6. CIPR Membership Means:
• You're part of the UK’s biggest and most respected PR
network. You have access to
• Training
• Networking
• Industry, regional and sector updates
• Skills guides and practical advice
• Accreditation through the CIPR CPD scheme
Twitter - @cipr-sw Facebook – CIPR South West www.cipr.co.uk
8. CPD Means:
• Managing your professional development to meet your
career goals
• Becoming an Accredited Practitioner within two years
• Collecting CPD points for each activity up to a total of 60
per year
• Today’s event carries 10 CPD points
Twitter - @cipr-sw Facebook – CIPR South West www.cipr.co.uk
10. Dates
• Smartphone Food Photography & Personal Branding.
Cornwall. 7th November
• PRide - South of England & Channel Islands.
Bristol 21st November
Twitter - @cipr-sw Facebook – CIPR South West www.cipr.co.uk
36. “Friends are always important
and especially at difficult times.
Since being diagnosed with
dementia I have realised what
a difference good friends and
family have made to my life. I
could not do without them.”
Gina, living with dementia
37. The Dementia Challenge
• Dementia is one of our greatest health and wellbeing
challenges.
• 675,000 people in England have dementia and ~6m are
affected by it as partners, family, friends or carers - and these
numbers are growing
• One in fourteen people over 65 live with dementia
• It is the one thing that people over 50 in this country fear more
than anything else, even more than cancer*
• It is a progressive disease and there is currently no cure
“What we have always wanted is an understanding, an
acceptance and a will within society to confront this disease
and defeat it… The “out of sight, out of mind” attitude really
won’t work with dementia.”
Beth Britton, writer, blogger and dementia campaigner
* YouGov 2012 poll
38. Campaign background
• A volunteering initiative developed by Alzheimer’s Society
(based on a Japanese model) which trains ‘Dementia
Champions’ to deliver 45 minute face-to-face awareness
sessions to create ‘Dementia Friends’
• Designed to give people an understanding of dementia and
the small things they can do that can make a difference to
people living with dementia - from helping someone find the
right bus to spreading the word about dementia
• The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health has
created a challenge to deliver 1m Dementia Friends by March
2015
39. Campaign rationale
• Two thirds of people with dementia are living in the community
but many do not feel connected
• If people with dementia are to continue to live safe, dignified
and, as far as possible, fulfilling lives more of the people around
them will need to help
• However most people don’t know how to help and may actively
avoid people with dementia
• By becoming a Dementia Friend people will start to understand
dementia and find simple ways they can help people with the
condition
40. Campaign objectives
Objectives
• Make the nation more aware of dementia and improve
attitudes
win hearts and minds
• Understand how we can all help people with dementia
create 1million Dementia Friends
41. A Movement in Three
Phases
41
FEB-MAR 2014
‘The need for
friends for people
with dementia’’
APR-MAY 2014
‘Things are better
when you give a
little help’
JUN ‘14 –MAR ’15
‘You & your friends
can give that little
bit of help’
1. BUILD-UP
• Build owned presence
• Create stories in PR
• Establishing partnerships
and building AS activity
• Use media partnerships
to create momentum
2. LAUNCH: CREATE A
MOMENT IN TIME
• Create a national
announcement, leading
with TV
• Phase around moments
of relevance
• Use support channels that
work well with core
creative
• Use impactful channels
and formats to drive
discussion and interest
• Encourage discussion
through key environments
and complementary use of
channels
3. LEARN AND REFINE
• Build frequency and
remind
• Hone our targeting to
‘lookalike’ groups most
likely to sign up
• Use the long-tail of
relevant stories in earned:
short films, celebrity
stories etc. with paid
support
Comms
desired
take out
PR Task
Keep dementia top of
mind, and seed desire
and need for a
Movement
Create an
appointment to view,
and drive repeat
views to film, create
excitement
Create & promote
content that gives
media a reason to
reengage and re-excite
53. Campaign results
Dementia Friends is one of the biggest ever DH/PHE
campaigns in terms of PR value
•1131+ pieces of coverage with a total value of £13.4m to date
•199,362,634 OTS
•480k+ views of 140” TV ad online
•89m impressions of #dementiafriends
•Analysis of top shared links showed sentiment was 100%
positive
•400k unique visits to the campaign website
•410k Dementia Friends recruited to date
55. In the comm
Customer facing staff – shopping part of dem friemd l
23red – cold calling call centres virtual
55 Presentation title - edit in Header and Footer
56. Partnership activity
• Reached out to organisations from private, third and public
sectors
• Private sector partners who have delivered Dementia
Friends include: Marks & Spencer, Lloyds Pharmacy, Lloyds
Bank, Argos, Homebase, BT and Bourne Leisure (Butlins,
Haven and Warner Leisure Hotels)
