The authors of Nudge talk about all of the ways organizations can “nudge” people to make a certain decision, here is a stellar example form Delta.

Let’s look at everything going on here/

First, the obvious “RECOMMENDED” in green.

Next, the of the four reasons I ought to protect my trip three cover fear of loss, only the last posits something I’ll gain (help).

Third, I am required to make a choice. I assume they can’t opt me in by default, so the next best thing is to force me to make a decision, especially after the two previous nudges.

Fourth, we have another set of green text to encourage me to hit that YES button.

Finally, we’re given a VERY specific number of people that have chosen this recently. 34,291, that seems like a lot! Except that 170 million people fly Delta a year, they forgot to tell us that 105,435¹ people did not choose to protect their trips.

Delta must make a decent margin on these sales given how interested they are in getting people to buy.

1. Calculated with some high level averaging. ↩︎