Richard Donaldson, CauseAction www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Social Marketing Conference:
Changing Behaviour Through
Communications
30 November 2011
www.charitycomms.org.uk
www.twitter.com/CharityComms
www.facebook.com/CharityComms

2. Changing behaviour – the implications
for organisations
Richard Donaldson
richard@causeaction.co.uk

4. Core theme
What makes organisations good at changing
their audiences’ behaviour?
What can we learn from them to make our
organisations better at it?
How does changing behaviour become an
organisational competency?

5. What delegates want
• Success stories, case studies
• Examples of what other (non charity)
sectors are doing
• To discover the challenges and difficulties
of changing behaviour
• Practical tips to apply back at the office

6. Behaviour change: A definition
Behaviour change =
“getting people to do stuff”

7. Behaviour change: The new black
Our government will be a much
smarter one, shunning the
bureaucratic levers of the past and
finding intelligent ways to encourage,
support and enable people to make
better choices for themselves
- Coalition Agreement

8. Behaviour change: The new black
Changing people’s behaviour so that they,
and their communities, are healthier, happier,
and more secure is an objective charities
recognise.
The difficulty is that the government has
committed to “Nudge” as the way of
achieving that objective.

9. The problem with Nudge
Devised by experts
and delivered “top
down”
There is much we can use but on it’s own it only results in
modest change.

10. The problem with Nudge
Would the numbers of books people donate
to charity depend on how they were asked?
11,812 households split as follows
•a control group that were just asked to donate
•a pledge group which were asked to pledge
•a pledge-plus-publicity group, which got the pledge
but who were told that if they donated their names
would be put up in a public place

11. The problem with Nudge
Would the numbers of books people donate
to charity depend on how they were asked?
Control Pledge Group Pledge and
Group Publicity Group
Donation 7.2% 8.1% 8.8%
More examples in “Nudge Nudge,
Think, Think” - free download from
www.bloomsburyacademic.com

12. What organisations are good at
changing behaviour?

13. What organisations are good at
changing behaviour?
Behavioural challenge: Encourage people to buy
stuff and then throw it away without using it
7.2m tonnes of
food waste each
year.

14. What organisations are good at
changing behaviour?
Yes companies have bigger budgets, and they
may focus on short term purchases...
but they are good at changing behaviour.
Why should the devil have all the
best tunes?
William Booth

15. What makes an organisation
good at changing behaviour?
• Knowing the customer
• A focus on action
• A central role for marketing

16. Knowing the customer

17. Knowing the customer
The best place to find the truth is to listen to your
customer. They will tell you what is good about your
business and what is wrong. And if you keep
listening, they will give you a strategy. - Sir
Terry Leahy

18. Knowing the customer
If we want to change someone’s behaviour
(i.e. encourage them to do something) we
have to know them – who they are and what
matters to them.
What they need, not what they want.
It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want
- Steve Jobs

19. Knowing the customer: Listening
Doesn’t need to be expensive research;
•Talk to frontline staff
•Talk to customer services and reception
•Monitor blogs, twitter
•Pre-testing products, services and materials
•Ask them, be curious!

20. Knowing the customer: Listening
How do you get married mums of young
children to cookery classes?
• Don’t call it cooking –
“food for happy kids”
• Don’t hold them at the
Children’s Centre – hold
them at ASDA.

21. Knowing the customer: Listening
Some questions to ask:
•Who is listening to your audiences’ needs?
•Who is asking them “Why…?”
•How is this information being synthesised,
shared and used?
•When did you last meet the people you are
trying to encourage to do something?
•Or try to do it yourself?

22. Knowing the customer: Listening
From broadcast to radar..

23. Knowing the customer
Organisations that are good at behaviour
change segment their audiences to know
them better. One size does not fit all.
Segmentation based on behaviour, need and motivation – not just
demographics

24. Knowing the customer: Segment
http://www.wellbeingsoutheast.org.uk/ -
search for ‘clusters’

25. Knowing the customer: Segment
It tends to be the preserve of Individual Giving
teams (e.g. segmenting donors by recency,
frequency, value etc) but does that help us
get to know the supporter better?
We are often still very general about “carers”,
“service users”, “parents”, “people with ….”

26. Knowing the customer: Segment
With a remit of ‘For ever, for everyone’, why
would it be necessary for us to think about
segmentation? The answer is two-fold: To
enable us to understand our visitors better
and provide them with the experience they
are looking for; and to create internal
efficiencies through focusing our efforts to
best effect.
- Laura Irvine, NT

27. Knowing the customer: Segment
Curious minds Out and about Explorer
Families
Active thinkers. Spontaneous,
They have a wide love sharing their Active learners –
range of interests. experiences. for the whole
Intellectually Socially family. Discovery
motivated motivated. motivated.