• In negotiation with new commercial partners
• Working with HEE to accredit NHS staff who’ve completed
Tier 1 training as Dementia Friends
• Central Govt depts are making pledges
• Support from the LGA and lots of activity at local level
• Working with NHS Blood and Transport and other Govt
owned social media channels to broadcast key messages
59. Tracking research shows campaign
has landed well with the public
• Awareness of Dementia Friends has trebled
• There is a big claimed appetite to know more about
dementia/how to help. 39% of people who saw the ads were
interested in becoming a Dementia Friend
• Awareness of the campaign is particularly high among
women, 35-64s, C2DE and those who have contact with
someone with dementia/aged 65+
• People with no current links to dementia have been engaged
too and are keen to learn more about Dementia Friends
• 2/3 of those who saw the advertising claimed they would now
help a stranger with dementia
60. Where next?
Campaign objectives and targets remain the same:
•Win hearts and minds
•Recruit 1million Dementia Friends
•Tracking research shows the campaign is delivering our ‘hearts and
minds’ objective, with the need to support people with dementia
clearly resonating
•We will maintain launch momentum through to March 2015
•Second burst of activity to launch in December
60
92. • 11 years at the BBC & 13 in corporate comms
• Tricky sectors:
• International development
• Public transport
• NHS
• Private, Not for Profit and Public Sector
• Experience of placing communications as important
as finance/HR
• Professional standards & compliance
• New teams in every role since 2000
• 2013 founded Pinch Point Communications
• 2014: appointed to HSE board
• President of CIPR for 2015
cipr.co.uk
@cipr_uk
94. • Demonstrating Value
Ensuring we give every member the tools to be able to
demonstrate their value: is it money or is it value in reputation?
Quantify how membership can help to win new clients, secure
promotion and win respect around the board table.
• Telling our story
Central core purpose, remaining true to members &
delivering quality; Looking forward and outwards, reaching
different audiences to explain what public relations is, and
how we do it. Professionalism and our status with other
professions.
• Marking ten years as the CIPR and looking forward to 2018
cipr.co.uk
@cipr_uk
95. Real tangible changes
• Gender pay gap
• Flexible working guidance
• Ethics module: compulsory
• Best practice guidance
• Professionalism
• …..and the C word
@ms_organised
sarah@pinchpointcommunications.co.uk
cipr.co.uk
@cipr_uk
96. Our Panel
• Betony Kelly – Acting Head of Digital, BIS
• @betonykelly
• Jess Ratty - Crowdfunder UK
• @_jessification_
• Dan Tyte – Director, Working Word
• @dantyte
• Simon Jones - Digital Visitor
• @digitalvisitor
cipr.co.uk
@cipr_uk
97. Your ideas
• Four groups
• four break out areas
• four facilitators
• until 1245
cipr.co.uk
@cipr_uk
103. Heading EAST
Government communications and behaviour
change
September 2014
Sean Larkins
Deputy Director, Government Communications
sean.larkins@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk
+(44) 20 7276 0942
@SeanLarkins1
104. Role of government communications
Legislation Taxation
Regulation Communication
110. Easy
If you want
someone to do
something, make it
easy
• Harness the power of defaults
• Reduce the ‘hassle’ of taking up services
• Simplify messages
114. Social
We’re social
animals and
heavily influenced
by what others do
• Show that most people perform the desired behaviour
• Use the power of networks
• Encourage people to make a commitment to others
116. Timely
Timing impacts on
how we act in any
given situation
• Prompt people when they are most likely to be receptive
• Consider the immediate costs and benefits
• Help people plan their response to events
133. The impact on our social channels
•38k tweets in 3 weeks. Well over double the
average.
•We responded to over 20k of those in 19 mins.
•677 proactive updates sent + replies.
•16% follower growth - 5 times average growth.
134. Our Initial Response
•Crisis response plan activated
•Emergency cover arranged
•Increase resource/prioritise social media.
•Emergency roster activated for following week
Time for a strategy!
135. Our Strategy
•Be there for our customers.
•Treat them as individuals.
•Respond to every question.
136. How we did it.
1.With the right information
2.With the right resource
3.With the right cover
4.With the right message
137. What we learned
•It is not always appropriate to follow someone
else’s example.
