During WW2, the U.S. government needed to ration the consumption of expensive meats. So they coined the term “variety meats” to encourage Americans to eat less popular organ meats, such as liver, brains, kidney, and tongue.
Sam Salama
In New York public hospitals, vegan meals are now offered as an option by default – a policy which has generated 36% fewer emissions since being introduced. It offers an important lesson for behaviour change: people tend to accept the status quo.
In 2025 the U.K. government passed the Online Safety Act, forcing internet users to prove their age when accessing potentially harmful content. But the legislation prompted a different behaviour. Data from Google Trends showed that searches for VPN skyrocketed, while one provider (Proton VPN) confirmed an hourly increase in sign-ups of over 1,400%.
5 years on from the start of lockdown, it’s actually workers with less experience of office work who are most keen on it: workers under 24 years old are on average coming in 3.1 days a week, while other age groups put in between 2.5 and 2.7 days.
As Andrew Tenzer shows, marketers get this question very wrong; significantly overestimating the level of consumers’ extrinsic aspirations.