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Last updated: 25 October 2007
Changing behaviour: A public policy perspective
7. A ‘Social Marketing’ Approach
Social marketing is a distinct marketing discipline that has evolved since the 1970s. Its focus is on influencing behaviours that will improve social outcomes such as improving health or preventing injuries. Unlike marketing theories that aim to promote a certain brand of commercial product, its general intent is to improve people’s quality of life. As such, it is a useful approach for public servants tasked with achieving behavioural change.
Social marketing is a practical approach that integrates the insights from individual, interpersonal and community theories and evidence. Typically, the approach aims to change both the individual and the environment around the individual. The changed behaviour of individuals and the changed environment interact, gradually establishing new social norms.
The following 12 principles of an effective social marketing approach have been devised by P. Kotler and N. Lee.27
(i) Take Advantage of Prior and Existing Successful Campaigns
It is advisable to begin a social marketing campaign planning process with a search for similar efforts in public sector agencies around Australia and in other countries. Benefits can be substantial, including learning from others’ successes and failures, having access to research conducted in preparation for the campaign, finding innovative and cost-effective strategies and discovering ideas for creative delivery mechanisms and materials that can be adapted and/or adopted. The Internet makes such a search relatively easy. A Canadian Government sponsored website, for example, contains a list of nearly 100 case studies of public campaigns designed to change people’s behaviour—<www.toolsofchange.com>.
(ii) Target People Most Ready for Action
Efforts and resources are most effectively directed towards those people most likely to change (the low-hanging fruit) rather than those least likely to change. Social marketers often use a ‘stages of change’ model which categorises people into four groups:
- precontemplation—where people have no intention of changing their behaviour
- contemplation—where people are beginning to think about a change, as something may have woken them up to the need for and/or the benefits of change
- preparation/action—where people have decided to do something and are beginning to put things in place in order to change (including people who may have begun to change but it’s not a habit)
- maintenance—where people are performing the desired behaviour on a regular basis although they sometimes struggle with relapses and would benefit from reminders and recognition.
One of the factors underpinning the success of Landcare groups in influencing landholders’behaviour is that they target the landholders most ready for action. As Landcare groups are voluntary, they usually comprise landholders who are either at the contemplation stage (beginning to think about change) or actively involved in change.
The successful National Tobacco Campaign, a mass media campaign which began in 1997 and ran until 2004, explicitly made use of the stages of change model. The campaign was the result of a cooperative partnership between the federal, state and territory governments and interested NGOs. The National Tobacco Campaign was informed by the Transtheoretical Stages of Change model28 which understands that smoking cessation is a process rather than an event. At an individual level, smokers are at different stages along a continuum of readiness to quit. This continuum or cycle spans the following: no intention to quit; some intention to quit but no time frame; intention to quit in the near future; attempting to quit; recently attempting to quit; and either maintaining non-smoking or relapsing back to smoking. Smokers migrate through these stages over time, often spanning a decade or more, and may relapse to earlier stages after failed quit attempts. The National Tobacco Campaign, which aimed to encourage people along the quitting continuum, particularly targeted smokers who were close to making a quit attempt and those who had successfully quit.
(iii) Promote Single, Doable Behaviours—One at a Time
Even if a complex problem requires multiple behavioural changes, it is best to present them one at a time. A simple, clear, action-oriented message is the most likely to support people who are in the ‘contemplation’ or ‘preparation/action’ groups. Each National Tobacco Campaign advertisement, for example, ended with a call to action—an exhortation to call the Quit line.
Another example involves attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although a wide array of public activities contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, the Canadian ‘Turn it Off ’ project encouraged drivers to turn off their engines if they were going to be idling for more than 10 seconds. ‘Turn it Off ’ signs were located at strategic sites, such as schools where children are dropped off and picked up. Drivers at such sites were asked to give commitments to ‘turn it off ’ and those agreeing were given window stickers that said ‘For Our Air: I Turn My Engine Off When Parked’. As a result, idling was reduced by 32% and idling duration by 73% compared to control sites.29
(iv) Identify and Remove Barriers to Behavioural Change
This is a crucial principle for effective behavioural change and is often directed at changing the environment rather than the individual. Policy makers and programme designers need to know why the target audience perceive they can’t or don’t want to do the desired behaviour. It may be a perceived lack of skill (composting), a concern with self-efficacy or confidence in taking the action (giving up smoking), or inconvenience (taking motor oil or batteries to a waste station). If barriers to behavioural change are not addressed, sustained or widespread behavioural change is unlikely. Large-scale advertising campaigns do not work in isolation. They need to be part of a wider package of measures.30
Groups which focus on the target audience can be used to identify the barriers to change. Such focus groups often cover very specific issues (e.g. what are the barriers to taking your used batteries to the waste station) or they can be more general in nature. In a German climate change project, for example, small groups of citizens shared a moderated discussion on the risks of climate change and options for policy. The research focused on doable actions and participants’ willingness to act, thus helping to identify promotable, achievable behaviours.31
(v) Bring Real Benefits into the Present
Promoting the benefits of the desired behaviour can be difficult in some areas of public policy, particularly in the environmental arena where the benefits tend to be widely spread and long-term. Wherever possible, however, the benefits to the individual should be presented in the most compelling way. In many health messages, for example, good health is presented as a benefit in itself whereas more people value health because it makes them look more attractive.32 This link should be exploited (e.g. the ‘Kiss a Non-Smoker and Taste the Difference’ campaign). Similarly, given people’s high discount rates, campaigns should emphasise the benefits of the new behaviour (and the disadvantages of the old behaviour) as close to the present time as possible.
