At its most basic level, behavioural economics is the study of how people make decisions with specific relation to economics and business.
It "...has evolved to be a separate branch of economic analysis which applies scientific research on human and social, cognitive and emotional factors to better understand economic decisions by consumers, borrowers, investors, and how they affect market prices, returns and the allocation of resources." - source
WikipediaThe central message of Rory’s presidential campaign is:
‘
Our ideas turn customer understanding into business advantage’.
A key tenet of
Rory’s agenda is that agencies can make money by utilizing their human understanding skills, for their clients business benefit. As such he is advocating an approach to problem-solving in business which starts with human understanding, rather than using abstract de-humanized models, suggesting that we, as human insight specialists, can then offer broader services based upon communication and human insight.
This clearly links into behavioral economics which aims to draw greater psychological and human understanding into the world of economics and business. We have a
list of books on the subject which will give you further information on the topic.
By promoting this theoretical framework within and without agencies he is hoping to extend clients beliefs about the business benefits that can be gained from concentrating upon their customer’s attitudes and behavior, and extend agencies abilities to provide business solutions based upon human insight.
Finally this theoretical framework can provide an agency with greater insight into human decision making, which can then help them develop effective campaigns which will convince, or automate, customers to make different consumer decisions.
Dan Ariely, Professor at Duke University and author of 'Predictably Irrational' explains (skip to 35 seconds in):