Social norms and government programs

In order to increase the uptake of the Government Growth Voucher programme, BIS has run one of the biggest experiments in the business support area, with over 375 thousand small businesses. The four different emails that used behavioral nudges(Incentives, Social norms, Deadlines, and the idea of being “chosen) were compared to “business as usual” email. Unsurprisingly, all behavioral nudges were more successful. The most effective way to design an email was through being “chosen” – with up to 40% better performance compared to the control group.