Digital Nudging in corporate communications

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Digital nudging can support in leading the way towards effective virtual decision-making by employees throughout the organization. For communication leaders it is an opportunity to raise their profile within the company as experts on optimizing digital environments. As digital nudges can be implemented easily, communication professionals can interactively explore the field for their purposes.

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Nudging in a digital environment

The term digital nudging revers to nudging in a digital environment such as corporate websites, brand channels on social media, email programs, enterprises social networks, online shops, and smartphone apps.
Digital nudges modify and design elements of the user interface (such as the display of choice options, or the selection of default settings) to influence decision-making in a preferable way.

Why digital nudging is attractive for corporate communications

Virtual decision-making: Digital nudging is such an approach which can support communication professionals in leading the way towards effective virtual decision-making by employees throughout the organization while respecting personal autonomy.
Low costs – high impact: Digital nudging is a versatile communication technique with high potential impact which can be implemented inexpensively. It provides an opportunity for communication leaders to raise their profile within the company as experts on optimizing digital environments by means of clever communication and design.
Prize-winning concept: Digital nudging has a solid scientific foundation and a rich knowledge base that can inform development and implementation in corporate communications.
Room for exploration: As digital nudges can be implemented and evaluated relatively easily, communication professionals can interactively explore the field for their purposes.
Communicators as point of contact: Communication professionals are well equipped to bridge the gaps between these different groups and communicate the potential benefits and risks of digital nudging. They can become the primary point of contact for digital nudging in a corporate environment.

» The idea of nudging in prevention can help raiseawareness for individual health risks and encourage people to act. In a representative survey, we discovered that most Germans would like to use more preventive services, but either they lack guidance or access is simply too complicated. This is why we also include elements of nudging in our digital vaccination campaigns, for example by educating patients with a weakened immune system that they are at increased risk of infectious diseases. «

Martin Fensch, Managing Director and Head Health & Value, Pfizer Germany

The role of communicators for implementing digital nudging

The successful implementation of digital nudging requires a productive collaboration between different functions and departments within a company, and dialogue with stakeholders. Communication practitioners can take the lead and

identify areas of suboptimal decision-making, for example together with HR, sales & marketing, and IT departments.
understand the interests and characteristics of the stakeholders concerned.
moderate a discussion about ethical concerns, for instance with the staff council.
potentially collaborate with the IT department to implement and evaluate nudges in digital environments.

Key Facts about the 5 trends

Denialism: Denialism has become a central issue in out digitalized world. Rumors and false information can be spread much easier trough social media platforms than ever before and so have the potential to influence public opinions.Communicators have the task to identify denialism and find suitable strategies to obviate misinformation and protect the company.
Virtual Corporate Communications: Due to digitalization, new ways of communication, such as virtual formats, have become the new normal. This opens up several opportunities, but also challenges for communication departments. Topics such as remote leadership, digital collaboration and employee motivation show the importance of personal communication and thus the urgency of proper virtual formats.
Sustainble Communications: Environmental Sustainability has become an important issue in society, but also for corporations. Thus, this topic has raising relevance for communication departments and communicator, who have to integrate sustainability in their strategic communcation.
Digital Nudging: Digital nudging can support in leading the way towards effective virtual decision-making by employees throughout the organization. For communication leaders it is an opportunity to raise their profile within the company as experts on optimizing digital environments.
Voice Interaction: The increase in voice-based searches might affect the visibility of any company’s public communication on search engines. In addition, Voice interactions allows corporate communications to reach out to stakeholders in a new way, and to position the company as an innovative brand.

Methodology

Sources & screening: First, information sources which provide relevant insights into the professional discourse in the areas of management, technology, and society were monitored and screened. These sources primarily include recent publications from scientific journals and conferences in the respective domains, but also selected newspapers (e.g., Economist Science and Technology), magazines (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Wired), social news sites (e.g., Reddit Science), blogs and websites (e.g., ReadWrite, The Next Web), whitepapers, and corporate trend reports.
Trend profiles: Each potential trend was systematically documented in a trend profile consisting of a brief description and several criteria estimating the trend’s relevance to corporate communications. Specifically, we assessed the impact of the trend on the corporate communications function, processes and management.
Scoring: Based on the criteria detailed in the trend profiles, a scoring method was developed that was used to rate each of the trends.
Selection: These trends were first discussed among the Communications Trend Radar team during a workshop. Each team member then voted individually for the top trends in the areas of management, technology, and society. We proposed five trends for 2021 (depicted below) based on the outcome of this process.
Reflection: These trends were examined further and later discussed with approximately 20 communication leaders during an online workshop in November 2020.
Report: All trends were analyzed and described in more detail in our publication - the Communications Trend Radar

Research team

The Communications Trend Radar 2021 project was conducted by a research team of the Leipzig and the University of Duisburg-Essen.

from left to right:

Ansgar Zerfass is Professor and Chair of Strategic Communication at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University, Germany.
Daniel Ziegele, M.A. is a research associate at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University, Germany.
Sünje Clausen, M.Sc. is a research associate at the chair of Professional Communication in Electronic Media/Social Media at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
Florian Brachten, M.Sc. is a research associate at the chair of Professional Communication in Electronic Media/Social Media at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
Stefan Stieglitz is Professor of Professional Communication in Electronic Media/Social Media at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.