Our survey focused on value judgements of brand. A survey of 20 people about two rideshare companies and two yogurt companies revealed that based on additional information about companies, people are likely to change their opinion–moreso for service-orientated companies than for food products (this conclusion may require more data to validate).
In asking potential respondents about their values on Uber vs Lyft and Chobani vs Yoplait, we hypothesized that people would may want to prioritize certain values, but that convenience and availability would ultimately override those values. We also hypothesized that our nudge in offering selective facts about these companies (one positive and one negative), we would change the preferences of consumers.
Within the small group of survey takers, this turned out to be true as 35% people voted company values in the second round for Uber vs Lyft and 55% people voted company values for Chobani vs Yoplait. Once people are more informed about a company’s values, they are more likely to care about said values.
Following this insight, we wanted to figure out how to inform consumers about company values in a non-biased way. We were inspired by Oxfam’s Behind the Brand campaign (https://www.behindthebrands.org/). However, websites are a degree of separation away when consumers are considering buying a product.
Beth mentioned how nutritional value labels transformed the food industry. It is a standardized system which requires food items to state their nutritional info. This is a nudge to companies to create more nutritious food. We want to redesign the “Nutrition Facts” label as a “Facts” label that includes information about a company’s values: ethical sourcing, environmental commitment, employee happiness, and if made/grown in America.
For this label to work, we would have to work with government to pass legislation mandating its requirement. This would be a slow process, but in our views, the process would be worth the project of nudging companies to become more ethical and environmentally-conscious. We think this process would be more likely to gain momentum at the state level such as California or Washington State, progressive states, or even at the municipal level.
If the legislation were to go through, we would have to work on an awareness campaign so that people understood the changes i.e. what ethically sourced (8) would translate to.
