Sustainability: Reposition or Rebrand?

There’s been much valid discussion around whether the term ‘sustainability’ is a help or a hinderance in promoting engagement with the change agenda that it represents (here for instance). I agree with much of what is being said, especially when it comes to engaging consumers/citizens, but we need to quickly move the debate forward to discuss what we do about it.

I’ve seen the social marketing and behaviour change community go around and around in a similar unproductive circle, with practitioners and academics ploughing through lengthy (some would say pedantic and self-serving) debates about how we talk about what we do.

Whilst I recognise the importance of the ‘branding’ issue, it is much more important that we (as a community) reach agreement on terms and vernacular and then make them our own through appropriate and consistent use. A community divided over what can be perceived as abstract semantic quibbling will damage our efforts to engage citizen-consumers with change more than using any of the existing terminology as it stands. Furthermore, whilst we are nit-picking our way through definitions, and the concepts that sit behind them, we are expending time, effort and energy thinking change, rather than doing change.

So, do we Reposition, or Rebrand? That is, do we decide for ourselves what the existing discourse ‘means’ and then consolidate the denotations and connotations through consistent and appropriate use (Wittgenstein, if anyone’s interested), or do we Rebrand altogether: a new start, a new name and clean set of connotations?

Either way, let’s do it quickly and decisively, so we can concentrate on the task at hand. Suggestions welcome through this blog or www.twitter.com/stevenejohnson

A new perspective on immediate gratification

Decision fatigue and ego depletion – implications for behaviour change

In a fascinating essay in the New York Times (thanks to Michael Rothschild for the signpost), John Tierney outlines a bank of research into ‘Decision Fatigue’, a specific example of the more general phenomenon, Ego Depletion.

Through his analysis, Ego Depletion emerges as powerful explanatory and predictive concept that sheds new light on a wide range of behaviour change issues. I’ve listed some at the bottom of the page to prompt further discussion, but for the purposes of this piece I’m going to focus on health inequalities and the crude, class-based dichotomy that seeks to account for them in terms of ‘immediate’ and ‘deferred gratification’. Continue reading…

Be A Star Viral

We produced this viral as part of our award-winning breastfeeding initiation campaign, Be A Star. It was a great success, leading to a 13% increase in breastfeeding initiation rates. Given the organic, word-of-mouth transmission that drove the success of the programme within grass-roots offline communities, we’ve developed this short film to serve the same purpose within the global online community. Please share this link amongst your networks.

A big thank you to Preston Mum, Laura Taylor and little Emily—the real stars of this clip.

For more information on Be A Star, see our mini case study here and the National Social Marketing Centre’s Showcase with full evaluation here

Design Accreditation for the UK

Lose The Fags: Branding and behaviour change

In 2009, The Hub worked with NHS Stockport on a National Social Marketing demonstration project in Brinnington, Greater Manchester. This small, tightly knit community had an adult smoking prevalence rate of 52% and a range of deeply ingrained cultural and social norms that perpetuated it.

Central to the work we did was the development of the ‘Lose The Fags’ brand: a phrase, a sentiment and a visual identity that reflected and resonated with the cultural identity of the community, based on client research and ethnography undertaken by our designers. This short clip features an interview with our client on this project, Sarah Clarke, Marketing Manager at NHS Stockport, attesting to the success of the project and the ongoing legacy that the brand has secured.

As a community-based, direct engagement approach, Collaborative Change recognises the limitations of branding and communications as a driver of social change, but also champions their strengths when understood and deployed in the context of a holistic behaviour change intervention. In the current case, the development of brand and communications campaign, inspired by the community in which it will be used not only did its standard job of raising awareness, but also:

• Aligned itself with existing community value sets—it become part of the community
• Fostered group identity to galvanise new behaviours
• Created a social object—a common reference point that the community could discuss and share
• Repositioned smoking behaviour (or more accurately, cessation behaviour) to make it more aligned with community values, therefore reducing the sense that cessation would lead to ostracisation
• Externalised and articulated community sentiments that would otherwise have been left implicit in the face of adverse social norms

Collaborative exChange at WSMC

We are delighted to have been invited to present our Collaborative Change approach to the 2nd World Social Marketing Conference in Dublin next week (11–12 April). Held biannually, this global gathering distills a range huge array of opportunity into two short days, and we are keen to unpack it all.