(vi) Highlight Costs of Competing Behaviours
This principle recommends highlighting the key costs the target audience will pay if they continue to engage in the old behaviour. Consider the costs listed by a district council in the USA, for example, when parents smoke around their children in their homes or cars.
Please Decide to Smoke Outside33
More than 6,000 children die each year in the USA from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. Exposure to tobacco smoke is reported to raise a child’s risk of:
- Ear infections by 19%
- Tubes in the ears by 38%
- Asthma by 43%
- Bronchitis by 46%
- Tonsillectomies by 60% to 100%
- SIDS by 200%
These specific costs were chosen after focus groups of smoking parents were found to be shocked by the actual statistics even though they knew smoking in confined spaces was bad for their children. A follow-up survey with 500 households six months into the campaign found that among those exposed to the campaign, 21% who had allowed smoking in their car changed their practice and rules regarding smoking and 17% who used to allow smoking in their homes had changed their habits.34
(vii) Promote a Tangible Object or Service to Help Target Audiences Perform the Behaviour
Tangible benefits can provide encouragement, remove barriers and create more attention, appeal and memorability. Examples of a tangible object or service designed to help the target audience adopt the behaviour include:
- a helpline for domestic abuse
- Quit lines to assist giving up smoking
- a laminated instruction card for breast self-examination
- a university escort or campus bus at night for students to reinforce the message of not walking alone around campus late at night.
(viii) Consider Nonmonetary Incentives in the Form of Recognition and Appreciation
The principle here is to consider what can be given to the target audience in recognition and appreciation of their behavioural change. Examples include:
- a window sticker for businesses that adopt environmentally friendly practices
- a bracelet for the designated driver, which also signals their eligibility for a free non alcoholic drink at restaurants and bars working in partnership with government agencies
- a letter from a community health clinic congratulating a client on being smoke-free for 30 days.
Such recognition is often less expensive than offering monetary incentives and can work to increase self-efficacy. It can also serve as a reminder of the desired behaviour and social-proof the desired behaviour by increasing its visibility.
(ix) Have a Little Fun with Messages
Using humour and fun to influence public behaviours can be risky and there are issues for which it is clearly inappropriate (e.g. domestic violence or reporting suspicious activities relating to terrorism or crime). However, humour and fun can be powerful tools in securing the attention, appeal and memorability that can assist in achieving behavioural change.
An example is the use of novel garbage receptacles in high litter areas such as downtown shopping centres or city parks. Washington State uses a vacuum powered Garbage Goat in a city park that eats anything that comes close to its mouth. Children love to feed the goat and actively search the park for litter to feed it.
(x) Use Media Channels at the Point of Decision-Making
Often, the ideal moment to engage with the target audience is when they are about to choose between alternative, often competing, behaviour. Examples include:
- the use of a heart symbol on menus signifying healthy choices
- graphic warnings on cigarette packets
- a stencil on storm drains reminding citizens that what they put down the drain goes directly into rivers and streams.
(xi) Get Commitments and Pledges
Commitments and pledges to perform a behaviour can significantly increase the likelihood that the target audience will change their behaviour. Ways to increase the likelihood of obtaining effective commitments include:
- starting with small requests because research indicates that those who agree to a small step are more likely to agree to a subsequent larger one
- obtain written in preference to verbal commitments if possible
- facilitate the commitment with face-to-face interaction where possible
- seek commitments in groups (e.g. church groups, parent groups, Neighbourhood Watch groups)
- seek commitments at existing points of contact (e.g. when people purchase paint asking them to commit to disposing of any leftover paint properly)
- use durable forms and formats to display commitments (e.g. a sticker placed on recycling containers or on the cans of paint in the above example).
(xii) Use Prompts for Sustainability
Prompts serve as a reminder. They are targeted at people who have already decided to engage in the behaviour and are designed to overcome the ‘forgetting’ factor. Prompts are typically visual, for example:
- messages on fast-food packaging to dispose of containers properly
- fridge magnets reminding people when to put out their recycling
- signs in toilets reminding people to wash their hands
- posters in pub and club toilets graphically depicting someone bending over the ‘porcelain god’ to serve as a reminder to drink moderately.
