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Would you prefer a tastier, healthier, or cheaper snack? Would you prefer a tastier, healthier, or cheaper snack?

Imagine you’re in a supermarket, looking for a satisfying snack. If you were offered three snacks that were being promoted on taste, price, or health grounds, which one do you think you’d pick? This question has always been pertinent to food & beverage companies. But it has become particularly pressing with current changes in how...

Apr 30 2026 • 3 min read

A Room with a View: But Which One? A Room with a View: But Which One?

Imagine that you’re offered the choice of two hotel rooms for your upcoming holiday in England: one has a view of a lake, and the other overlooks the local town. Which would you choose? Many of us would likely choose the lake view, perhaps without too much hesitation. But what if the town view featured...

Jan 9 2026 • 3 min read

Turning Youth Voices into Climate Policy: How UNDP is Using Ekota Turning Youth Voices into Climate Policy: How UNDP is Using Ekota

We are happy to share a co-authored blog with our partner UNDP. It's great to see how they're using Ekota to turn youth voices into climate action. Every few years, countries submit updated climate plans to the UN: commitments on how they'll reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. The most recent round took place...

Dec 16 2025 • 3 min read

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Case Studies

Understanding the barriers to seeking out debt advice

In 2022, the Money & Pensions Service (MaPS) found that as many as 9.3 million adults across the UK were showing strong indications of needing debt advice. This is an increase of 800,000 compared to 2021, and doesn’t take account of more recent energy bill rises. Amongst other things, this group will be facing serious consequences for not being able to pay a priority bill - such as their rent or energy bill.

Understanding which elements of a phone package customers value most

Mobile phone operators have a wide variety of services and products that they can offer to their customers. They can provide more data; better coverage; shorter contract terms; and even free gifts, like a 6 month subscription to Netflix. But each of these elements comes at a cost, so it is useful to know exactly what value customers place on the different component parts of a contract. This might not be a problem, if customers were able to articulate clearly their preferences. But it turns out that we find it very difficult to do so accurately: it is challenging, for example, for any of us to come up with a figure when asked how much you might be willing to pay for a shorter contract.

Understand behaviours

Researching people's experience of harmful video content

In recent years, concerns have grown about people - especially young people - encountering harmful content while using online video sharing platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport wanted to get a better understanding of the potential harms encountered by young people through the development of more rigorous methods for understanding their experiences. We took on this challenge as part of a wider programme of work with Oliver Wyman, the global management consulting firm.

Understand behaviours

How digital design changes customer decisions

Online shopping offers customers a smooth, simple way of making a purchase. But Citizens Advice, the charity that offers confidential financial advice to millions of people every year, is concerned that some firms are designing online platforms in ways that act against the interests of customers. Citizens Advice therefore commissioned CogCo, working with Paul Adams, to devise an experiment that tested what the effect of different aspects of digital design had upon the choices and comprehension of customers. They were especially interested in the effect of different digital designs upon consumers’ decisions to choose to pay using ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ products. These products enable customers to delay payments into the future and now account for 6% of all online purchases in the UK.

Helping More People to Save for a Rainy Day

Around a third of all people in the UK have less than £100 in savings. This means that tens of millions of people across the country have next to no financial buffer, should they encounter any form of financial challenge. A broken fridge, or an unexpected parking fine, for example, can lead to someone needing to borrow money that they subsequently find it difficult to repay. The team at Wagestream, a financial wellbeing app whose goal is to make money management easier and more accessible for people, recognised the severity of this problem amongst the 500,000+ users of their platform. They asked CogCo to work with them in helping them to build a new product that could help their users build up their financial resilience.

Understanding the barriers to seeking out debt advice

Understanding which elements of a phone package customers value most

Understand behaviours

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