BrainFuel

Our expert guest is Shayoni Lynn, Founder of Lynn PR. Lynn PR is an award-winning full-service strategic communications and behavioural insights agency.

This episode takes a behind the scenes look at her award winning campaign #FreeYourMInd, delivered on behalf of NHS South East London CCG.

The brief was to help raise awareness of, and engagement with, relevant NHS mental health services. To educate and engage vulnerable and seldom-heard audience groups – and help them get to the services they needed during the lockdown. And to deliver at pace.

Three takeaway tips from Shayoni include:

One: Be data driven. Observe action not just intent to act. 

To achieve this the team ran a two-week test phase which  uncovered invaluable insights that saw a 4.5 x improvement in engagement.

Two: Real time monitoring of paid social

Real time monitoring of message saturation and cost per click across paid-for social meant Shayoni and her team could make swift decisions to shift channels as needed. 

Three: Segment 

Segment messaging and paid media buying, then monitor and act. This ensured target audiences including BAME and young people were driven into services. 

Extra Bootcamp Tip

Don’t forget that focussing on the problem or what you don’t want can actually increase unwanted behaviours. This bias known as negative social proof often pops up in mental health marketing as we focus on stigma and challenges rather than solutions.

  Book recommendations

1.     Nudge, Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Thaler & Sunstein

2.     Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini 

3.     Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely

4.     Thinking Fast & Slow, Daniel Kahneman

5.     Inside the Nudge Unit, David Halpern

6.     Misbehaving, Richard H. Thaler

 Shayoni’s best self is when playing with Lara her dog and this will no doubt be double when her new puppy arrives.

Check out Lynn Pr at Home - Lynn PR

 For everyone interested in how to use behavioural science to max your impact check  out Bootcamp  at www.socialinsightmarketing.co.uk/bootcamp

Our expert guest is Kate Knight, Programme Director, South Central NHS Commissioning Unit. Kate has been delivering public health behaviour change marketing campaigns for over ten years. Our chat today focuses on her time with Smoke Free South West and Public Health Action.  Working on behalf of Public Health Directors scorss the South-West she led a specialist social marketing and behaviour change team to develop regional award winning campaigns whose legacy lives on today.

Campaigns  included: Illegal Tobacco, Smoke Outside, Be There Tomorrow and  outdoor smoke-free areas including play parks. Kate led the work that culminated in Bristol piloting the first outdoor smoke-free areas.

Top three takeaways to support communications planning for No Smoking Day March 2021 

One: Audience insight shaped every campaign: 

·       Understanding why people smoke and not demonising them was key. Kate and her team would not only run focus groups, they would spend time in people’s homes to observe their behaviour.  Bridging the recall gap! 

·       Kate shares her story of watching parents taking a bit of me time downstairs and smoking thinking they were doing the right thing having one out of the window not understanding that the toxins stayed on the furnishings. 

·       This ethnographic approach completely shifted and developed the message from a health harms approach to a behavioural steps approach. 

·       The insight showed awareness of toxins on furnishings was low.

·       The call to action was to walk outside and close the door. A clear direct call to action.  

·       The campaign reduced smoking in  homes across the South-West from 22% to 13% 

·       And there was a cute teddy bear in the advert. 

Two: make the ‘reward’  for the audience clear:

·       Habits are based on a reward, so if you want to influence someone to give something up (think loss aversion) then you need to highlight the rewards from the change. They also need to be bigger, more desirable than the reward they are giving up. 

·       Smoke Outside asked a smoker to walk outside in exchange they could be confident the toxins from their cigarettes were not harming their families. This is a big reward for a small change, it is tangible and immediate. 

Three: Invest time to find a great case study–  use the content to leverage channels and scale:

·       Kirsty was the case study for the whole South West region for the ‘unapologetically emotive’ campaign, Be There Tomorrow. She lived in Torbay and had a teenager daughter; she also had lung disease. Kirsty shared her story so others to inspire and motivate other smokers to reduce and quit.   

·       Kirsty’s story supported thousands of people across the South West. Invest in finding people who want to tell their stories. Good content has a long shelf life and attracts good PR.

