September 7, 2007 
I have had a note to write on this for a while and then read an entry on the Medical Connectivity Consulting blog about this. It is a key point in understanding how to drive patient behavior.
Some people respond to rewards or positive motivation. For example, this will save you money or this activity will make you healthier and extend your life. Other people respond to negatives (i.e., loss aversion). For example, you just wasted $20 by choosing this prescription or don’t forget to get your annual checkup.
This is where the real difficulties of communications occur. How do you segment and target individuals to address messaging, medium, timing, frequency, etc.? It isn’t easy and mostly comes through experimentation.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
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[…] that they point out the fact that some groups want incentives and some need penalties. I have blogged about this a couple times as one of the simplest examples of why segmentation and message flexibility is so key. I think […]
[…] Reward vs. Loss Avoidance Example Here is a good example I found yesterday in Fast Company that reinforces one of my posting from a few weeks ago on loss avoidance. […]