Today's episode welcomes Claire Holm, Head of Communications and Customer Service at North Devon District Council.We chat about how loss aversion can be applied to support customer channel shift in local government. In other words, how we can use the science behind loss aversion to nudge people online and free up resources for the most vulnerable. We talk about the expectations and feelings of ownership residents have and how reactions can magnify during periods of change. We talk about the sheer difficulty of reducing budgets and how once you give someone something and they feel they own it you cannot take it away. Claire shares ideas and tangible ideas to use loss aversion, the importance of staying positive and not increasing anxietyUltimately to use loss aversion for positive gain. Don’t build messaging around fear.  

In today’s episode, we welcome Louise Ward, Louise is co-founder of the Behavioural Science Club and she shares the birth of the club following Nudgestock 2020.We explore how the club brings together practitioners, academics, professionals from a wide range of backgrounds to explore their shared passion and understand why we do what we do.Books Louise recommends:·       Alchemy: The surprising power if ideas that don’t make sense – Rory Sutherlando   The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think.·       Ripple: The big effects of small behaviour changes in business – Jez Groom & April Vellacotto   How to make small behaviour changes that have wide-reaching effects in the real world. ·       Hype Machine – Sinan Aral   o   A look at how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous. ·       The Choice Factory – Richard Shottono   Essential read to understand what drives peoples everyday decisions·       Behavioural Economics – Bri Williams  o   How to apply Behavioural Economics to improve your businessBehavioural Science Club: Join over 3500 members on LinkedIn. Meet with like-minded souls every Saturday to hear from experts and authors in behavioural science and related fields.  

In today's episode, we chat with the #NHSCommunicate winners.Edna Boampong, is representing the team from Cheshire & Merseyside Health & Care Partnership Trust whose behaviour change programme increasing vaccine uptake in ethnic and minorities made a significant increase of 5711%. Edna is now Director of Communications & Engagement, Shropshire, Telford, Wrekin ICS formerly Director of Communications & Engagement,  Cheshire & Merseyside Health & Care Partnership Trust.  Insights from this episodeUnderstand your audience. Edna developed a proposal and brought partners and their budget on board to be able to commission this work out.  NHSEI team, Directors of Public Health and Public Health England. Stage 1: Census data was out of date. A refreshed view was needed. Commissioned a data mining company to get a better, deep understanding of who the audiences are; down to street level. Stage 2: Quantitative survey in the areas identified. Reached over 632 people in the target audience! Success down to using the new data tool and targeted ads. Data arrived just as the vaccine arrived. Ahead of the curve as aware of which communities were more likely to take the vaccine. BAME audiences are not a homogenous group.  Able to drill down to 8 groups that were most hesitant and focus efforts.  Insights included:  The older you were the more likely you were to take the vaccine.  Worry about catching covid at the vaccine centre itself. No trust in the Government.Stage 3: The quantitative data tells you the what. The qualitative tells you the why. Ran focus groups and conversations with leaders.  Then able to segment further based on attitude and likelihood to take the vaccine.  key insight: trust in message and channel is key. First, think about the messaging. Second, think about the channels to target the audience with the message. Microtargeting can mean you duck under the very busy crowded airwaves to cut through the noise. Created Place Plans to equip the Local Authorities so they can then also amplify the messaging. Top tip for winter: Follow the data.Top don't bother: Don't assume. Book recommendation: Then She Was Gone, Lisa Jewell