·       Advice to focus closer to home means closer to your audience’s social norms. Local-placed based case studies do work, but a truly great story will cross geographical boundaries, meaning you can reach your audience and work with more stakeholders in a multitude of ways. Kirsty resonated in Reading as much as did in Torbay.

Kate and her team  sit within the NHS and so are uniquely positioned to support Local Authorities & NHS especially as we shift to Integrated Care Services to bring partners and voices together to&

Episode 3:
Dedicated to TikTok users, parents of teens and marketing and comms pros working with young people  - this interview with Pete Judodihardjo aka PeteBITs explains why TikTok is like crack cocaine.

Pete ‘s You Tube channel is highly entertaining and really brings behavioural science to life check it out at  PeteBITS

Key takeaways:

1.    TikTok is highly rewarding.  Our brain has a prediction error mechanism which means we can't predict the level of the reward. This makes variable content rewarding...not knowing (like spinning the handle on a one penny slot machine). 

2.   TikTok has no decision points. Tik Tok eliminates friction points which means we will engage more as we literally ‘don’t stop to think’.  E.g. as soon as you launch the app a video starts (TIKTOK decides!)

 3.  TikTok builds an aggressively simple habit.  A habit is a ‘mental shortcut’, a habit is n automatic behaviour. In other words you don’t feel, you  just act.  E.g. coffee in the morning. The habit TikTok is designed to build is the swipe habit... and it is aggressively simple. Swipe anywhere....again and again.... Which means it is a very simple habit to adopt. 

 4.  TikTok combines the reward with the habit.   The desire for the reward - dopamine hits - builds the habit. Simple, easy and with no switch off button.  

5.     Digital wellbeing is an important issue, nudges can break the pattern. 

 To learn about behavioural science check out Pete’s YouTube Channel and Pete BITS

 To learn more about ‘habits’ read Good Habits & Bad Habits by Wendy Wood  https://goodhabitsbadhabits.com/. 

Thanks for listening.

Episode 2.

In today’s episode we meet with Aaron Harverson workplace project manager at Active Devon.  Aaron and I worked together a couple of years ago to develop insight into sedentary behaviour within the workplace.

We used the now infamous sitting calculator which to reveal to our audience their sitting habits. That was step 1. Once awareness was awakened we could apply COM_B designed focus groups to delve deeper into motivations and opportunities for change.

Aaron shares how he felt getting started – brand new to behaviour change marketing – and shares some top tips for anyone else just getting started.

·       Tip 1. Stop yourself rushing in. Remember the reason we speak to people is to understand their issues and help them uncover their solutions. 

·       Tip2. Manage expectations by using the data and evidence. Use your newly found depth of understanding to challenge assumption.

·       Tip3. Lean into it and say yes to the mess! It will feel difficult sometimes – it’s a new way of thinking & that’s okay.

·       Tip 4. – MY FAVOURITE – awareness levels are about the behaviour not the big agenda. 

Aarons books: Who Moved My Cheese and the Chimp Paradox

Aarons workplace webinar – can be found here.

Sitting calculator is here (developed in my past life with Devon CC with superb Rachel H) - here

Hook up with Aaron on Linkedin and Active Devon. https://www.activedevon.org/

Interesting insight:  people feel they need permission in the workplace to move. If you’re at home – you now have so much more flexibility to sit less and move more! 

Enjoy the show

Hello Bootcampers!! In this episode we:

Hello Bootcampers!! In this episode we:

• Say hello!
• Acknowledge the explosion of interest in the application of behavioural science to marketing & communications and how it is now an essential skill.
• Say THANK YOU and send KUDO to all public health, Local Authority, LRF, ALL comms and marketing pros supporting COVID-19 emergency responses.
• Talk about the Triple A (Awareness, Attitude & Ability) cheat sheet! Well it's more a of a teaser!
• Flag the importance of Awareness and stress the importance of asking the right questions around behaviours not societal agendas.
• Introduce the idea of habits.
• Invite listeners to join the LinkedIn Group - Behaviour Change Marketing Bootcamp