•Our crisis response plan worked well.
•Customers appreciate one clear message, in
one place.
•We need a significant standby cover in order
to deal with future disruption at this scale.
138. Putting it into practise
•Ongoing 24/7 cover on Twitter
•Increase team size
•New, more robust crisis response plan
•New training programme for social media
team.
139. What our customers said.
During the disruption, we received 1441 messages of praise for the
social media team. Here are just a few of them.
141. Bringing brands and projects together to support grass-roots social
engagement
142. There's a quiet revolution
going on: across the UK
communities are getting
together to back great ideas
and turn them into reality.
That's why I'm really excited
about Crowdfunder - and its
potential to inspire and touch
the lives Hugh Fe aorf nmleilyli-ons of people
Whittingstall,
Broadcaster and
shareholder
Intro
143. About Crowdfunder
Crowdfunder is the UK’s No 1
rewards-based crowdfunding platform.
We turn great ideas into reality
by connecting communities and networks.
We crowdfund more projects than
the rest of the UK platforms combined.
Intro
We enable businesses,
charities and community
projects to:
Pitch their ideas
Raise funds from the crowd
Validate their
iUdneloacs k match-funding
Amplify social media
reach, engage with
wider audiences, build
new customers
144. How
crowdfunding
Manchester Vegw Peopole, ar ukniquse local food
growing cooperative in Manchester needed a
van to deliver more great local vegetables.
They asked the community to pledge money in
return for vegetables, experiences and their
chance to have their name on the Manchester
veg van.
In running their campaign, they managed to:
Raise £16,575 from 323 members of the local
community
Reached 10,000+ new potential customers
Attract new business customers who also
became pledgers
Unlocked £20K+ of match funding from DEFRA
Gather 100’s of local supporters who become
advocates of the co-op
The market
145. Funding & Commercial
Partners
Partners
We are working with a number
of parties to help them
distribute funds to projects that
need it most.
Using the crowd to propose
and validate great British ideas.
Projects Funding
body
Using the crowd
to validate and
then distribute
funds
Commercial
partner
Providing Match
funding as part
of a sponsorship
package
The crowd
Funds and
validates the
project to unlock
other funding
sources
146. The future of crowdfunding and
social media
How brands are using crowdfunding to engage with new audiences as part of their PR
campaigns:
156. “But I know this area well - I’ve
worked in it for years”
Business is GREAT campaign
(started November 2013):
The GREAT Britain campaign is a partnership
between private enterprise and Government to
highlight support for businesses aspiring to
succeed and to encourage entrepreneurial
spirit.
●Analysed the most popular business content
on the gov.uk site
●Conducted focus groups with businesses at
various life stages
●Hired an experienced editor of a business
website and gave him editorial control over the
content
●Experimenting with different content and
distribution methods
158. “But we’ve written a press release?”
Draft Consumer Bill of Rights (June 2013):
●Measures to enhance consumer rights and
make them easier to understand
●streamline overlapping and complicated areas
from eight pieces of legislation into one
consumer Bill
●get some money back after one failed repair of
faulty goods (or one faulty replacement) incl.
digital services
●demand that substandard services are redone
or failing that get a price reduction
A new, integrated approach:
●Included online media & bloggers to media
briefing and private event
●Identified where the messages weren’t landing
160. “But it’s embargoed until Boxing
Day?”
● Reached more than 6.4 million people
with space weather information just
through Twitter. This was worldwide,
including Australia, the US, Canada, Hong
Kong, India and Pakistan
● Respected scientists and influential
commentators shared and created
content - Dr Lucie Green, Roger Highfield,
Jo Brodie, John Burn-Murdoch and Alice
Bell
● Solar flare video, 15 original blog posts,
BBC blog content used at least 23 times
● When the BBC’s popular stargazing
project began on Jan 7 the team
contacted them and the BBC account
shared the BIS messages again
161. Thank you
Betony Kelly
Acting Head of Digital Communications
@betonykelly
Editor's Notes
CIPR membership means being part of the UK's biggest and most respected PR network
Register today and we will waive the joining fee
Keep ahead of the game in your career with
Training
Networking
Industry, regional and sector updates
Skills guides and practical advice
Accreditation through the CIPR CPD scheme
Determine your key messages
Own your messages
Be consistent
Be broad enough to appeal – health not diet
Be realistic
Based on how it is sold
Watercress is part of a solution not the answer to every question
Determine your key messages
Own your messages
Be consistent
Be broad enough to appeal – health not diet
Be realistic
Based on how it is sold
Watercress is part of a solution not the answer to every question
We know that relationships are hard. But when they work out it’s really rewarding.
