At last week’s CharityComms seminar, Helen Ashley, Director of Upward Curve PR, gave charities her top tips on using communications to change public behaviour for social good.
Her organisation has worked on two very different recycling campaigns, one for Barnet Council and the other for West Dorset District Council. Densely populated, multicultural Barnet is quite unlike rural, middle-class and predominantly white, West Dorset. Alternative approaches to communicating an environmental agenda had to be taken.
Helen reflected on the various marketing strategies her team deployed and the key ideas that navigated their thinking.
She came up with the following suggestions for success.
Know your audience
Doing your research thoroughly at the start of the project pays dividends later on. When devising her campaign for Barnet, Helen had to consider the difficulties of promoting recycling to the area’s diverse ethnic and religious population. However, there are usually simple solutions to the problems at hand. To encourage recycling amongst the Jewish community in Barnet, Helen ensured that collections were no longer scheduled on the Sabbath.
Remember: understanding and removing barriers to behaviour change is vital for achieving results, and small changes can have a big impact.
Be creative
Helen found that whilst communities in Barnet and West Dorset understood the need to reduce waste, they were confused about how to do so. Providing practical information about recycling became a priority.
However, you must tailor the delivery of this advice to the audience in question. In West Dorset, this meant creating a free cookbook with recipes that made use of leftovers. The kitsch, retro, 1940s theme of the book appealed to young people and to the older population of the area, who were sympathetic to the campaign’s ‘War on Waste’.
Understand your limits
When you’ve got a tight budget, you need to be realistic about what you can achieve. Helen decided that die hard opponents of recycling were not worth pursuing. Instead, she concentrated her efforts on those who were already warm to the idea, but lacked the knowledge to put their principles into practice.
Helen admitted that this approach could be seen as controversial. However, she insisted that consistent communications, with a clear message and strong ‘calls to action’, could deliver results.
Always evaluate
It’s crucial that you evaluate the progress of your campaign, particularly when you’re trying out new ideas. If you want to prove the worth of your campaign, you need to show that you’re providing value for money.
Unfortunately, this can mean that some innovative ideas have to be abandoned. Helen recalled the success of a Christmas event held at Bluewater shopping centre, where customers were shown how to re-use old wrapping paper and discarded Christmas cards. Whilst the event had a strong impact on those who attended, few Barnet residents were involved. The shopping centre was simply too far away from the borough. As a result, this strand of the campaign had to be dropped. When your resources are limited you must focus on your target market, Helen suggested.
Summary
If you want to create behaviour change you must be clear about your aims from the outset. Concentrate your time and resources on those who are interested in your agenda. Offer them simple but strong messages of encouragement and team this with practical advice. And remember to minimise complications impeding action if you want to maximise your success.
You can view Helen's presentation here.