4 factors that help create real social change

4 factors that help create real social change

“Preparation, patience and a willingness to play the long game.”

These were some of the insights shared by Lisa Cohen, National Programme Manager of Scottish mental health programme See Me at a recent seminar I attended in Wellington, New Zealand.

Many of the factors she raised that contribute to and hinder the success of social marketing programmes are the same ones we’ve been thinking about at New Zealand’s Social Marketing Network. In particular, we’ve been examining the challenges faced by two distinct groups – practitioners (the ones designing and conducting social marketing programmes) and authorisers (the ministers, managers or chief executives who create the budget parameters, time frames and programme boundaries).

Some of these are worth giving a wider airing. Combining some of Lisa’s lessons with discussions we’ve been having on this same topic in New Zealand, here are four factors that contribute to the environments for creating real and sustained social change.

Programmes, not campaigns

Social problems require a systematic response, and social marketing, in its true sense, requires a programme approach. Too often, we hear talk of “social marketing campaigns” – generally one-off or single-layer interventions that are often advertising based. But while advertising campaigns can be powerful, on their own they rarely change behaviour, and do not actually constitute social marketing.


“A ‘campaign’ may be a part of a social marketing programme, but it’s crucial to think about the programme as a whole”

– Lisa Cohen

The challenge here for social marketers is that an advertising campaign is something you can outsource; it’s finite, tangible, and easy to measure. Programme authorisers often ask for the campaign, without also demanding the rigour of a broader programme.

The trouble is, there’s not much sizzle in an integrated programme. They have less well-defined boundaries, tend to be slower to build, and less glorious to trumpet. But they also work better and in the long run can be more cost effective. So our call to practitioner and authorising forces is to demand and invest in programmes, not just campaigns.

Co-design, collaborate and engage. Don’t Preach!

Engage and involve the target audience in programme identification, design and implementation as much, and as soon, as you can. The sooner you do, the more you invest in meaningfully gathering and implementing their input, the better the results in the long term. In the Scottish See Me programme, it’s possible to see the strengthening of the programme (in terms of its reach and impact), the more they involved the voices of people with lived experience of mental illness in their programme planning.


Lisa Cohen says it’s all about talking to people – reaching them one conversation at a time.

The requirement for practitioners is to identify communities early on and engage them meaningfully in programme design and development. For programme authorisers this means giving your teams the time and space to do this respectfully and properly.

Be specific about the change you want

The See Me programme put real effort into clearly identifying the specific actions people could take to make a difference and targeted those actions to specific audiences.

In our rush to implement, we often to keep our programme goals vague and our calls to action general. Being specific requires patience and a robust analysis (including audience research) to properly understand your programme goals and the behaviour you’re seeking.

To increase the likelihood of positive change occurring, practitioners and authorisers alike need to adopt the discipline of being very clear about exactly whose behaviour they want to change, and what they want them to do.

Invest in the planning process

Lisa said they were put in the difficult initial position of creating a campaign before they had a programme in place – “building the plane while we were flying it”.

While this is frustrating for practitioners it’s not the real problem. The real problem is the potential financial and social costs of this ad-hoc, tactical approach to addressing social problems. The costs include, at worst, creating a campaign that has negative impacts and causes unintentional harm. Other risks include wasting public funding and depleting sector, stakeholder and public goodwill.

To successfully create positive social change will require a stronger and more robust authorising environment that understands the value of a programmatic approach and properly engaging with citizens.

It might take time but, to quote Sun Tzu, it’s the slow route to victory.

About the author

Tracey Bridges is a professional director, business owner, mentor & public speaker with expertise in strategy, behaviour change, social marketing and leadership. She’s a co-founder and director of New Zealand based social enterprise, The Good Registry.

An introduction to behavioural economics for health

An introduction to behavioural economics for health

There’s no doubt that there’s been fervent interest in behavioural economics in the last couple of years among social marketing and policy practitioners. Both the UK and NSW Governments have developed insights teams dedicated to finding new ways to ‘nudge’ citizens to be healthier, greener and more civic-minded.  So how can behavioural economics help with program design and campaign development?

Social marketing is about changing behaviour – behaviour that is driven by rational and irrational desires.  The rational part of our decision-making process can be influenced by increasing knowledge (e.g. presenting the facts about skin cancer), increasing efficacy (e.g. healthy cooking classes or QUIT hotlines) and through legislation and subsidies (e.g. seat-belt laws, tobacco tax).

However, extensive academic research has found that people are often “predictably irrational”.  When making decisions we take mental short cuts.  We’re influenced by the desires and distractions of the moment. Knowing how people will behave irrationally can provide guidance on how interventions can be structured to influence healthy behaviours.

Below are three common decision errors, which have major implications for healthy behaviours.

Present bias

Present bias is the tendency to focus on the immediate benefits or costs of a situation and undervalue future consequences.  An example is postponing a session at the gym to watch TV; or undervaluing the long-term harms of tanning to look good now.

Researchers are now looking at a range of tools to help manage present bias.  These include offering small incentives immediately after a ‘desirable’ behaviour has been done. One example is a pilot scheme in the UK where mothers from disadvantaged neighborhoods are given food vouchers worth around A$340 if they breastfeed for the first six weeks of their child’s life.

Because the use of incentives is very effective at motivating one-time behaviours (e.g. getting a vaccination or attending a screening), it is now being evaluated as an effective motivator for habit formation (e.g. exercising everyday).

The use of ‘contracts’ and commitment devices to pledge to a certain behaviour or goal are also very effective. These devices leverage the desire to be (or to appear) consistent with what we have committed to doing.  Once we have made a choice (e.g. pledge to give up drinking for a month or to run a marathon), we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressure to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.

This is especially powerful when the pledge or commitment is made in public, such as social media, as people are pressured to be consistent with their earlier commitments.

Status quo bias

Status quo bias is the tendency to choose a ‘path of least resistance’ in our decision-making.  An example of this is in western European countries that have an ‘opt in’ policy for organ donation, that is, the default is non-participation, donation rates tend to be close to just 10%. In contrast, in countries with an ‘opt out’ policy, in which citizens are automatically enrolled as organ donors unless they actively choose to opt out, organ donation rates are typically 98%–99%.

It’s important to consider the ways in which choices or options for programs are structured. The choices which social marketers want people to choose, whether it’s to recycle or take the right medication, needs to be the choice which requires the least amount of cognitive energy to choose.

Loss aversion

Loss aversion is the tendency to put much greater weight on losses than gains. Studies have shown that a loss has roughly twice the dis-utility of an equivalent dollar gain. Knowing this decision bias can help frame messages and structure the way incentive programs work.

While behavioural economics has the potential to make programs and policies more effective, as with any concept or intervention, there are limitations.  The tools presented by behavioural economists are part of a possible solution, and should not substitute for public policies, infrastructural projects, or programs that increase knowledge and efficacy.

We also need to consider the social determinants which affect health and the decisions people make, while looking to policies that will deal with the underlying contributors to poor health, such as poverty, inequity and illiteracy.

As described by Loewenstein and Ubel, behavioural economics should “complement, not substitute for, more substantive economic interventions.  If traditional economics suggests that we should have a larger price difference between sugar-free and sugared drinks, behavioural economics could suggest whether consumers would respond better to a subsidy on unsweetened drinks or a tax on sugary drinks.”

Disclaimer: Charissa has written this post as an independent contributor.  This post reflects only Charissa’s views and not those of her employer or clients.