Don’t engage too late! How to use social marketing concepts: reward & exchange  With Social Marketer Luke van der BeekeThis episode explores how to use the core social marketing principles: Exchange & Reward. It also touches on the concept of customer orientation and the behavioural bias hyperbolic discounting.Luke explains what the concepts are and why they are so powerful.  He ends with a powerful domestic violence case study. Definitions:·       Exchange concept has been around for a long time, in commercial marketing it is a transactional – you exchange money – a marketer is looking to optimise that value for their customers.·       In social marketing we are looking to is get people to exchange behaviours. More often than not it is swapping out something they quite enjoy for something that is maybe not giving them the same level of gratification e.g. drive safely, smoking, eating healthy.·       Customer orientation – understanding what you need to do in terms of maximising benefits minimise costs so an individual can take up a new behaviour.Challenges:·       Factual based communications are useful but behavioural comms is a different beast altogether.·       We know through behavioural science people discount long-term benefits …. It informs how we need to go about presenting choices to maximise opportunities (Hyberbolic discounting)·       Start engagement to understand what the exchange and reward is at problem definition stage! It’s so often late or…..hidden in consultation. Tips:·       Engage to understand intrinsic rewards, the intangibles around the change and what the exchange is through the audience’s eyes. ·       Stop using long term health messaging. Focus on tangibles and move beyond facts to messaging that  motivates the desired action or attitude ·       Use the insight to segment and frame communications messaging rather than what ‘we’ think it should be. Ultimately the exchange concept is a useful tool to break down benefits and costs as seen by the target audience not how we think!  BOOKSStrategic Social Marketing by Jeff French & Professor Ross GordonFreaknomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner (Luke’s go to for behavioural economics) Optimists Tour of Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer “What’s Next?” Mark Stevenson  Contact & LinksLuke@bcc.org.au https://thebcc.org.au/The National Social Marketing Centre | The NSMC If you would like to know more about how to apply behavioural science and social marketing check out our Autumn Bootcamp.  

Today’s episode is all about CommsCamp 2021 – Still at home! We are joined three of the great minds behind the scenes Dan Slee, Lucy Salvage and Bridget Aherne.  Not only is CommsCamp free all the organising is on top of the day job. Key points in this episode CommsCamp is an Unconference for public sector communicators; the vision is it takes people out of their comfort zone and makes them even more comfortable! It’s the tea break at a normal conference but stretched out over the whole day. Key factors: ·       Leave your job title at the door ·       Agenda setting on the day ·       30 second pitching at the day ·       No powerpoint ·       Cake ·       Curry ·       Quizzes ·       Fundraising for the Christie Hospital in Manchester   Pitching  A good pitch can be on personal well-being or it can be work related; it doesn’t need to be sophisticated just focus on what you feel strongly about. You can share knowledge, solutions as well as a therapy or rant session.  It’s a safe container to get stuff off your chest.  And it’s also about problem solving and passing on knowledge. It’s like a live Facebook Sector Comms Public Headspace session – rather than posting on the Facebook wall we are there live together.   Dates for commscamp still at home 2021 Pre event social – 21st Curry and quiz social (early evening) Day 1: September 22nd  9:30 – 1pm Day 2: September 23rd 9:30 – 1pm   Links Public Sector Comms Headspace The Christie Foundation https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/commscampstillathome Recommended Books Dan’s choice:  Harold Nicolson 'Letters and Diaries 1939 to 1945'  get it here Amazon and also on ebay second hand, too  Lucy’s choice: The Beekeeper of Aleppo: Christy Lefteri get it here on Amazon Bridget’s choice: The Manchester Man: Isabella Banks get it here on Amazon

Segmenting Your Audience:  Don’t over-cook then under-cook  with social marketer Professor Alan Tapp The second is the three-part series exploring social marketing ·       Professor Alan Tapp began his career in marketing in commercial direct and database marketing and for the past 15 years has taught and delivered social marketing. He currently teaches at Bristol Business School and supports Local Authorities including Dorset County Council, South Gloucestershire Council.·       This episode ends with an example of segmentation and cancer self-care. ·       Segmentation is a key principle in social marketing. (Remember we are not talking about social media!)·       It is also a huge subject. ·       Segmentation is a way of grouping or differentiating audiences. You can segment by many factors, age, gender, socio-demographic, psychographic. It is a task that needs data and as this episode reveals it is very different in the public sector·       Public sector and commercial segmentation are different. o   A commercial company will draw on years of internal data sources that are shaping their products, customer experience, and marketing.  For example a club card. o   Public sector balances political considerations, committee-style decisions, often with few streams of market research but loads of organisation based data. ·       Once you have segmented ….then you target. ·       Let’s be honest segmenting costs time and energy – it’s effortful and intensive so when making decisions consider how you will capture your return on investment.·       How do you know if you have got your return on investment? That’s right – the ‘e’ word again…evaluation. Segmentation and targeting are different but both imply evaluation….otherwise where are you getting that data from????Tips: Keep it simple – don’t overcook the data and undercook the delivery. If you have core channels you will be using find out your target levels. There is no point in segmenting when you have one broadcast channel to use! Hover above – look at the whole pictureGet curious Get some insight work and use it to think and planRecommended booksPersuasion in Society Herbert Simons. 2001   Social Marketing: From Tunes to Symphonies,  Gerald Hastings 2013  If you would like to learn more about how to apply social marketing and behavioural science into everyday communications & marketing check out our Autumn Bootcamp.

