Nudging for Good Awards 2019: brands nudging for consumers, the community & the planet

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Nudging for Good Awards 2019: brands nudging for consumers, the community & the planet

Étienne Bressoud, Deputy CEO, BVA Nudge Consulting and VP, NudgeFrance

Recycling, nutrition and gender equality are the main topics rewarded at the 2019 edition of the Nudging for Good Awards, organized by the AIM-European Brands Association (which gathers more than 1,800 brands). Brands’ commitment to sustainable development continues, successfully.

The Nudging for Good Awards highlight brands’ initiatives using a nudge approach to encourage consumers to adopt sustainable behaviors. This approach consists in creating a choice architecture which encourages individuals, without constraint, to switch from intention to action. It is a gentle push, which leads them to make decisions and adopt behaviors that are good for themselves, the community, and/or the planet.

Beyond responsibility policies implemented by the brands internally, the Nudging for Good Awards reward the efforts they make to help their consumers adopt sustainable behaviors.

This year, 15 different brands participated to the Nudging for Good Awards, with 24 nudge ideas to change behaviors in three main categories:

• Health & Well-being;
• Environmental Sustainability;
• Social Responsibility.

To create and test their nudges, brands were able to rely on the “Nudging for Good toolkit” (nudgingforgood.com), developed with the help of the BVA Nudge Consulting. It details all the steps involved in designing and implementing a nudge.

After an initial pre-selection, 10 finalists were selected and auditioned by a prestigious jury chaired by Cass Sustein, professor at the Robert Walmsley University of Harvard and co-author with Richard Thaler (2017 Nobel Prize in Economics) of the bestseller “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness”, published in 2008. Cass Sustein widely contributed in putting the nudge approach at the heart of public policy in the United States under President Obama.

Representatives of associations or international organizations, academics and nudge practitioners composed this jury: Monique Goyens (BEUC-European Consumers Organisation), Zara Ingilizian (World Economic Forum), Sille Krukow (Krukow Behavioural Design), Marie-Ève Laporte (Sorbonne Business School), Faisal Naru (OECD), Kavita Prakash-Mani (WWF International) and Éric Singler (BVA Nudge Consulting).

After some huge debates, three prizes were awarded: two Diamond Awards and a Coup de Coeur.

Diamond Award: Pampers

Pampers (Procter & Gamble) tested a nudge in Amsterdam to encourage diaper recycling.

Diamond Award: Nestlé

The nudge designed by Nestlé, Nutriplato, aims to promote healthy eating in Spain. Only 54% of parents offer the right amount of vegetables to their children and just 17% give them the recommended quantity of fruit.

The Nudge: a plate specially designed for children, in collaboration with the Pediatrician Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. This plate shows the proportions of vegetables, meat or fish and cereals that should be included for each meal. It is combined with a guidebook for parents and a website.

Evidence path: more than 150,000 Nutriplato plates given out, with an 80% use rate by families and a change in nutritional habits in 77% of households.

Coup de cœur

The jury decided to award a Coup de Coeur prize to Zewa (Essity) for a nudge initiative carried out in Hungary on gender equality. While parents want their children to grow up in more equal families where household tasks are shared by all, 69% of all home care tasks are still performed by women.

The Nudge: to highlight children’s view to denounce stereotypes and gender inequalities, on a platform and in a video. The goal being to spark discussions on the matter.

Evidence path: more than 4,500 extremely positive comments on the topic, supporting a change in behaviors.

This Coup de Cœur underlines the jury’s interest in the ability of brands to go beyond their core business in order to take on societal issues. The Social Responsibility category was, on another note, a new category successfully proposed by AIM.

The Prizes

The prizes were awarded at a gala dinner on October 17, 2019 in Brussels, in the presence of the jury members and the finalists. The 2021 edition of the Nudging for Good Awards is already in preparation. How about you join in? Contact us to get started.

10 Finalists

The winners of the 3 prizes – Pampers, Nestlé and Zewa – were chosen from a selection of 10 finalists. Overview of the other projects:

Danone: encourage parents and children to adopt a healthy diet. The proposed nudge implements a virtual reality animation, in partnership with Playmobil, showcasing the sourcing of plain organic yogurts and how natural they were.
Heineken: reduce drink-driving behavior. Tested in 10 UK bars, the program includes an awareness campaign, making alcohol-free drinks prominent and bar staff training.
Uncle Ben’s (Mars): encourage parents to cook with their kids to educate them on healthy eating. The presented nudge relies on interactive cooking lessons between parents and children and recipes adapted for kids.
Walkers Oven Baked (PepsiCo): make the consummation of crisps containing 50% less fat than regular crisps easier, by restyling the packaging: putting emphasis on taste, oven-baking, natural ingredients.
Pernod Ricard: encourage drinking responsibly in South Africa, by alternating water and alcoholic drinks. The nudge revalues mineral water with the launch of 1-4-1 (1 water 4 every 1 drink), a reusable prestigious water bottle.
Qui veut du Fromage (Savencia): educate on a flexitarian diet with more vegetables and less meat, by proposing recipes with cheese – as a substitute for meat – and vegetables.
Knorr (Unilever): support vegetable consumption in the Netherlands. The packaging reminds the recommended amount of vegetables and suggests two additional recipes: vegetarian and with lots of vegetables.

Find more details of the initiatives on nudgingforgood.com.

Originally published in la revue des Marques in the January 2020 edition of their publication in French.

To read the original article in French, click here.

Nudging for Good Awards 2019: brands nudging for consumers, the community & the planet

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