Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#109 What comms can learn from bulk toilet paper buyers in a crisis

• Season 1 • Episode 109

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Off the back of Tropical Cyclone Alfred here on the east coast of Australia, we have seen the quick rise of the not-forgotten behaviour seen during the height of the pandemic: toilet paper hoarding.

Now, it may seem silly, and at both times you may have scoffed at the idea... but have you ever actually wondered why people rush to buy toilet paper during a crisis? Because we have. And right now, we're seeing it again. Which is why this week's episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast is diving into the why behind the hoarding, and what we can learn from it in our comms. 

It’s not just about the need—it’s about psychology. In this episode, we explore the behavioural science behind panic-buying and what it reveals about how people respond to change. By understanding these psychological principles, we can better anticipate reactions to change and craft messages that resonate. 

Whether you’re leading a transformation or managing communications, this episode will give you valuable insights into human behaviour... so, get listening!

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Mel:

As I record this episode, we've just emerged from Tropical Cyclone Alfred hitting the shores of Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales here in Australia. In the lead up to the event, most people did what you'd expect them to do. We stockpiled water, organised sandbags in case of flooding, taped windows, and so on. And while there was an expected shortage of bottled water and fresh fruit and vegetables in supermarkets, there was one other item that was in short supply. Toilet paper. People have been buying it up in bulk. And we saw the same thing happen a few years ago during COVID 19. Videos emerged of people fighting over rolls of toilet paper in supermarkets. It was ridiculous. It is highly unlikely we're going to defecate more than usual when in a lockdown situation. So what drove this bizarre behavior and why did it happen? And importantly, What can this teach us about communication and change? That's what today's episode is all about. Hi, friends, and welcome to a new episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, the communication podcast. I'm your host, Mel Lloyd, and I'm recording this episode on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, brisbane. And as I said in the intro, we've just experienced a tropical cyclone here, which is very unusual for one to hit this far South. So I just want to say upfront that I know many people had homes and belongings damaged. They lost power and so on. And this episode is in no way making light of that impact. But instead, I did want to focus on some of the behaviours we saw leading up to the storm. Behaviours that we've seen in other situations too, because it's worthwhile unpacking them to understand why humans do the things we do, but also how we can apply those lessons to our communication and change. So today I'm going to share four reasons why people hoard toilet paper during disasters and what we can learn. Let's get into it. The first influential factor is uncertainty. Uncertainty breeds fear, fear breeds poor behaviours, or just weird behaviours. We react poorly to uncertainty because our brains hate it. Our brains are these old things that are living in modern worlds. They were designed to keep us safe. So certainty is very comforting to us. When we don't have certainty, sometimes we just don't know what to do. And we see this all the time in workplaces, particularly during change. If we can't provide all the answers, people tend to resist. This uncertainty is also linked to the status quo bias, which basically means we like things to stay the way they are, even if sometimes it's not in our best interest. And again, this goes back to that idea that The status quo provides safety. If we move outside of that status quo, we are taking on risk, and we are hardwired to avoid risk. So, when we see people hoarding toilet paper, part of that is just a response to uncertainty, and a desire to control what we can. What does this mean for your communication and change practices? Well, firstly, Try to create as much certainty as possible. That means very clear communication, not using the vague corporate speak or vague timelines and so on. And secondly, I know we don't always have all the information. So say so be upfront about what you know and what you don't. And that's always appreciated. And another tip that I always share is to talk about the things that aren't changing. So, for example, Yes, we're changing this technology, but our process remains the same, and so do our roles. Sometimes you have to anchor people to things that are certain to help them manage the uncertain. So that's number one, uncertainty and the status quo bias. The second reason why we see toilet paper flying off the shelves is social proof. It basically means that what our peers, colleagues, Friends and families think about something or what they do has the power to change how we think and behave as well. Social proof was a term coined by a psychologist, Robert Cialdini. So if you don't know about Cialdini, look up his books, uh, they are incredible. And he found that people are likely to do what they observe others doing. And it's even more powerful when the people we are observing are like us. So for example, if the messenger is your team leader or a colleague. So this is what we call the representative bias, and it's where people evaluate probabilities based on the degree to which someone is similar to them, or the degree to which a situation represents your pre established view. And whether we like it or not, we are getting sucked in by social proof all the time. E-commerce sites tell you how many other people have bought the item you're looking at, or that people who bought that item also bought this other item. They're great examples of social proof to influence purchasing decisions. We also use testimonials when we promote courses and products or even using new technology. We rely on peer reviews on e commerce sites, Google, TripAdvisor to make decisions. We look at how busy a cafe is to judge how good it is, even if we haven't looked at the menu or the reviews. Because if it's so much busier than the one next door, then in my mind, it must be better. A 2012 study found social proof can be so powerful, it can even change our minds when it comes to intentionally hurting others. So there was this study called Opposing Torture, and basically the researchers spoke to different groups of university students, and asked if they were against the use of torture in interrogations. Now as you would expect, I hope, most of the students responded that they opposed the use of torture. But, when they were told that most of their peers were in favour, the tables turned. 