Human See, Human Do: A Practical Marketing Lesson from the Science of Persuasion

Remember your mother saying, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" Although she was being over-the-top (and a bit annoying), your mother was right, in principle: We naturally look to what others are doing to help us decide what to do.

This "social proof" principle, explains Robert Cialdini, author of the bestselling book Influence: Science and Practice,¹ is one marketers can use to make their messages more persuasive.

To demonstrate this, Cialdini and his colleagues approached a hotel that used an in-room request card to encourage guests to reuse their towels rather than request fresh towels each day. They wanted to see whether by changing only a few words on the request card they could influence guest behavior.