28. Knowing the customer: Segment
Some questions to ask your organisation:
•Is the approach “One size fits all”?
•How are the audiences we want to influence
segmented?
•What segments are our priorities?
•What messages and approaches will work for
our priority segments?

29. What makes an organisation
good at changing behaviour?
• Knowing the customer
• A focus on action
• A central role for marketing

30. A focus on action
Organisations who are good at changing
behaviour make it clear what they would like
you to do.

31. A focus on action
Adults should do two and half hours of
moderate to vigorous intensity physical
activity each week (e.g. for 30 minutes, 5
days a week)
- Sally Davies, England’s Chief Medical
Officer

32. A focus on action

33. A focus on action
Even if our audiences did know – would they
do anything about it?
Awareness is not enough on its own to ensure
that people avoid lifestyle choices that
increase their risk of cancer.
- Dr Mark Matfield, Scientific Co-ordinator,
AICR

34. A focus on action
100% Awareness
25% men, 14% women
smoked
70% of smokers agreed
that “tobacco smoking is
one of the greatest health
hazards of modern times”

35. A focus on action
Raising awareness alone will not change
behaviour – our organisation needs a
combination of methods to make the desired
action easy, normal and popular including
•Adapting and developing services and
products
•Providing support
•“Nudging”

36. A focus on action

37. A focus on action
We have lots of actions we want people to
do!

38. A focus on action
• More reason to segment.
• Selected actions for different segments
based on impact, probability and
penetration.
• Future actions determined when the
customer changes segment (the customer
journey).

39. A focus on action
• Focus on the types of customers and
types of actions that deliver best value for
our organisation.
• We don’t need to just raise awareness we
need to customise our products, services
to make it easier for people to take
action.

40. A focus on action
Some questions to ask:
•Is the objective awareness or action?
•What things need to change to make it easier
for the audience to take action?
•Are we focussed on the most important
action we want each segment to take?

41. A focus on action
From broadcast to bespoke

42. What makes an organisation
good at changing behaviour?
• Knowing the customer
• A focus on action
• A central role for marketing

43. A central role for marketing
• Organisations that are good at changing
behaviour define ‘marketing’ more
broadly than ‘communications’.
Marketing must be at the core. Not just a
department, but a mindset across all
disciplines
- Graham Mackay, CEO of SABMiller

44. A central role for marketing
• Marketing is the mindset of the customer
As a marketing team we bring a customer
focus; in many ways we are the customer
conscience of the organisation.
- Duncan Lewis, Group Marketing Director, Age UK

45. A central role for marketing
• Therefore marketing has a wide role – it
supports the whole organisation
anticipate and meet customer needs.
• This is not always easy to achieve – what
stops this happening?

46. A central role for marketing: Issues
1. The ‘M’ word
The language of behaviour
change - understanding
the audience and
encouraging action may
provide opportunities to
re-frame what we do to
better fit our culture

47. A central role for marketing: Issues
2. Structure
Are we structured by audience, channel or
product?
Major Supporters Media and PR Events
Volunteers Direct Marketing Helpline/services
Corporate Website/Digital Trading

48. A central role for marketing:
Issues
2. Structure
Do we have the mandate?
If ‘Marketing’ sits within
Fundraising (or within
Policy/Services) does it have
the mandate to support the
whole organisation?

49. A central role for marketing: Issues
2. Structure
Identify segments and
prioritised actions.
Audience based
Build relationships through
teams customer journeys.
Develop audience insight.
Use a range of channels and
Central ‘marketing’ methods to change
function behaviour.
Identify new audience needs.

50. A central role for marketing:
Issues
3. Conflicting objectives
• “I need more people to volunteer”
• “I need more people to give”
• “I need more people to use our services”
“I need more people to know what we’ve
achieved”
• “I need more people to buy Christmas cards”

51. A central role for marketing: Issues
3. Conflicting objectives
• Requires audience based planning in response
to organisational need.
• Prioritised segments, prioritised actions;
• Impact
• Probability
• Penetration

52. A central role for marketing: Issues
4. Project planning
• Marketing skills often brought in too late –
when communications are needed.
• Earlier involvement would ensure more time to
understand the audience and decide which
combination of methods will encourage the
desired action.

53. A central role for marketing:
Issues
4. Project planning
We need to grasp the nettle and;
•Know the operational plan backwards and
proactively approach teams to offer our skills.
•Build strong cross team relationships.
•Develop planning tools to ensure our
organisation’s activity has the best chance of
changing behaviour.

54. A central role for marketing
Some questions to ask:
•Are marketing skills used to support all the
organisation?
•Is the structure primarily audience or product
focussed?
•What can be done to ensure marketing skills
are used at all stages of a project, not just the
end?

55. A central role for marketing
From broadcast to the core

56. So what makes an organisation
good at changing behaviour?

57. Thank you for listening
richard@causeaction.co.uk