Jack Duddy, Behavioural Strategist at Ogilvy Change

I took this screen shot a few months ago when I was on Viagogo buying tickets. Within this one screenshot I can personally identify a combination of nudges being applied to make me follow through with my purchase -  so let’s start by listing them off from the top of the screen. “These tickets will no longer be reserved in…”  - Scarcity and Loss Aversion– having a countdown clock massively increases the urgency for people to stick with their commitment to buying the tickets and follow through with the purchase through Scarcity of Time. Also, emphasising that I will no longer have the tickets triggers me to be loss-aversive and retain MY tickets.

“These are the last tickets available at this price” – Scarcity again – Showing that I have reserved some of the last tickets at this price subconsciously increases my value of the tickets.

“1 other person have waited to view these tickets” – Social Norms – I barely understand this sentence and one other person isn’t that many, however by simply inferring that there are others looking at the same tickets makes me want to snatch the tickets from them. Interestingly, I would say this nudge was the most influential in making me carry through with my purchase.

“You’re awesome Jack” – This is not so much a “Nudge” but a completely true statement... however I would say they nudge here using Ego Inflation which is then followed through with language such as “Our warm welcome” which is using Affective language that evokes an emotion of a warm, fuzzy feeling.

“Our tickets are 100% guaranteed” – Uncertainty Aversion/ Regret Aversion - This use of language is important in this context. When buying tickets a huge fear is that they won’t turn up on time after months of waiting for the big day. This simple collection of sentences calms these fears and makes me believe that Viagogo are to be trusted with my precious tickets.

These are the Nudges I can identify within this page, if you have any challenges or addition please leave a comment. Now I will also say that this was just ONE page of the entire ticket-buying process. Each page was littered with Nudges such as countdown clocks, watching eyes and pricing architecture. This made buying these tickets an incredibly anxiety-inducing thing to do – as is the trend for many ticket websites and Hotel booking sites (I’m looking at you Booking.com). However, the reward for completing the process and achieving the purchase almost makes the process worth it. Not to mention the relief of not having nudges machine-gunned in your general direction. Opening this topic up for discussion, do you like the direction of having multiple nudges baked into each layer of a booking experience or not? 95% of readers leave a comment and share this blog…   …sorry.