We held a lively and thought-provoking seminar on communications and behaviour change on Fri 27th November at COI at which we launched a guidance document on this subject which is available to download at: coi.gov.uk/behaviourchange

The seminar was chaired by COI’s Chief Executive, Mark Lund and we had a number of external speakers including the Permanent Secretary for Government Communications, Matt Tee, who spoke about how government communicators must get better at demonstrating to budget holders, the essential role that communications play in helping to achieve behaviour change – something particularly important in a period where budgets are being cut.

Other speakers at the seminar were:

-Andrew Darnton (Independent Researcher and author of the GSR Knowledge Review on Behaviour Change) who spoke about behavioural theory and how this gives us ‘a way in’ to better understanding human behaviour but that it is critically important to ensure we identify factors influencing behaviour at all ‘levels of scale’ be those personal, social or in the wider environment.

-Stuart Sullivan Martin (Chief Strategy Officer, MEC Global) who spoke about the implications of behavioural theory on how we approach comms planning and how in a world of increasingly complex behavioural challenges we need to start ‘lighting many bonfires rather than looking for the one silver bullet’ in terms of finding the best communications approaches.

-Rory Sutherland (Chair of the IPA and vice chair of Ogilvy) who spoke about behavioural economics and how ‘the channel, the interface and the design in which a decision takes place almost has more effect on the decision you make than the knowledge of the long-term impact of that decision’ and how more ‘direct intelligence and thought should be given to the little things that can make a big difference but can cost little’.

-Alison Hardy (Dept of Health), who spoke about the Change4Life campaign and how a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to obesity has informed the campaign strategy.

The guidance document, developed in collaboration with the GCN, draws on key sources from the disciplines of social psychology and behavioural economics.  We have sought to distil this information into some key factors that are important to consider for anyone developing communications that seek to influence behaviour.  The guidance also contains a five-step framework demonstrating how, by increasing out understanding of behaviour, behavioural theory can help to define the role for communications and build a communications model.

Join the debate online by leaving your comments below or email your thoughts directly to behaviourchange@coi.gsi.gov.uk