As behaviour change practitioners, we believe this event should be more of a confluence than a conference: a merging of streams, rather than a discussion of themes; a workshop rather than a talking shop; a crucible of interaction, collaboration and participation.

With this in mind, we’d like to introduce the Collaborative exChange: a simple concept to help us all unlock the full potential of this event. Rather than simply using our exhibition stand as 3-dimensional brochure, we aim to develop it as a catalyst for a range of collaboration opportunities amongst our fellow delegates. This will include:

• Mapping networks of interest and ambition within the conference community
• Facilitating connections
• Enabling discussion across the conference campus
• Running flash-mob seminars, based on delegate priorities, not the conference organiser’s

By collecting a few details from delegates at the stand, via Twitter or over email we will begin to develop an understanding of the conference community.  Through the same face-to-face and digital channels we will then begin to develop and facilitate collaboration opportunities, real time and post-conference. Follow www.twitter.com/socialchangehub and #wsmcollab for updates and dialogue.

If you’d like to be part of this open-ended process and track where it takes us, please send the following brief details to steven@socialchange-hub.co.uk.

• Name
• Organisation
• Email address and/or Twitter feed
• Main behaviour change focus (health, environment etc..)
• Burning issue (the single most significant challenge you face in your behaviour change practice.

If you’re also attending the conference, please visit us at stand
Green / Yellow 7

Big Society Behaviour Change – HSJ presentation

I recently delivered a presentation to the HSJ Behaviour Change and Social Marketing conference focused on what the behaviour change landscape will look like when (if) the big society vision begins to take shape. This presentation is now available for download here. It focused on three key areas:

• How social marketing will fall out of favour as a label and a practice as a result of the need to diversify behaviour change approaches.
• The influence of emerging research in the behavioural sciences, most notably behavioural economics and the Coalition’s focus on choice architecture and ‘nudging’.
• The need to place participation and partnership at the heart of behaviour change interventions, inline with our Collaborative Change approach. Continue reading…

Healthy Communities conference presentation

I recently delivered a presentation on Collaborative Change to the Healthy Communities 2010 conference. I found it to be almost the perfect time and place to be discussing the role of participatory approaches to behaviour change and Collaborative Change in particular and took heart from the positive response. The themes build on the the HSJ Big Society presentation and outline our Collaborative Change approach in more detail.

As some delegates missed the presentation due the room being at capacity, the original presentation, complete with diagrams and illustrations, is now available for download here

Continue reading…

Consolidating the evidence base

The Collaborative Change approach to behaviour change appeals directly to common sense—it is logical, intuitive and aligns with policy priorities across the political landscape.

After all, who knows more about what a public service should look and feel like than the public itself. And who is better placed to determine what will work in a particular locality than the people who are woven into its very fabric?

Fortunately, as compelling as this common sense perspective is, the empirical evidence base for a Collaborative Change approach continues to grow and consolidate. In addition to the evaluation of our own projects, we are continually discovering new research and best practice that (sometimes retrospectively) add further strength to the case.

Last week I came across a paper by Nina Wallenstein titled ‘What is the evidence on effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?’ Following a meta-analysis of over 500 articles and papers focused on participatory approaches to empowerment in a health setting,  Wallenstein concludes that:

“Citizen participation seems critical in reducing dependency on health professionals, ensuring cultural and local sensitivity to programmes, facilitating capacity and sustainability of change efforts, enlisting community stakeholders in programme improvement and enhancing the productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of programmes and enhancing health in its own right.” Continue reading…

Collaborative Change and youth smoking

I had fascinating conversation with Diane Fenner, Head of Health and Education Partnerships at Cambridgeshire PSHE Service about a youth smoking intervention that she has recently launched.

Kickash is a campaign-cum-service that has not only been designed and delivered by young people in a school setting. It’s an excellent example of the Collaborative Change approach and exemplifies the 5 principles of engage, motivate, empower, trust and ownership.

Continue reading…