10 minutes a day
SWEP- up 61.5% to 828,486 unique users per month. Wales Online, up 58% 2,122,895.
Campaign pencilled in for w/c 1 Dec with other possible opportunities:
Giving Tuesday 2 December - simple idea behind #GivingTuesday is to encourage people, charities and businesses to donate time, money or their voice to help a good cause. Started in the States but taking off globally. New to the UK in 2014 – being launched by the Charities Aid Foundation.
Labelled as a global day of giving that follows on from the sales of Black Friday and the online shopping boom on Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday is an opportunity to come together to show the world why it’s good to give. Can be making a donation, volunteering your time or just spreading the word at the start of the Christmas shopping season, #GivingTuesday is a call to action for everyone who wants to give something back. Big opportunity for social media. Some Dementia charities already partners and AS looking into it
This is the first screen. Please add your presentation title. (You can delete this note when you’re done).
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Social media is integrated into every piece of communications that we do. We have around230 Twitter accounts for all sorts of officers and staff across the force, from neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs to CID, traffic, football and the senior command team.
The main force account has been used in a much more dynamic way, engaging with followers, answering questions, promoting successes, providing real-time messages about live incidents and providing crime prevention advice.
In January 2012 @WMPolice had 28,364 followers, which shows the success of the current approach, increasing the followers by nearly 20,000.
The force also has around 130 social media accounts, with more being opened all of the time, as officers continue to embrace the technology and take advantage of the engagement opportunities.
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Most populrar ... £1m seized in raid; drunk foreign truck driver on M6 etc.... GMP - 30,795
West Yorkshire Police - 13,252
Met - 7,041
Avon and Somerset (very focused on SM)
Behavioural theory is a powerful tool for government communicators but you don’t need to be an experienced social scientist to apply it successfully to your work.
Four key functions of government – communications often quicker, cheaper, less controversial and more popular with the public than legislation, taxation and regulation
World’s first mass government marketing campaign 1864. Post Office promoted savings, life insurance and annuities.
However, no longer good enough just to ‘raise awareness’ or ‘push’ information out into the public domain. This is difficult, particularly in an age when much of our communication is less one way and more a conversation through social and other forms of media.
This means virtually everything we do has some firm of behavioural impact, whether:
Getting people to stop smoking
Continue to pay their tax on line
Or start eating a healthier diet.
All these are massive issues, with no easy options and no convenient endpoint.
Which means what we need – in fact demand – from government communicators is changing. We could argue it already has.
Skills like media management and marketing are still vital, of course. But we also need people who understand loss aversion; attitudes to short-term reward and long-term gain; pre-contemplation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; salience; chunking, cognitive dissonance; herd mentality and dozens of other issues.
In short we need communicators who are also behavioural economists.
This stuff can sound scary. Behavioural insights can be identified through:
Psychology – understanding human behaviour and why we do – or don’t do – certain things. We all know smoking is bad. It’s dirty. It’s expensive. And it can lead to cancer and other health issues. And yet in Great Britain 22% of adult men and 19% of adult women are smokers . Psychology helps us identify what causes this, what motivates people to start – and to stop.
Ethnography – This is great for anyone who is nosy. As I am sure you know, ethnography is the study of customs and habits. In the UK, for example, we’ve used ethnography to look at simplifying processes such as applying for jobs and paying taxes, to see if simplification will change habits and behaviours.
Then there’s economics – for example, looking at the emotional factors of economic decisions. One example: vin general people are loss averse – they hate losing money more than they like saving money. Knowing this helps us frame an argument. Saying that you will lose money if you do not insulate your home is likely to be more successful than saying you will save money if you do. Put simply, we put more effort into avoiding loss than ensuring gain.
And finally, there’s public policy – how government tries to address an issue through laws, regulations and actions. For example, is it better to introduce a tax – say on sugary drinks – rather than encourage people through education to cut down the number of cans of Coke they drink each day? Mass communications and technological changes have caused public policy to become more complex and interconnected.
In order to use behaviour insights effectively, each project or issue should have:
A clearly defined problem. We might want to stop people drinking sugary drinks – but why?
The context – in this example, increasing rates of obesity and costs to health services;
A potential solution – our old friends legislation, regulation, taxation and communication;
And a way of measuring success. Focusing not on outputs but on outcomes – and increasingly long-term outcomes.
There are lots of models. We used to use a complicated model called MINDSPACE.