80 percent of them then saw torture as morally acceptable. So in times like these, when we see other people hoarding toilet paper, we tend to follow the crowd. There's a part of our brains thinking, if they're buying up toilet paper, there must be a reason for it, so I should too. So how do we apply social proof to communication? Got a couple of ways you can think about it. The first is who the communication comes from. If your trusted colleague is saying the new cafe downstairs is great, you're more likely to go and try it. Or if a couple of team members are raving about this new AI tool at work, you are more likely to use it. So this is where change champions can really help your internal comms, and it doesn't necessarily work if the social proof is coming from a senior leader. So just think about who the messenger is. And the second way you can use it is think about how you write the subject line or the title of your communication, because including social proof in a headline or your key messages can make a big difference to whether a person decides to engage with your message or not, and if they believe it. So for example, you could use a subject line like, 20 of your team members have already completed this survey. That's going to be much more persuasive than complete this survey. So that's social proof. The third one related to uncertainty is loss aversion. So this is a bias where we tend to feel losses. More than equivalent gains, even if those losses are only potential losses, we don't actually know. So in fact, the pain of a loss can be twice as powerful as the joy from an equivalent gain. So for example, we'd rather not lose $10 than find $10. And this is linked to Prospect Theory, which was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Ky back in the sixties and seventies. And it basically means we weigh up potential outcomes from decisions we have to make based on cost and risk. So for example. We might be much more willing to pay for an outcome that's a sure thing rather than pay less for an outcome that's not as sure. We're willing to spend more to get certainty. Now what all of this means is that we tend to do whatever we can to avoid incurring a loss, which means we often avoid taking even well calculated risks. It's also linked to regret aversion where we tend to do things to avoid feeling... disappointed later on. It's like FOMO. And when we think about toilet paper in supermarkets, people don't want to miss out. They see other people buying it, and they don't want to regret not buying it themselves later. So even if supermarkets hiked up the prices on toilet paper, and you probably still had enough stocks at home, you are likely to go and try and buy some yourself. We are so irrational like that. Now, what does all of this mean for communication and change? Well, firstly, people want to avoid loss. So if they perceive the change as a loss in some way, they will resist it. This is where hyping up the benefits in your messaging is really important. Genuinely hyping up, of course. Your messaging might also need to very carefully position the gains against the perceived losses to help people gain that perspective, that what they're getting is going to be so much bigger and better than what they're losing. So, for example, yes, we're replacing system X with an AI system, but that means you'll be saving on average 10 hours a week on this repetitive work with this clunky system. And that's 10 hours you can use to focus on X, Y, and Z instead. So that's loss aversion. If something is perceived as being rare. People want it more, and that's the gist of scarcity, which is a fourth reason why people buy toilet paper when they don't need it during disasters. Scarcity is one of Cialdini's six psychological principles of persuasion. It's why people line up for days outside of shoe stores when there's a limited edition version of a sneaker dropping; or a new iPhone is coming, even though they probably already have a perfectly functioning iPhone or they already have 10 million pairs of sneakers at home. It's why people drop thousands of dollars on designer handbags or waste a whole day monitoring their devices in an attempt to get Taylor Swift concert tickets, not looking at anyone in particular. There was a lovely experiment in 1975 that demonstrated this scarcity principle. So in this research, they asked participants to rate chocolate chip cookies. And to me, this sounds like a experiment I can get behind. Now there were two jars. One had 10 cookies in it, the other had just 2. And they were all exactly the same cookie. People just had to taste a cookie from each jar and rate it. And even though they're exactly the same cookie - The cookies in the two cookie jar were consistently rated higher than those from the 10 cookie jar. Basically, scarcity drove a perception that those cookies were more delicious and more valuable because there was only a few of them in that two cookie jar. In the case of the great toilet paper, hoarding, scarcity was a big driver of behaviour. People saw toilet paper was getting scarce, and so they wanted it more, even if they didn't need it. And again, it's a little bit like FOMO. Marketing, it uses scarcity all the time. You see it when they use phrases like, there's limited tickets available, or limit of one product per customer, or there's only one seat left on this flight. E commerce sites use it all the time. You can see how many of a particular item is left in stock, how quickly they're selling and so on. But there are a few caveats about scarcity. And the first is that scarcity due to high demand, like Taylor Swift tickets, is much more effective than scarcity due to limited supply, like a coin collection. Luxury items that last a long time, like a diamond necklace, are more appealing compared to what they call fleeting luxuries, like a limited edition book. And a scarce item that shows your status like a pair of Gucci sunglasses is even more effective because you layer on top of that, our need for this social gratification. So how do you use scarcity to make your communication more effective? Here's a few examples. When promoting a training course for employees, you could say something like: Spaces are filling up fast for this hugely popular, unique learning opportunity. Don't miss out. If you're selling a product, you could say: Hundreds already sold and only a few remaining. Get in quick.

