Most people don’t respond to lectures. Or leaflets. Or economic incentives as much as we’d like to think.
But we do respond to one thing almost instinctively:
What are people like me doing?
That’s the behavioural lever Opower pulled: not with penalties or discounts, but with a well-designed piece of paper and a few clever psychological cues.
The Behavioural Problem: Energy Efficiency ≠ Action
Governments and utilities have long struggled with a core problem:
Consumers say they care about the environment. They say they want lower bills. But their energy use doesn’t change.
Why?
- Abstract feedback: energy bills arrive weeks later.
- No social visibility: you don’t know how you compare to others.
- Low immediate payoff: savings feel small and distant.
- Behavioural inertia: habits beat intention almost every time.
So Opower reframed the entire approach – not by changing the incentives, but by changing the perception of what’s normal.
The Intervention: Behaviour-Based Energy Reports
Opower introduced personalised energy reports to households. The design was simple, but behaviourally sophisticated:
- Your usage this month;
- How it compared to similar homes nearby;
- Whether you used more, less, or much less;
- A smiley face icon if you were among the most efficient.
No pricing tweaks. No scare tactics. Just a behavioural nudge: You’re using more than your neighbours – maybe a bit too much.
This is a classic use of descriptive social norms: showing people that others like them are doing the desirable behaviour.
The Behavioural Principle: Social Proof + Identity
Why did it work?
Because people don’t like being the worst on the street.
The report activated multiple behavioural forces:
- Social proof: “Everyone else is doing better”.
- Mild social pressure: no one wants to be the outlier.
- Gamification: smiley faces and “good” ratings triggered status and reward pathways.
- Comparability: framing usage as a relative performance rather than an absolute figure made it stick.
Importantly, the reports didn’t tell people to change.
They just made them aware of their place in the behavioural landscape.
The Result: Small Nudge, Big Impact
The average energy savings were modest: around 2–5%.
But scaled across millions of households, it delivered:
- Massive energy conservation gains;
- Lower emissions;
- Lower costs for utilities;
- Higher customer satisfaction.
And all without tech upgrades, price shifts, or heavy-handed regulation.
It was a win built entirely on behavioural insight.
The Takeaway for Business
Telling people what they should do rarely works.
Showing them what their peers are already doing? That changes behaviour.
Think about how you:
- Frame feedback;
- Show benchmarks;
- Highlight best practices;
- Use relative performance to drive action.
Change the reference point and you change the behaviour.
Sometimes the smartest intervention is showing people that most people like them are already doing it.
