Today’s episode is dedicated to career progression, building confidence and motivation. We welcome Carrie-Ann Wade, NHS Director of Communications & Engagement and founder of Cat’s Pajamas where she mentors communication professionals to grow and thrive in their careers. We talk all things confidence, stepping up as the expert and the importance of clearly demonstrating to stakeholders and senior management the high level of expertise that communications brings to the table. Carrie-Ann stresses how essential it is to really nail the brief in order to be able to shift from output to outcome.   “Communicators have the knowledge but need to have confidence to articulate it and join the table.” Carrie-Ann Wade Career progression Build your network get peer support and mentors. Say Yes to opportunities (within your boundaries!) Invest in yourself! (Can your organisation fund or support this?)  Carrie-Ann is available for mentoring and also runs a  12-week online THRIVE programme. This is a dedicated safe-space for communication managers and heads of communications to grow and thrive. Where you can have ‘unfiltered conversations’. The next programme starts in September.  Carrie-Ann and her NHS Team also undertook the one-day Team Training we’re forever grateful for her kind words. It was a fantastic day. "My team undertook Bootcamp...it was just brilliant for us..when you're embedded in an organisation that has lots going on and you're involved in so many projects sometimes it can be about just getting through the work and not applying the theory and evaluation. It was such a huge reminder about how important that is. I just wanted to say a massive thank you. It was such a brilliant day we all took something from it" Guest Resources/useful links Thrive Programme Bootcamp Team training   3 AHA moments Demonstrate to your senior team how much strategic value communications has played and across your organisation. For example a communications annual report or steal from the world of Social Enterprises with a Impact Report  Celebrating success. Keep your feedback. Show your boss. Keep a brag file. Make it a habit! C  Set boundaries. Don’t apologise for setting boundaries. Thank people for their patience in emails. Thank you Carrie-Ann. Cat’s Pajamas everyone! 💡❤️‍🔥   🧠 Limited offer ends June 15 2022 Behaviour Change Marketing Bootcamp Team training days Bootcamp team training days are all about your team, and your priorities, they are bespoke days built around behavioural science. Perfect for bringing a team together – at partnership level Integrated Care Service level or your immediate teams. Book your training day before the 15 June 2022 and get a special bonus one–to–one campaign planning session with Ruth. These 90-minute sessions (RRP£299) take place after the training day where we go step-by-step through your plans to ensure your application of behavioural science is the best it can be. Aka the cat's pajamas. This can include the insight, behavioural proposition, channels & content, chosen behavioural framework (usually COM_B or E.A.S.T or both) and stakeholder plan. Email Ruth directly ruth@socialinsightmarketing.co.uk or book a call to chat through your needs via calendy here -

Today’s episode welcome’s Adrian Searle and Steven Carroll from Police Scotland to talk about the incredible award winning ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ campaign. THAT guy aims to reduce rape, serious sexual assault and harassment by having frank conversations with men about male sexual entitlement. It won the Drum Awards 2022 Public Sector campaign and is nominated for many more.  ‘Don’t be that guy’ went viral with excess of 6 million views of the hero video. The microsite that-guy.co.uk was  viewed excess of 160,000 page views. Adrian and Steven talk through the process of the campaign from understanding the challenge to the importance of the ‘north star’ aka your behavioural goal or value proposition in execution. They share their tactics and how they shifted the narrative around this incredibly important subject. They share how they developed the challenge into a strategy and from there the strategy into powerful creative. The insight and the strength of the value proposition was integral to the success. They highlight how your communications should reflect your values – something we all strive for. Book recommendation Stephen recommends – How To Stay Sane: The School of Life by Philippa Perry Adrian Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhiill Crime recommendation: Dark Winter – Look into his eyes and prepare to die by David Mark Guest Resources/useful links that-guy.co.uk 3 AHA moments Understanding the insight was step one and dedicated time to understanding the problems and seeking out the experts, capturing the insight and developing a clear narrative.   Next step is to take the insight and turn it into a marketing strategy with a guiding north star – the proposition: Sexual violence starts long before you think it does and men have a key role in ending sexual violence by reflecting on their own behaviour and look out for their mates behaviour.   Use the proposition across all agencies to ensure all content and creative is in sync. Use the strategy to ensure the creative stays objective not subjective.  Bonus aha…. Using influencers to create shareable content – this proved to be enormously important as it captured a tone the target audience could relate to and using talented young men built credibility that helped ensure the phenomenal success in sharing the asset. Good briefing behind the value proposition so everyone is just as important when recruiting influencers – conversations at the start are crucial so everyone has clear expectations.  

