How Denmark banned smoking in indoor spaces. (Ideas | Strategy | Psychology)

In 2007, Denmark banned smoking in indoor public spaces. What this did is made a lot of smokers pile up right outside the doors of public buildings and clubs and restaurants. This was ok for most places. But for the airport, it was a security risk.

So the Copenhagen airport made special smoking lounges inside the airport. And put up strict no smoking signs right outside the door and a few other public places where smokers piled up. But yet, they found that 56% of the smokers ignored those signs and smoked in no-smoking zones. The worst thing is when a smoker saw someone smoke in a no-smoking zone, they would join in too - even though they could clearly see the no-smoking signs. Social proof worked negatively.

The authorities didn’t want to start issuing fines to these smokers because a lot of them were visitors and that would be bad for tourism. So instead, they hired behavioral researcher Pelle Guldborg Hansen and his team to find a solution.

The Tiny Solution

Pelle made one simple small change that reduced the smokers smoking in no-smoking zones from 56% to 26% overnight. Do you know what he did?

He pulled down all the no-smoking signs. And replaced them with signs that directed people to the nearest smoking lounge instead. The new signs had a lit cigarette icon along with an arrow and a number of meters that showed how far away the closest smoking lounge was.

This change in signage led to a reduction of more than 50% of people smoking in no-smoking zones!