscribe

Why this ad sticks in my mind | Nudge Newsletter

Generation Effect Read online This ad outside my local opticians sticks in my mind. "Blink if you need an eye exam." At first glance, it's bizzare. It doesn't promote the business, showcase a promotion, or entice people in. And yet, I think it's weirdly effective due to the generation effect. In 1978, researchers¹ asked participants to either read work pairs or generate missing words from cues. For example: Read condition: hot → cold Generate condition: hot → c___ Those generating answers...

2 days ago • 1 min read

This book cover will catch your eye | Nudge Newsletter

Isolation Effect Read online Noah Kagan tested his book cover design by photoshopping the book onto shelves to see what stood out. The green cover isn't different, but it is distinct. In 1933, German researcher Hedwig Von Restorff¹ published a paper on memory and distinctiveness. She gave participants long lists of letter combinations to remember (e.g. JTSW, UCSM, PLST), but among them was a single number sequence: 9125. When participants returned after a distraction task, Hedwig found that...

9 days ago • 1 min read

A masterclass in persuasion (from two window cleaners) | Nudge Newsletter

Social Proof Read online "Window cleaning in progress" I love this board because it remembers something most marketers forget. A real photo taken on a suburban street in Houston. Cialdini proved that we're persuaded by others. In an Arizonan hotel room, he placed two messages on hotel doors designed to convince guests to reuse their towels. “Help us save the environment” = 35% towel reuse. “Most guests reuse their towels” = 44% towel reuse. We're persuaded by others' actions. So, if a...

16 days ago • 1 min read