 Today’s episode welcome’s Jude Hackett to take us through the incredible free insight tool – The Empathy Map. Jude is a behaviour change and social marketing consultant with 18 years of experience in Marketing and Strategic Communications, with specialisms in marketing for social impact, behaviour change and brand. Jude is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM). Basically a total pro! The Empathy Map is a visualisation tool developed by Dave Gray in 2017 that we can use on our own, or with teams and stakeholders to capture our understanding of our users, patients, and residents. It helps build a shared understanding of our user needs plus aid decision making and shift messaging. Dave Gray is a leader in the field of creativity. His website Gamestorming is well worth a visit for the wealth of resources he shares. Dave is dedicated to teasing creativity out of everyone by sharing the tools and systems of design thinking.   Book recommendation The Power of Ignorance: How creative solutions emerge when we admit what we don’t know. Dave Trott, 2021 Guest Resources/useful links Get your empathy map by visiting the Gamestorming website here. Plus have a look around it’s amazing! Contact Jude on LinkedIn or email Jude@Creatinggood.co.uk 3 AHA moments 1) How well do you understand your audience? Are you clear what you want people to do? Using the empathy map captures what you know but flags what you don’t! 2) The ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ sexual health research published by Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational is a great example of demonstrating how our understanding of are audiences can completely change when and how we communicate. 3) A clear behaviour change goal is essential. (or value proposition!) Use the map to find yours. Happy mapping and thank you Jude!  If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and share with anyone you know wants to get started and is passionate about making a positive change. Kickstart your journey into behavioural science Want to know about how to use behavioural science in your comms & marketing? We love empathy mapping so much we have incorporated it into our Bootcamp training  days on 6th & 8th July and into our Team Training days. Join us to kickstart your skills or book a call with me.  

Today's episode is all about making behavioural science real in the comms office. Leanne Hughes and Polly Durrant both attended Behaviour Change Marketing Bootcamp earlier this year. Leanne and Polly kindly came on the podcast to share their experience and share how simple it can be to use behavioural science in-house. Even though behavioural science is a relatively new skill set it is sometimes seen as ‘hard’ or complicated. But it doesn’t have to be -  you can use it – you don’t need a science background!  It’s also not just marketers with big campaign budgets it’s for all comms including internal, crisis and socials. Thank you Leanne & Polly for making it real. Book recommendation Polly’s choice - Why we resist: The surprising Truths about Behavior Change: A Guidebook for Healthcare Communicators, Advocates and Change Agents - Kathleen Star and Lee Householder Leanne’s choice  - The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy, Richard Shotton   3 AHA moments Meeting people where they are is fundamental – start there.  COM_B is a tool that can be used in-house for projects and strategies – not just big campaigns and interventions. You have a  much higher chance of success breaking through (information overload) when you use the science.   Come find out for yourself at the next Bootcamp we'd love to meet you            

This episode welcomes Dr Taylor Willmott behavioural scientist and thought leader in social marketing. Taylor is a lecturer in marketing at The University of Adelaide and also works with industry and government, climate change, reducing sexual violence, chronic disease, obesity prevention and much more. This episode is all about why we need to use theory in our behaviour change intervention/campaign  design. With so many people tackling similar problems we need to be able to share learning openly, transparently and evaluate with confidence – and that means using theory. Using theory will reduce stress,  build confidence and Taylor talks us through her recently published TITE process can help us get started and stay the course. TITE stands for: T – theory selection. I – Iterative schematisation.  T – Test Theory E- explicit reporting Taylor is very happy to take any questions and connect. You can reach her via Taylor Willmott | Researcher Profiles (adelaide.edu.au)   Book recommendation Taylors book recommendation: “Think Big: Take small steps and build the future your want”  by Grace Lordan (I have since read it and am saving it for my teenage son. I wish I had this book when I was starting my career. Deep lightbulb moments alert!)   Guest Resources/useful links TITE Process Paper: Willmott, T. J., & Rundle-Thiele, S. (2022). Improving theory use in social marketing: the TITE four-step theory application process. Journal of Social Marketing, 12(2), 222-255. doi: 10.1108/JSOCM-05-2021-0117 *GEM Database (for theoretical measures): NCI (2019), “Grid-enabled measures database [online]”, National Cancer Institute, available at: www. gem-beta.org/public/MeasureList.aspx?cat=2 *SOBC Database (for theoretical measures): SOBC (2019), “The measures [online]”, Science of Behavior Change, available at: https://org/measures/ 3 AHA moments 1) Use theory to design evaluation before you get started. Don’t let theory stop at the insight planning stage include it in your process evaluation as well as outcome evaluation. 2) If we don't use theory to evaluate we will be forever circling the drain! Revisiting the same challenges because we cant confidently share what works and what doesn't.  3) Process evaluation is important – some of the intervention may work. Some may not. You need to know, so you don’t throw the theory out with the bath water!  Evaluation isn't black or white we need safe spaces to be able to share what doesn't work as well as celebrate what does. 

