Ibraheem Badahdah
Visiting PhD Researcher @ City, University of London | PhD Candidate @ UTS | Behavioral Scientist
Two neighbors, six cars, one shared lot that barely fit everyone. The margin for error was zero. The smallest misalignment and we would lose a spot entirely. Nobody seemed bothered. Or if they were, they did not show it. I was. The space was always sufficient. The problem was that parking precisely in an unmarked space is harder than it sounds. Without a reference, you approximate. And approximations compound.
People were not being careless. They simply had nothing to anchor to. Then it clicked. I bought a tape measure and a can of blue spray paint and marked out the exact dimensions for each space on the pavement. The problem sorted itself. I may have pointed out the lines once.
That is what behavioral science looks like in practice. It does not have to be a campaign or a policy. Sometimes, a tape measure and a can of paint. The lever is the same: change the environment, and behavior follows.
Where It Started
The environment I grew up in shaped how I see consumption. In our household in Jeddah, nothing was wasted. Food was saved or passed to the birds outside. Appliances lasted a decade before being donated. Furniture was repaired, then passed on. It was not a philosophy anyone stated out loud. It was just how things were done.
Growing up introverted, I spent more time watching than participating. I noticed the gap between what people said and what they did. I noticed how small things, a cue, a context, a reframing, could shift behavior without anyone quite realizing it. I did not have a name for it yet.
One moment from a social psychology class in college stayed with me. A guest lecturer asked an auditorium of four hundred students how many considered themselves above average in math. Nearly everyone raised their hand. She then explained what had just happened: the above-average bias, a room full of people, all of whom think they are above average. That was my first real exposure to cognitive biases. It did not leave me.
Ogilvy
A year in FMCG and I felt I was in the wrong place. I had time to think, and I used it. I started reading, taking courses, trying to put language to questions I did not yet know how to ask.
I joined Ogilvy. In three years I worked under five different managers, across seven clients, in everything from public relations to social media. The work was demanding and unpredictable. When the team lost a third of its people, I stepped up. I learned that clarity of ownership and communication are themselves behavioral interventions, they change what people do. But what resonated more was that my day job and my reading were finally about the same thing. I was analyzing consumer behavior daily and studying the science behind it on the side. The two kept feeding each other.
One course on advertising effectiveness brought it into focus. It walked through the John Lewis Christmas campaigns, not the creative, not the awards, but how much every pound spent returned. An old campaign, measured properly, stripped of vanity metrics. I could not unsee it. This was not about reach or likes. It was about whether anything had actually moved.
The work at Ogilvy was rich. But it lacked the meaning and the purpose I grew up with. The culmination of everything I had been doing and learning about behavioral science and impact measurement made academia the next logical step.
The Research
My PhD investigates the Value-Action Gap, why people hold intentions to act sustainably and ethically, and consistently do not follow through. It sits at the intersection of sustainability and self: what we believe, what we value, and why neither is enough to change what we actually do. Three studies. Each one is a different angle on the same problem.
Unused Utility
When someone upgrades their phone or replaces their laptop, we assume they assessed what they already had. They did not. People neglect the remaining value of what they own, not out of carelessness, but because unused utility is invisible at the moment of decision. The new product is vivid. The old one just fades. Making that remaining value salient changes the calculation. Once you can see what you still have, justifying the upgrade becomes harder. The intervention is precise. The implication is large.
To be presented at EMAC 2026.
Tangibility
Ethical and sustainable claims are inherently vague. Fair trade. Eco-friendly. Sustainably sourced. They signal virtue without giving the mind anything to hold onto. At the moment of choice, vague loses to concrete every time. My research shows that unpacking these claims into specific, evaluable language changes what people choose. Not fair trade, fair wages to farm workers. The claim becomes focal. The choice becomes a reflection of who you are. That is when it moves behavior.
Presented at ANZMAC 2023.
Food Waste
Awareness of food waste is high. Behavior change is not. The problem is not information, it is motivation. Not all motives are equal, and not all motives last. My research maps the full spectrum of motives behind food-waste avoidance, from the immediate and practical to the deeply personal. Understanding which motives are at play in a given audience, and which carry more weight, is what makes the difference between an intervention that sticks and one that fades.
Empirical data drawn from a Saudi Arabian sample.
Marketing Philosophy
Marketing has a perception problem. Some of it is deserved. Too much of the field runs on hype, on guru culture, on metrics that flatter the report rather than reflect reality. Reach. Impressions. Likes. Numbers that move without anything actually changing.
My position is simple. If you are not measuring the right metric, you cannot assess the impact. And if you cannot show impact, you have not shown anything. That is what behavioral science demands, and it is what good marketing should demand, too. Evidence. Rigor. Measure what matters.
It is a simple philosophy : The marketing of marketing, without the seasoning
تسويق التسويق بدون بهارات.
Beyond Frames
In my spare time, I photograph. It is where I go to slow down, to notice, to be somewhere without an agenda. I have shown work in group exhibitions and won regional awards. But mostly it is the practice itself, and what it keeps teaching me about paying attention.
That practice has a philosophy. I learned to see without assumptions, moving from chasing conventional beauty to something harder and more honest: observing without a template, without inherited ideas of what a good image looks like. That shift, from preconception to pure perception, is not unrelated to how I approach behavior. Both require you to suspend what you expect to see and look at what is actually there.
Let’s connect if you…
- Work on behavioral change in Saudi Arabia or the GCC, whether in research, policy, or practice
- Are trying to understand why your audience is not doing what they say they will
- Want a straight conversation about what actually works
- Behavioral Solutions: I design interventions based on how people actually behave, including in Saudi and GCC contexts.
- Research and Insights: I translate academic findings into actionable direction, or help you design research to understand your specific audience.
- Academic Mentorship: If you are a Saudi or Arab student considering a top MBA or PhD program abroad, I have been through the process and can guide you.
contact me: ibraheem@ibadahdah.com