But now we tend to focus on a simpler model called EAST: in order to change behaviour, our interventions should be:
Easy;
Attractive
Timely;
And Social.
So what do we mean by this?
If someone wants to do something, start by making it easy for them.
People are basically a little bit lazy, so harness the power of defaults: making an option the default means that it is more likely to be accepted.
People are put off by things that are difficult to do – keeping it simple can increase response rates.
Making the message simple can raise participation rates by up to 10% so if it is a complex goal, break it down into more manageable chunks or simpler, easier actions.
For example, in the UK we’ve introduced auto enrolment into pensions. You are automatically in a pension scheme unless you actively opt out. This simple change has increased participation rates by nearly 20%. More than 400,000 people now have a pension as a result of this simple change.
We also need to make something attractive – either by drawing attention to it or introducing rewards and incentives. Financial incentives work well, but cheaper alternatives like lotteries are also successful.
Here’s a great example. People who do not pay their road tax initially receive a letter telling them to pay. When these letters include a picture of the untaxed car, payment rates rose from 40% to 48%. The letters draw attention to the car and people realise what they stand to lose if their car is impounded.
We are all social animals. We like to follow the herd. Next time you stand at a traffic light, watch and see what happens: once one person has walked across the road, others will follow, even if the traffic is still coming.
Peer-to-peer networks are incredibly powerful. Encouraging people to make a commitment – whether to apply for five jobs in the next five days – or to attend their hospital appointment – is often successful. We don’t like letting people down.
But being compared to our friends and neighbours can be even more powerful.
We now tell people who owe tax how many of their neighbours paid their tax on time. By adding this simple message into communications, trials brought forward more than £200 million of tax in less than a year.
Timing is everything. You are unlikely to see an advert for smoking cessation on a Friday because many people are about to go out, have fun and possibly smoke. But run those adverts on a Saturday or Sunday morning – perhaps when people are hung over – and the ads have greater impact.
So prompt people when they are most likely to be receptive. We’re more motivated by costs and benefits that happen now rather than in the future. Remove the barriers to make doing something quick and easy.
Here’s a great example. People change their clocks twice a year – when the clocks go forward in the spring or backwards in the autumn. By encouraging people to test their smoke alarm at the same time – has led to a significant fall in the number of people dying in a fire in their own home.
A very simple message – tick, tock, test, backed up by statistics, made an automatic connection between the two – in effect, creating a new, positive, behaviour.
Understanding the behaviour triggers – and testing and piloting and learning from the results can lead to some amazing results.
For example, when people renewed a tax disk on line they were greeted with one of eight different messages asking them to join the NHS organ donor register. One said simply ‘please join’. Another said ‘every day thousands of people who see this page decide to register’. Another – the most successful message – said @if you needed an organ donation, would you have one? If so, please help others’.
Really cheap, really simple, really powerful. As a result of this work, we’re now getting 100,000 extra people signing up to the organ donor register each year.
One final example. Smokers are five times more likely to successfully stop smoking if they make it to 28 days.
Stoptober used the ideas of chunking and social norming to boost smokers’ chances of success. It showed them the health and financial benefits of quitting and reinforced gains such as food tasting better and increased energy levels.
Evaluation showed that the campaign generated 234,132 quitters. Assuming normal relapse rates, Stoptober will save the NHS £18,830,580 in the first year alone and more than £41.5 million over three years.
This is brilliant, exciting, clever, effective – and often cheap – stuff. And we’re still learning. Moving beyond the EAST model, we’re also looking at other social psychological models of behaviour and influences such as:
Or mental shortcuts that we use hundreds of times each day
I don’t have time to go through these in detail but more advice is available…
Online, on storify, on Twitter.
We’ve published guides that you can download from our website.
Let’s be clear, using behavioural insights is and will continue to be central to government communications. It means we all need to develop new skills and new ways of thinking and challenging. We need to be comfortable analysing data; assessing attitudes and behaviours; developing creative interventions; piloting and testing; and working hand in hand with our policy colleagues.
One final suggestion from me:
Think big. Stop thinking in terms of channels, think in terms of behaviours.
Start small – pilot, evaluate, revise and repeat.
And move fast. If something’s not working, stop it.
This places us at the forefront of public policy. It gives us the power to help save, change and improve lives. And it enables us to do it in ways that save taxpayers money.
Thank you.
We set our social media channels up in 2011 and our followers have grown steadily to 120k which is where we are now.
We get around 20k tweets every 4 weeks and we respond to around 65% of them – the rest are chat messages.
