A short introduction to the ideas of badge brands and the social value of things.

1. Psychology of Social Objects
What kind of act is reading a newspaper? Cleaning your teeth? Driving a car?
Learned behaviour. It is learned from others and shaped by the social and political
norms that surround you – and which you take on personally.
Thus a newspaper is more than a text: it is a social object. Some call this a
‘badge’. Cars act as badges in the same way, though small private acts like teeth
cleaning have social value yet are not direct badges – they cannot be instantly
observed by others.
A social object says something about you to others. It also stimulates messages to
you about yourself.
Broadly, social objects have the following characteristics:
They acquired their presence in your life based on a mixture of precipitating events
(your dad may have read the newspaper you now read), your self-perception, your
understanding of the norms of behaviour, your sense of your status (actual or
aspired to) in the group.
Once a social object has acquired desirability, it initiates the process of building a
habit or repeated behaviour with regard to it. That habit is based primarily in the
early days on a Governing Belief.
Typical Governing Beliefs about the meaning of the social object that is a newspaper
might be: makes me look smart, makes me feel empowered, makes me appear well-
informed, makes me look part of the elite, singles me out from the crowd. A car says
that you’re devil-may-care, conservation conscious, rich, fast, steady depending on
which you choose.
However, these beliefs are not Absolute Facts: they are contingent. Being as we are,
social animals and responsive to others’ view of us, we seek out confirmation of our
beliefs and signals. This is done by a process outlined in the diagram below:
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2. e this:
These things change over time too: in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s cigarette smoking
was regarded as evidence of sophistication and social grace. Increasingly thereafter,
smoking came under attack on health-related issues as the links between cigarettes
and lung cancer became clear. So the governing belief that smoking was cool came
under more and more attack from new information. Ultimately that led to a paradigm
shift – smoking came to be seen as the opposite of what it had once represented: as
foolish. That paradigm shift is still not universal: in places disconnected from
mainstream medical influence, smoking is still seen positively.
If you are asked to explore habitual or repeated behaviour, like shopping, reading a
paper, going on holiday, travelling to work, going for a pizza, then this model can
really help to explore where the possibilities and problems lie. The double-loop
allows you to see how a habit, even though established, can be gradually
undermined by changing norms and governing beliefs. These shifting perceptions
can be based upon momentary impressions, indifference to you among neighbours
on a train, someone looking away when you make eye contact while carrying your
object or realizing that you are not getting any functional value, even though the
social object might be impressive (like having a fast car which is highly
uncomfortable!) and so the value of social objects is continually undergoing
modification.
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3. There are three principle kinds of evidence that sustain or undermine governing
beliefs:
1. Inner dialogues: what I say to myself about myself, others and the world
2. Social proof: what others are doing around me
3. Third party evidence: messages, media, supporting evidence
Of these, social proof is often the most persuasive, because third party messages are
paid for and intended to persuade, and inner dialogues are notably unreliable (we
have all been victims of our errors in interpreting signals from the world, many
times).
Summary so far:
• Newspaper reading/buying is learned behaviour, and supports creation of social
object – a badge
• We aspire to such an object for various reasons
• A governing belief then drives the acquisition of the habit of association with this
object
• Yet, even when acquired, this habit is continually re-evaluated in our social/public
domain.
A worrying finding from the latest psychological research on the nature of habits
suggests that as habits fade they become more actively supervised by the
conscious mind (Aarts & Dijksterhuis 2000). In other words, as they fade they are
examined more closely.
1. The Issue of Equity and Value
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4. Social objects have value. But how much are they worth? And how much benefit
do you personally derive? (How much are they worth to you, personally?)
First off, let’s start by calibrating value in small amounts.
Here is a simple exercise:
Imagine that on the table is a series of coins of small denominations. Gather up for
you the largest amount that you would consider disposable: (the test being that
you would remove them from your pocket/purse, put them aside and forget about
them). That doesn’t mean these coins have zero value. But that they don’t instantly
trigger value significance. How much would that be for you?
Is the face price of the Times more or less than that amount?
OK, let’s say you pay a small (but significant amount for something). But then you
don’t use it fully. You only use some of it. At what level does it repay what you paid
for it (excluding the public social value)? In other words, how much of the Times do
you have to read/skim/notice for it to be worth what you paid?
Then, there’s the question of what you don’t read. What meaning does that have
for you? Is it completely disposable/lacking in value? Does it make you feel a frisson
of guilt as you throw it away?
Here is another small experiment based on observing behaviour in your household?
We call it the ‘saver test’. Do you ever, put aside some part or section of the
paper to read at a later date? Do you ever have to clear unread newspaper
components from your house?
The argument is that if you ever keep any of it then it has residual value and that
throwing it away will evoke feelings of shame/guilt. Feelings of shame, even if
minor, are difficult to tolerate and persistent because they are internal attacks:
criticisms of one part of the self by another, like a harsh voice in your mind: “You
paid good money for that paper and you haven’t even bothered to read it!”
Make no mistake about it: people go to huge lengths to avoid shame and guilt.
They already have a ‘library’ or storehouse of things they are ashamed of, are
unresolved or hidden and so piling more unwanted feelings into that repository is
unwelcome and to be avoided if possible.
So our hypothesis is that unread/unused parts of the paper lead to the building up,
step by tiny step of negative equity in the product. Then, for any individual, when
that equity reaches a point where it is larger than the positive equity formed by the
power of the governing belief + social proof, it tips over to a point where people
lower their frequency/stop buying the newspaper.