Today's episode explains COM_B the behaviour change framework for busy communication and marketing professionals.Designed for busy pro's to get started in behavioural science and use this tool to define and understand the behaviour they are tackling. Don't let the idea of using theory or behavioural science in your campaign planning stop you.Using COM_B will illuminate the stages of your campaign planning and help ensure you don't go down the wrong road. Instead, go down your audience's road.Don't simply step into their shoes - but look at the behaviour through their eyes. Only then will your content truly influence and activate change. Further Resources:Email bootcamp@socialinsightmarketing.co.uk for your free interactive worksheet. 

ONE:  Systems Thinking is a fundamental term coined by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman who through is research established there are dual processes within the brain that function together. He published a ground-breaking book called Thinking Fast & Slow in 2011 which quickly entered the New York Times bestsellers list. He called  them System 1 and System 2 TWO: System 1 also known as the homer brain (yes as in Homer Simpson) or the hare (yes the one from the tortoise & hare analogy) it is fast, automatic, dominant, developed over evolutionary to keep you safe. Making thousands of decisions a day on your behalf.THREE: System 2. Aka Spock (yes the one from Star Trek) is slow, methodical, concentrates and is pretty lazy. FOUR: It’s important to understand that these processes work together and we should value both systems – although system 1. Challenge can be when using the right one.  FIVE: This Heuristics or biases or rules of thumb all mean the same thing. They are shortcuts that sit in our System 1 brain.  They have evolved with the human race, designed to keep us alive they make tens of thousands of decisions on our behalf – subconsciously  - every day. They pick up on the cues, the triggers, the fears within our environments and assign actions. They have been very popular in marketing and advertising for some time, for example anchoring the price or product, using scarcity or a sale to drive sales tapping into our emotions with powerful sensory tactics and using social norms to influence change. Why do I care as a communicator? Well because Spock is lazy and he doesn’t want to be used very often so if your work is confusing or unclear at any level Spock will kick in….and did I mention we’re lazy…. It is by no accident that advertising giants such as Ogilvy have been tapping into our emotions to prime us to associate that brand with emotions.  In Behaviour Change Marketing Bootcamp Live & OnDemand we go deep into the world of behavioural biases to skill up on how we can use them inhouse to brief agencies, set strategy, develop copy and frame insight development. To ultimately understand our audience so we can communicate change, influence behaviour and increase impact.Further reading: Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Cast your mind back to January 2021. When I do that, I just can't get the Simon and Garfunkel song, Hazy Shade of Winter out of my head. And that's because I'm now associating it with Time. In the sense that in January 2021, we were still in the middle of the pandemic, and of course, behaviour change and behavioural science and the demand for behaviour change marketing based campaigns was at its height.  And so we ran a survey called “Help. I am not a behavioural scientist, get me out of here" across public sector, comms NHS, local government fire police, and we asked what are your biggest challenges and how confident are you feeling in delivering communications based messaging using behavioural science. The overwhelming theme that came back was time. Everyone was saying they just had no time to actually do it, whether to learn it, or whether to apply it to the standards that they wanted.  Time just was the biggest  B.S. barrier.  To really respond to the survey we've now running…drumroll please. We're launching The busy communicators guide to behavioural science. So this is going to be some core worksheets that will be made available to you for your CPD for free. And excitingly, we're going to lead with audio learning, it's a really popular style of learning.    3:18   Okay, so welcome to the busy communicators guide to Prospect Theory.  We're going to do a very short overview on this. Clearly, we can't fit everything in. And what I've done is I've taken out the most salient points that I feel are most useful for us in our profession.  But I will put in the shownotes, lots of links to more detailed conversations and more detailed reading for you.  But I just want to highlight that I don't think there's going to be anything in here that you don't already know. But I think the penny will drop as to why those things happen. As a communicator, you already know that things really need to be really salient, we need to break through the noise. And so Prospect Theory is just a little bit about the science as to why. And it's really good because if you're ever tempted or away from these gut feelings you've got, I'd say, as a marketer, stick with the gut, and there's some science behind it. So hopefully do prepare for some penny drop moments as we go through.  And I like to start now with taking your mind back 300 years. So if this was a history book, we'd have a big chapter title -  the end of the rational era, 300 years of rule, and a heralded mathematician called Daniel Bernoulli a Swiss genius. He espouses a theory called Utility Theory to understand how humans make decisions based on risk. Little do you know, standing in this beautiful Swiss court in 1738, that this theory would come to dominate The Western world of economics for over 300 years. So to reduce years of complex research and modelling down to one sentence, basically, the utility theory was that we, as in humans, you and me, will make decisions primarily to avoid loss. And these decisions would be useful or have utility. So they would be in our best interests, aka rational.  