Behavioural Change Techniques used by the National Landcare Programme
Influencing landholders to adopt more sustainable natural resource management measures is complex. This is partly because adopting natural resource management measures is not one decision (as, for example, deciding to give up smoking is one decision, albeit a difficult one). Adopting new management measures requires a large number of different decisions—both big and little, easy and complex—every week. It is as much a way of life decision as, for example, changing your lifestyle to overcome obesity issues. It requires ongoing commitment and considerable knowledge and skill and at times considerable investment in capital equipment and other inputs.
Despite this complexity, the National Landcare Programme and the Landcare movement have been successful in engaging with landholders and increasing their awareness and understanding of natural resource management issues. This, in turn, has helped a significant proportion of landholders to achieve behavioural change by adopting more sustainable natural resource management practices. Several surveys have shown that Landcare members are twice as likely to adopt innovative practicesto address natural resource management issues as farmers who are not Landcare members.35 A survey in 2004 revealed that 41% of broad-acre and dairy farmers were members of a Landcare group, with participation in Landcare being the most commonly reported form of engagement in natural resource management activities.
An evaluation of the National Landcare Programme over the period 2003–06 found that the main barriers to the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices identified by recipients of National Landcare Programme funding were a lack of knowledge of natural resource management issues and how to apply new management systems to an area. Also cited was a lack of financial capacity, including affording to pay for technical expertise, lack of awareness of natural resource management issues and lack of time.36
What behavioural techniques have been used by the National Landcare Programme and how did they assist landholders to overcome these barriers to change?
There is a strong view among stakeholders, supported by a range of evaluation reports on the National Landcare Programme, that the programme’s support for Landcare groups and other groups of landholders has been an extremely successful behavioural change technique. Landholder groups facilitate behavioural change in a number of ways:
- They target the landholders most ready for action. Because Landcare and other landholder groups are voluntary—they usually comprise landholders who are either at the contemplation stage (beginning to think about change) or actively involved in change.
- They increase landholders’ self-efficacy by providing them with the skills and knowledge to adopt natural resource management measures. They provide feedback, ongoing advice and assistance for those in the process of adopting new techniques, that is, ‘farmers teaching farmers’.
- They utilise peer pressure and peer support to influence members to adopt natural resource management measures. This is particularly apparent in group projects involving a number of landholders that have been funded by the National Landcare Programme. Many stakeholders observed that peer pressure was a very effective accountability mechanism—landholders delivered project outcomes partly because they did not want to let the other landholders down.
- They reduce the risk of adopting new methods because landholders can observe if the new methods work in their local conditions by visiting and observing other members who have already adopted the new methods. This also helps to overcome the fear of change barrier. Being able to observe the benefits of natural resource management methods on neighbouring farms was a particularly good method of influencing landholders who are often experiential learners. It also helps to bring the benefits of adopting change more into the present—because even if the methods take several years for the benefits to become apparent, more reluctant farmers are able to observe these benefits in the present time in a concrete way.
- The bottom-up, local nature of the projects funded under the National Landcare Programme enables landholders to feel a strong sense of ownership of projects. As well, this approach, by reflecting local priorities, enables landholders to see more easily the benefits to them and their local area of adopting new natural resource management methods.
The National Landcare Programme also uses other behavioural change techniques:
- It provides funding incentives for landholders, particularly groups of landholders, to undertake natural resource management measures. This helps in overcoming the lack of financial resources barrier. The programme, however, also utilises conditionality and reciprocity—funding is contingent on landholders signing contracts that include at least matching contributions of the landholders’ own time and resources to the project funded by the programme.
- The National Landcare Programme, by supporting landholder groups and funding sustainable agriculture projects, has increased the social capital of rural communities.37 While this has had significant social and health spin-offs, it also assists in achieving the spread of behavioural change amongst more linked-up rural communities.
27 . P. Kotler and N. Lee, Marketing in the Public Sector, pp. 193–211
28 Department of Health and Aged Care [2000], National Tobacco Campaign—New Phase: May 2000, The Department, Population Health Division, Woden, ACT, p. 6.
29 P. Kotler and N. Lee, Marketing in the Public Sector, p. 196.
30 J. Collins et al, Carrots, Sticks and Sermons, p. 7.
31 J. Collins et al, Carrots, Sticks and Sermons, p. 7.
32 P. Kotler and N. Lee, Marketing in the Public Sector, p. 199.
33 Key messages used in Snohomish County, Washington State, USA, to encourage parents to smoke outside instead of in the home or in their cars in P. Kotler and N. Lee, Marketing in the Public Sector, p. 202.
34 P. Kotler and N. Lee, Marketing in the Public Sector, p. 201.
35 Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry 2007, Internal Working Document, p. 6.
36 D. Hyndman, A. Hodges and N. Goldie, National Landcare Programme Evaluation 2003–06, p. 25.
37 D. Hyndman, A. Hodges and N. Goldie, National Landcare Programme Evaluation 2003–06, pp. 1, 7.