This is one key hypothesis that we would test in our investigation. This would be a
main subject of the one 2 one interviews.
Next we come to the issue of Differentiation. What does that Times say about you
and how is it different from competitors/other social objects?
2. Form and Function
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5. We have talked a bit about differentiation in function (Empowering, informing,
updating, educating, social badging etc.) but there is also the issue of
differentiation in form. You have a superb example of that in the re-sizing
process. You radically altered the form.
Perhaps it is time to think about this again? Please follow the following link; it will
only take you three minutes to watch:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newsp
aper.html
And here is a post on a blog about this clip that speaks straight to our issue:
“I think this man has a brilliant point. I no longer read the paper, as I’m
certain the vast majority of you do the same. However, when I take
public transit I have access to two free newspapers that I’ll pick up and
read. One, a simple free paper, with great written articles. I read this one
first. The second one however, has a much more designed look to it. It
just looks better – the articles aren’t as great, but I always enjoy reading
that paper so much more. Redesigning the Toronto Star, or the Globe
and Mail would revolutionize those newspapers and bring them into a
round two.”
3. The Irresistible Power of “Free!”
Ariely (2208) set up a table at a large public building and offered two kinds of
chocolates – Lindt truffles (a premium brand) and Hershey’s Kisses (a mass brand).
There was a large sign above his table that read:
“One chocolate per customer”
Once potential customers stepped closer they could see the two types of chocolate
and their prices. For those unfamiliar with these products, Lindt truffles are prized for
their creaminess and their cocoa content: they cost 30 cents each in shops.
Hershey’s Kisses are massed produced (80 million per day!) and cost much less in
the shops.
So what happened? Ariely set the price of each Lindt truffle at 15 cents and the
prices of each Kiss at 1 cent. He was not surprised when, basing their choice not
only on price but also on quality, 73% of customers chose the Lindt truffle at 15
cents.
Next he changed the conditions. Keeping the relative prices exactly the same (i.e. 14
cents apart), he reduced both by one cent. The Lindt down to 14 cents and the Kiss
to 0 cents or free.
What a difference free made. The Kiss became the big favourite, 69% of customers
– up from 27% before now chose the Kiss, giving up the opportunity to get the Lindt
truffle for a very good price!
According to standard economic theory, cost/benefit analysis, the price reduction
since it is equivalent should not lead to this massive behavioural change. We have
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6. developed some hypotheses about this power of free and how to counteract it that
we can explore in the research.
In case you are wary of psychological experiments as ‘proof’, a similar experience
was documented by Amazon who were amazed by the uplift in sales when they
offered free delivery on orders over a certain amount. Except for one place, France,
where there was nowhere near the same uplift.
On exploring this difference, Amazon managers found that the French team had re-
interpreted the “free delivery” offer to ‘very low price delivery’ in fact they charged
one franc (about 10p, before the Euro) for delivery to their customers. When they
changed the French promotion to free delivery the upsurge in sales in France
matched all of the other countries. It is clear that the gap between, say, 2 and 1 is
very small, yet the gap between 1 and zero is huge!
How can we mitigate this phenomenon for the Times?
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7. 4. The issues of access/convenience
We come to the last distinction in our analysis of the current situation and the
decrease in frequency. How do you get hold of the paper and once you have it,
how accessible/convenient is it?
Many metropolitan dwellers will share my experience. I can pick up the Metro free,
without hindrance and without taking a step out of my journey on the way to work.
It is in a bin, inside the underground station I use.
To buy a paper, I have to go on – admittedly only 10 steps - but then must make a
tiny social engagement, find coins or notes, perhaps queue, or make a decision
between the alternative titles on offer. This is an ‘insult to form’ (to use strong
language) – in other words I must ‘leave’ my travelling self and become my
transactional/small social acts self. This requires focus and energy. It adds ‘effort’ to
the cost of my newspaper – except in a shop where I have built up a sustained
colloquial, conversational relationship. Buying at the shop/newsstand may also be
driven by a governing belief that I should support my local shops.
Next there are issues of access, the principle one being navigation. How do I
know/find what’s in the 70 or so pages. As soon as I become a less habitual buyer,
I have to expend work each time I acquire the paper to re-orient myself to it. How
do I know I haven’t missed the best bits?
Then finally in the arena of convenience, there’s the issue of disposal. What do I do
with the paper when I’ve finished with it? And as we saw above, how do I know
that I’m finished?
Here all the ecological/chopping trees, creating litter & waste issues arise. How
much cleaner to get the news from a screen.
So to summarise: we think there are problems at multiple levels:
What are the governing beliefs driving Inner dialogues
Times purchase? How are these Social proofs
changing? third party equity
Level 1
What is the value of the social object Is there residual equity?
called the Times? Is there negative equity?
Level 2 Does the ‘saver test’ hold true?
How is the paper differentiated in form? Is a rethink needed?
Level 3 Can we refresh the form of the social
object?
What are the effects of the power of free
and how can these be offset?
Level 4
How can you manage access and
navigation difficulties and the issue of
negative equity?
Level 5
Which/what domains are amenable to re-engineering/change?
How can a co-ordinated programme of positioning and enrolment of frequency be
implemented? (what will work and how?)
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8. Tomorrow, (Monday 6th April) I will outline a research plan with Richard and Caroline
to deconstruct and confirm or invalidate these issues and with the help of the CHI
team, use a set of stimuli and ideas to work around or counteract those that prove
instrumental in undermining frequency.
Thanks, I hope I haven’t spoiled your Sundays!!!
Best
Roy Langmaid
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