EAST framework – Part 4: moment of decision, fresh start effect, present bias, implementation intentions.
Summary:
A few weeks ago I downloaded the EAST framework, developed by the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT). It maps four conditions that make a behaviour more likely: Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely. I decided to write four articles about the principles within each letter.
The whole point is that if you want to encourage a behaviour (yes, with your marketing strategy), make it easy, attractive, social and timely (EAST).
This is Part 4 and it covers: the moment of decision, the fresh start effect, present bias, and implementation intentions. The same message, delivered at different moments, can produce very different responses if the context changes.
This series is a lens, not a formula. Context always matters, and no single principle works in every situation. But as a way of asking better questions about why people do or don’t respond to your marketing, it’s worth knowing.
[Part 1: Easy] | [Part 2: Attractive] | [Part 3: Social] | [Part 4: Timely]
The moment of decision
BIT introduced a prompt for employers posting jobs on the recruitment site Indeed. At the exact point of posting, the platform asked: would you like to include flexible working options? One prompt, at the right moment, led to a 20% increase in jobs advertised as flexible, and those jobs attracted up to 30% more applicants.
Timing matters.
We can also see the effect of time at the level of hours, as well as moments. People are more or less likely to take action at the beginning of their work shift rather than at the end. Think about your own day.
Patterns can be found not just over the course of a day, but also over a week. Studies say that people tend to be most risk-seeking on Fridays and weekends, becoming less risk-seeking between Monday and Thursday. Frame your marketing strategy carefully.
Fresh start effect
Moving house. Starting a new job. A new year, a new quarter, a birthday. Coming out of a difficult period. These transition points are windows where people are already disrupting their routines, and open to behaving differently. BIT calls this the fresh start effect: the increased receptiveness to change that comes with a natural break from the past.
Think about a recent big change. What other changes did it unlock?
This also has practical implications for when you reach out, run a marketing campaign, or try to re-engage someone who went quiet. Maybe, the question worth asking shouldn’t be “it’s been three months, time to try again” but “what’s changing for them right now?” The caveat: the fresh start has to be real. A “new beginning” framing dropped onto an arbitrary date lands flat. The transition has to genuinely exist in the person’s life for the effect to work.
Present bias
There’s a consistent tendency in humans to overweight what’s immediate and underweight what’s further away, even when the future benefit is larger. The present is tangible. The future is hypothetical.
This explains why people put off things that cost now but pay off later, and it has a flip side: if you want someone to act, making it possible to act right now matters more than most marketing strategies account for. Not urgency as a tactic, but reducing the barriers to immediate action (for example: a trial, a free first session, a call available this week). The longer the gap between interest and action, the more competing things fill it.
Intentions are not plans
Most people who want to change something don’t.
You want to change, you mean it, but wanting something and having a specific plan to get it are completely different things. The gap between them is well-documented, and it has a name: the intention-action gap.
How do we fix this gap? Not by saying “I’ll do this” but “when X happens, I will do Y.” Specific, with a when. Jobseekers in the UK who were helped to make a specific plan for the following week (what they would do, and when) were significantly more likely to be off government support 13 weeks later, compared to those who weren’t helped to plan at all.
For marketing, this means we don’t just invite people to act, instead we give them the specific next step. The exact thing to do, stated clearly enough that there’s no ambiguity about what “doing this” means. “Let me know if you’d like to chat” is an intention. “Here’s a link to book a call. I have time Thursday and Friday this week” is closer to a plan.
You want to change something? Make a plan. I love plans! I plan my week, what and when to write my book, work on my website, my side project, my workouts etc. I even plan my weekly grocery list and my nutrition. All my 9-5 job tasks are to-do lists on my calendar with a plan. You think it’s too much? Well, it works for me and helps me a lot.
What we’ve learned
Is timing underrated in marketing? Not sure, but what we know is that the moment of decision, the fresh start, the pull of the present, the gap between intention and action, give more places to look when something isn’t working in your marketing strategy, beyond the message itself.
That’s the full series. [Part 1: Make it Easy] | [Part 2: Make it Attractive] | [Part 3: Make it Social] | [Part 4: Make it Timely]
EAST is a lens, not a rulebook. The principles don’t work in isolation, context changes outcomes, and no framework replaces looking closely at your specific situation. But if you want to understand a bit better how to change a behaviour with your marketing strategy, this framework is a useful place to start asking questions.