Or maybe something like:

You'll never have the chance to buy this again. If you are selling a service like a training course, you could say something

like:

Gain exclusive access to our annual leadership communications course, usually reserved for C suite executives only. You could even use visuals to show how many places on a course have already been taken, for example, as long as that visual shows that there are only a few left. So layering scarcity with social proof can also be really powerful. So for example, a testimonial from someone who attended a training course, they might say how great it was, how happy they were, they were one of the few people who got to do the course, and then they encourage others to do it before the course books out. That could be a very powerful message. Alrighty, it is time for your episode recap. So in today's episode, we explored the behavioural science behind people's stocking up on toilet paper in times of disaster and how we can apply some of those lessons to our own communication. There were four ideas I shared. Firstly, uncertainty and the status quo bias. We really like things to stay the way they are. And when faced with uncertainty that creates fear and fear creates poor behaviour. In times of change, use your communication to try and alleviate some of that uncertainty by pointing to what is certain and also talking about what's not changing. Number two was social proof. Basically, we tend to follow the crowd. So if everybody else is buying toilet paper, then we will buy toilet paper too. Imagine if nobody actually ever started hoarding it, there would still be plenty left in the shelves. And so for your change in comms, social proof can also be used as a powerful driver of behaviour. So use testimonials from change champions and think about using messengers who are liked and representative of the audience you're trying to reach. Number three, loss aversion. We hate the idea that we might experience a loss and that we might regret taking an action. The pain of a perspective loss is felt twice as strongly as the joy from a potential gain. So we have to reframe perceived losses as benefits where we can. And finally, scarcity. The more rare something is, the more we want it. So when toilet paper becomes scarce, we want it, even if we don't need it. In change and comms, we can use scarcity to help drive behaviour. Like attending a training session or participating in a new program. All right, team. So that is our episode for today. I am so excited because in the next few weeks, we've got more, uh, extra guests coming on board, I'm traveling a bit too and attending a few conferences. So I'll be sharing that back with you to find out what I've learned from around the globe around what are the trends that we're seeing and what are people working on in the comms and change sector more broadly. So I'm super excited for that. Also super excited that in November this year, I will be running a retreat with my friend Petra Zink over in Queenstown, very exclusive, very limited. We are maxing out at 20 people to this retreat. It's two days. You're going to walk away with so many tools and practical things for your own business, your own brand. You do not want to miss this. I promise you we have a big focus on practicality and also why not do it in Queenstown. So for more info on that, check out the link in the show notes. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.