Social Influence vs. Loss Aversion Findings Presented at the BECC Conference

We were honored to have been chosen to showcase a poster at the Behavior, Energy & Climate Change (BECC) Conference this past week! We’ve been hard at work researching how to encourage shoppers to make energy-smart decisions, and couldn’t wait to present our discoveries.

We’ve been conducting testing on types of messaging and imagery, and which best engages in-market shoppers to compel them to action. Specifically, we tested social influence vs. loss aversion and photography vs. icons. The findings were quite clear — loss aversion and icons were very effective!

Both of these results are to be expected — loss aversion would appear to be less dependent on source details (who is sending the message) and the icon option seems to avoid any empathy/facial recognition and distraction issues anecdotally reported within direct marketing.

This study provides important insight into relatively simple ways that utilities and other institutions can stimulate more online consumer engagement with their energy efficiency initiatives. Learn more about our work with utilities here.