Social marketing is not social media Three things you need to know about social marketingThis is the first episode in a 3 part series and to  get started we talk about 3 things you need to know about social marketing: 1)      Social marketing is not social media! Obvious? Yes. Social marketing uses intervention levers across multiple levers including training, education, public health, legislation. Smoking reduction is considered a successful social marketing approach to behaviour change as it tackles multiple influencers at once across policy as well as the individual. Macro efforts including legislation allowed local authorities to niche with services and marketing and reach those most in need. 2)      There are three key concepts, segmentation exchange and reward.  Love Your Skin young person campaign is used as an example of how to do this and shift from a population approach to a segment that allowed a deep understanding of young people and understand what would motivate them.3)      Insight is key, actionable insight will help you focus on measurable behaviour change. This is a huge win. Shifting from policy goals to behavioural goals and securing all your stakeholders is key. Remember if you can't measure it you can't grow it and you may be inadvertently causing a negative impact. Never take for granted that our audience will understand our message the way it is intended.Want to know about Behaviour Change Marketing check out our Autumn Bootcamp 

3 research tips for inhouse communicatorsAnneliese Levy Health Communications Specialist Today’s episode offers two case studies that illustrate how easy it is to reframe impactful content as well as three useful research tips to help them develop their audience insight – with no budget. We are joined by Anneliese Levy a health communications specialist that excels in health content research and development. Founder of Thoughtful Content Anneliese is in high demand for her research plus copy skills – a winning formula for anyone tackling health messaging. Her clients include national charities such as Blood Cancer UK and global pharmaceutical companies. Anneliese shares two examples of how insightful based content can increase impact and three top tips for inhouse communicators on how to do research internally. Case study 1: Blood Cancer UK focused on reframing messaging around healthy eating that was turning people off to reshaping it to encourage a new love of food. Avoiding the loss aversion of giving her something else you love when going through cancer treatment. A small but powerful change that can positively help instead of hinder people at the most vulnerable when going through cancer treatment.Case 2 : Physiotherapy for Older people: Anneliese’s research showed how important our feeling of  ‘being young is’ an interesting insight for anyone planning older person campaign’s. Her three tips include:Tip 1: Speak directly to your audience, explore experiences, perceptions and barriers. Speaks to non-experts as well as your patient experts. Go outside a normal pool of people. Snowball sampling is when you build contacts on contacts often through social media.               e.g. Anneliese work on pancreatic cancer researched with older people in East London who knew nothing about pancreatic cancer which is most likely the same knowledge you would have when newly diagnosed. This also opens up opportunities to talk about Tip 2: Hang out with your audience indirectly, in social forums etc.Tip 3: Review existing research –for example Cochrane Review and Google Scholar  don’t be put off by academic papers there are often plain language summaries. It’s time intensive but it’s ££ free. Book recommendation Content Design by Sarah RichardsonYou can contact Anneliese via www.thoughtfulcontent.co.uk @annieislaurie  - Twitter and @thoughtfulcontent for InstagramWant to know about Behaviour Change Marketing check out our Autumn Bootcamp 

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 socialReal 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 TipDon’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 recommendations1.     Nudge, Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Thaler & Sunstein2.     Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini 3.     Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely4.     Thinking Fast & Slow, Daniel Kahneman5.     Inside the Nudge Unit, David Halpern6.     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&