So now, just close your eyes for a moment and imagine the BBC news readers from the 1950s. You can hear this premise in action, the driving force behind the tone behind the delivery of the news, you know, it was very much I'm sharing with you some information with the expectation that you will take it seriously and apply it sensibly. There definitely was the sense of here's the information now make a very sensible, rational decision.  So let's jump forward to the 1970s. And not only is the first female prime minister being elected, the Walkman has taken the world by storm. And interestingly, in 1979, the UK public sector workers were on strike, they were demanding a 60 pound a week minimum wage and the 35 hour workweek. So whilst all that's going on a revolutionary new economic theory has arrived, that basically ends this 300 year rule of the rational.  This theory is called Prospect Theory. And it is the work of two geniuses, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his colleague, Amos Tversky.   7:13   It signalled a huge paradigm shift that has continued to grow in strength to this day. And essentially, I like to call it the beating heart of behavioural science. And again, to really drill down years of complex research (they continued working on this until 1992) so literally years and years, decades of work into one sentence, it basically says that we are irrational. And we don't always make the best decision in favour of utility.  So it sounds obvious, right? Yeah. How is this revolutionary?  What's really important is it really truly was, this is a huge paradigm shift. And if we take a moment just to pause, and reflect on that, and if you think about your work, and the amount of requests that come in for you to sprinkle your fairy dust of magic, am I say that because I know it's cringe worthy. And I know it's so hated in the comms world, but if you think about all the incoming requests, there is so often this rational assumption that comes with them that please share this information. Yes, make it fun and lively. But please share this information with the expectation that the audience will hear it and do what is expected.  So yes, it's a huge paradigm shift. But it's still a baby, we've gone through 300 years to 1979. I am older than this theory, I was born in 1975. So not by much, but still in the terms of science looking at it is it's a young theory, and it's still growing and evolving today, which is why behavioural science is just exploding. The research industry is just is huge. And it's growing a lot. So this is a cornerstone theory, which you can if you learn and understand you can be really confident in applying.  So of course, it is slightly more complex than that one sentence and I'm going to share with you three concepts that break it down quite nicely.  Certainty – offer a guarantee Your audience wants certainty of avoidance of loss. And your audience will take greater risks to achieve that. You're thinking, you know, the more people lose, the more people are likely to actually take greater risks to avoid the loss because they've got nothing left to lose. And if we think about the national smoking campaigns been for well over a decade, I know I worked on them for 15 years, I think, and we've talked about it before. But one absolute genius move that they started and is probably familiar to everyone is that they do say that you're much more likely to quit using the service, and they even have a number. So is it 2.5. But anyway, they have a guarantee, they say you are much more likely to achieve your goal. And this is really important, especially when you're asking someone to lose so much when you quit smoking. Okay. A nice fun example -  think about it in terms of products, when you're buying a TV, you know, they might say yes, we guarantee you can watch endless streaming of Netflix on our TV, absolutely wonderful cinema surround sound. And if you don't bring it back, no questions asked, okay, this is great, you might spend my money if I don't like it, there's no loss here. And this is really closely linked as well to the endowment effect, which we will come on to in a later episode, which just talks about the importance of getting people to try and use your information.    The second is isolation effect. – We focus on differences more than we do similarities   12:08   No surprises to anyone here that salience is essential. Prospect Theory explains that we as humans focus on differences more than we do similarities.  Think of the matrix and the girl in the red dress, very salient, very obvious, and everyone goes and looks, but you know that already – you know that to break through the noise, you need to be as salient as possible.  So for me as a marketer, I like this, because it brings out the role of the other elements of communication. So it brings out the role of the actual product of design of packaging, and all these other intrinsic paths that actually will take go a long way to reaching your goal.  Loss looms larger than gains (2.5x larger) So the other one is loss aversion. Loss Aversion looms larger than gains, our fear of loss is at least two and a half times greater than our joy of the game.  It is applied in varying degrees, but it does remain consistent across everyone as we have a psychological response to loss. It's human nature to prevent that pain prevent that hurt.  