Humanizing Rules

CHAPTER 8BEHAVIOURAL DRIVER 3: CONTEXT

Is It a Television, or Is It a Bike?

When Amsterdam‐based bicycle manufacturer VanMoof began shipping its bikes to the US, they discovered that many were arriving in a damaged state. Not only was this annoying for customers, but it was costing VanMoof a lot of money. So, they tried obvious things like changing their shipping partner and using more robust packaging. But nothing worked.

How, they wondered, was it possible to ship fragile items like televisions in a similar‐sized box without them getting damaged, but not bicycles? That question inspired an idea. What if they looked at the problem differently? Rather than trying to protect the box's contents, why not see if they could persuade the handlers to be more careful with them? That thinking led to an experiment. VanMoof put an image of a flatscreen TV on the side of their boxes, hoping that this would make the handlers take more care. It worked, and shipping damages dropped by 70–80%.¹

For obvious reasons, VanMoof didn't talk about what they'd done. But soon, customers were sharing details of it on social media, and other bike manufacturers borrowed the idea. All of which, ironically, helped make it less effective! It's probably why VanMoof no longer ships bikes with pictures of TVs on the box – they've since found other ways of solving the problem – but the story lives on.

VanMoof's innovative idea perfectly illustrates the final driver of human behaviour: context. How we make decisions ...