Our aim is to reply to tweets within 10 minutes but mostly we respond within a couple of minutes depending on how busy we are.
We reply to customers on Twitter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In February 2014 our service was affected by some of the worst storms to hit the UK in history.
First, part of the sea wall at Dawlish was washed away meaning we were unable to run trains through to the west of England.
This was followed by widespread disruption in the west due to flooding.
We then saw serious disruption in the London and Thames Valley area due to flooding which damaged signals.
Journeys were delayed, retimed and cancelled across our network. It all happened very quickly and our customers turned to our social media channels to find out what was happening….
In the 3 initial weeks following the collapse of the sea wall at Dawlish, we received 38k tweets, which was well over double what we would usually receive in that time.
We responded to 20k of those with an average response time of around 19 minutes.
As well as the individual replies that we sent, we also sent 677 proactive service updates.
Over this 3 week period, our followers grew by 16% - 5 times our average growth.
On Sunday 9 Feb it all went mental and our crisis plan was activated and I was contacted as emergency on call for social media.
As we had a steady 500+ tweets in the queue all day, emergency cover was arranged and we were able to extend hours until midnight that night and then from 4am the following morning with the resources that we had. We were currently open between 7 and 10 only.
We doubled our social media team from a pool of multi skilled back up staff and we made Twitter our communication channel priority as information is easier to get to a large audience.
We drew up an emergency roster for the following week which maintained double resource throughout (up to 4 people on the Twitter shift at any one time).
Then we had settled things it was time for us to create a strategy for how we would help our customers through the storm in the coming weeks.
To create a strategy we needed an overall goal to guide us.
We looked at our crisis plan and also examined the way other train operators had dealt with crisis. When TOCs experience major disruption it is commonplace to go into broadcast mode. This means they stop replying to individual messages and focus on broadcasting the updates.
We decided not to do this.
We realised that every one of our customers reaching out to us needed our help for a different reason. We realised that everyone uses Twitter differently and not all of our customers would see the updates.
We did not want customers to have to go elsewhere for information after they had taken the time to tweet us.
We wanted to be BE THERE FOR THEM.
We therefore made a commitment to answer every individual question, no matter what it took and to provide that personal and reassuring service to our customers as individuals.
With the right information – We asked our digital team and control centre for updated, customer friendly disruption info, in an easy to reach place for both our team and our customers to refer to. A travel advice hub was created on our website, which was updated 24 hours a day as and when anything changed. We proactively signposted customers to this page to reduce traffic to social media. This page still exists as we found that the model we used worked really well.
With the right resource – we provided overtime incentive to advisors to extend their hours. We provided as much resource as we could. We have a pool of customer service agents who are trained on social media and we bought them all in to help out.
With the right cover – we decided to respond to customers 24 hours a day and we initially created a 24/7 roster with the resource we had. Later we asked national rail to help with this. When the disruption had ended, we kept this service on.
With the right message – we listened to our customers and took time out at regular intervals to gauge the most regularly asked questions coming through. We created a content plan based on that, with scheduled proactive tweets going out to answer those questions. These were things like information about where to claim compensation and also information on ticket restrictions.
When it comes to social media, dare to be different. Decide early on what the main focus of your social channel is. If it is customer service, then every decision you make on social media should take into account the impact on your customer. What do you want to achieve?
We realised the crisis response plan that we had in place worked well, although we had had concerns that it was perhaps too simple. Planning our crisis plan took months and a lot of head scratching but in the end we realised that all we needed was a robust actionable on call plan and for the people at the top of that chain to have the confidence and authority to make on the spot decisions and put out appropriate messages. Those people then needed the appropriate ongoing crisis training.
The railway is very complex but we realised early on that customers just wanted jargon free, honest updates, no matter how bad the story was. One clear message, in one place that was easy for them to find.
We also realised from all this that we needed to permanently increase our resource as although we did manage to cover, a lot of the hours put in were done through goodwill. Therefore we made arrangements to ensure that our team was better staffed for future. We are now looking into other things the team can do in their downtime to make them more efficient.
We decided to retain our 24/7 cover for our customers as this really seemed to be appreciated during the storms.
We increased the size of our team, adding an extra person to most shifts meaning that there is always back up in times of disruption. We are looking at ways now of utilising this team in a better way during downtime to make sure we are getting the most out of them.
We have a new, more robust crisis response plan with added out of hours contacts.
We have created a new training programme for our social media team to incorporate the message of helping everyone and being there for our customers.