Importantly  the research pointed out something called a reference point. So a reference point was brand new, it did not exist in Utility Theory. The reference point understands that people will make decisions based on where they are in that moment. And this is why it is essential, because when we working with deprived communities, people without financial safety nets, their reference point is very different to someone else's reference point, who perhaps does have that safety net, which is why segmentation and marketing is absolutely essential.  So if you think about your work programmes, and your campaigns, think about, well, how different does my audience respond to this loss? Do they perceive a loss? Is my current messaging triggering a loss when it doesn't need to? Am I talking more about gains than losses is human nature to focus on the losses? They found in the research that we will quite naturally focus on what we're going to lose more than what we'll gain? So is it our job to actually make sure that we're shifting the narrative and making the game the game that bigger shiny a brighter, brighter, brighter, brighter thing to. Ask yourself, do you understand your audience reference points?   14:57   In 1995, the American Psychological Association studied the medal winners from the Barcelona Olympics. So they studied those wonderful Olympians who won their gold, silver and bronze medals. And it's a lovely way to illustrate the concept of the reference point. Because they found that silver winners were a lot unhappier than gold, and bronze winners. And that's simply because their reference point was, they were going for gold. So they have lost something. Whereas often in training and expectations, at a bronze medal winners level was actually the bronze was the highest, and perhaps they'd get fourth or fifth place. So they didn't lose. The study was done by the American Psychological Association, in 1995 and is a really nice way to just understand the power of framing and the reference point.  And ultimately, at the end of the day, these are economic theories. And they're based around probability. But they're really useful for us to have as a deeper understanding of people, especially if we know there's some easy wins, we can make an are copy, and we're focusing in on a loss.  And you can also easily shift it or I know my audience, I thought I did, but actually I don't, because I don't know what their point of references.  I don't know what their reaction is to this loss. And actually, it could change your market research and your insight plan. Because you can might think I need to understand what the gains are.  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In today’s episode, we welcome Professor Steve Maddern, Director of Public Health, Swindon Borough Council. The idea for this episode was for Steve to share how he rose to be Director of Public Health to inspire communications and marketing professionals to believe no senior management level is too high. Our main question was “Imagine you are doing your TED Talk on Leadership – what one message would you share with someone who is a couple of steps behind you.”His advice is well worth a listen and includes: saying yes to opportunitiesinformal and formal learning considering the impact of work decisions on your whole life not just your work life.  But ultimately whatever your dream turning up as your best self and keeping abreast of the knowledge you need to do to be the best at your job.But our conversations gave us so much more; as Steve discusses how public health and marketing and comms have become much closer bedfellows.Public Health, like marketing,  is often referred to as an art and a science. We discuss how there is so much growing synergy between the disciplines and that ultimately they need to work in sync to make a difference and be effective. Steve talks about his experience delivering a community-based activity campaign called the Big Pledge across Wiltshire. A legacy of the Olympics it used micro commitment to reset social norms. Steve highlights that the first year wasn’t very successful but use of data and perseverance resulted in it running for many years to become a phenomenal campaign that created community spirit whilst helping people to begin and keep activeSteve highlights the importance of attitudes when delivering communications and marketing – the willingness to test, review, refresh and adapt where needed. The safe space to explore what is working and what isn’t. The confidence and leadership to have honest conversations around measuring and evaluation. After all how realistic is it to think you can get it perfect every time? (Editor’s note: Expectations run perfect campaigns can cause real stress for colleagues!)Steve’s current COVID campaign is called  It’s Up to all of Us. It is a community-based campaign - a call to action to protect each other and consider the impact of their actions directly or indirectly. This work highlighted the importance of the application of insight and a deep understanding the audience. Swindon has 40 different languages, reaching everyone to help keep them safe was fundamental. Steve says“Behavioural science is more important than ever and I think this has shown the evolving and advancement of public health, it isn’t just a leaflet or a poster telling you what to do it’s about actually taking the insights from the communities and the people you want to influence and using that along with the data and the science to develop the campaign. Q: What makes you – your best self?“Knowing I can make a difference.” "I am in awe of the team I have around me” Q: What book would you recommendNudge. The goal is to make better lifestyle choices the easy choice. It highlights the role of policy but also translates how behavioural science can be used as a local level. A core text for public health and communications.Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness: Amazon.co.uk: Thaler, Richard H., Sunstein, Cass R: 8601404213366: BooksYou can connect with Steve via LinkedIn