New Zealand has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and depression is the leading cause.There had been positive changes in attitudes towards the illness but sufferers themselves were not taking action to recover from it.

Instead of simply telling victims of depression to contact a health professional, the Ministry of Health wanted to mentor them through the whole process online.

The plan was, for the first time in the world, to integrate medical expertise with advertising strategy and personalised support to help people get through depression.

Idea ( See short film)

The solution was to build The Journal, a relationship marketing-style programme at www.depression.org.nz where people could learn to deal with the illness page by page.

Rugby legend John Kirwan, himself a sufferer, not only appeared in the TV commercial driving visitors to the site but also their guide through the six stages of dealing with depression.

Social marketing and e-therapy came together in a self-management programme which was a rich interactive experience designed to hold their attention with over 50 minutes of video footage.

At each step in the process, mental health experts explained the theory behind each of the tasks people who signed up were asked to perform.

A planning tool allowed them to set their own pace and personalised texts and emails reminded them of what they were meant to be doing.

Results

• 76,000 visits in the first six weeks after launch
• 2,300% increase in traffic during the first TVC flight (June 6 to 26)
• 500% increase maintained between flights (June 27 to July 14)

4,485 people signed up for The Journal in the launch period. By comparison 700 people would visit their GP in the same period.

The engagement measures:

• 12:45 min per lesson visit
• 90 minutes total online engagement over the six lessons.

A quote about the presentation from Richard

“Storytelling is the oldest and most powerful communication vehicle we have. Since the dawn of time we’ve used stories to communicate ideas, organise societies, and explore our own humanity. The world we live in is a world of stories rendered in infinite form, from history books to news reports to Hollywood blockbusters to back-fence gossip. Yet despite our insatiable appetite for stories and their unlimited power to move and shape us, the principles of storytelling remain largely absent from the marketing world.

This presentation takes us on a journey, summarising the history of storytelling before analysing where stories derive their power from – and how marketers can harness this power for their own needs.”

About Richard
He works at Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco as Group Director of Brand Strategy. He’s been in the communications business for more than ten years and his clients have included McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, BlackBerry and Virgin. In his spare time he’s written two dreadful novels and one pretty bad screenplay. He loves a good story

The idea- The Journal

A self management program with over 50 minutes of video footage guiding people through the six stages of recovery.

At each step, mental health experts explained the theory behind each of the tasks that the people who had registered were asked to perform.

A planning tool allowed people to set their own pace-personalised texts and emails reminded people of what they were meant to be doing.

Results

Directory magazine reports the following results

76,000 visits to the site during first six weeks after launch

4,485 signed up for The Journal, by comparison c 700 people present to GPs during the same period.

Average of 12.45 minutes per lesson visit

Average of 90 minutes over the six stages

By adapting the industry standard PHQ9 test into The Journal the team were able to compare with against traditional treatment with medication. 83% of people completing The Journal improved their scores by more than 25% on average going from ‘moderately severe’ to ‘mild’ levels of depression

This report is courtesy of Directory

Jeremy Sweeney

-Learning something new involves a period of uncertainty and not knowing, which can be uncomfortable, but once you have been through this process  few times it gets easier

- We manage the way we are as individuals and how we are is formed very early on in our lives. It can cause great stress if we try to manage in a way that is inconsistent with our natures.

-The big and successful organisations, such as Tesco, balance a command and control culture with an openness and democracy culture

-Visually this is represented by a circle (= freedom to take personal ownership and take risks) filling up the inside of a triangle ( =the parameters set by the leadership).

Russell Davies

- We learn by doing. Doing and learning/designing and implementing small experiments is a better way of achieving change that a big planning process followed by an big implementation process

-The new socially media platforms can only be understood by participation- opening up the channels, understanding the etiquette and finding your own voice. You can’t understand the new platforms by just studying them.

-In San Francisco they are achieving change quicker in urban planning by setting up “reversible pilots” (which can end up becoming permanent). This takes some of the risk out of change as it is not being forced on people but being put up as an option that they can reject.

- We can learn from the idea that developers use of being “always in Beta”: this is an open stance rather that a command and control stance. It  invites and allows partipation/co-creation and increases your chances of change being embraced.

-”Always in Beta” involves doing enough development to put the application out for review and then constantly evolving the application in response to usage. Usage is the oxygen of the development process and results in the  strengthening of the  idea.

- In understanding the factors that drive change and those that cause it to lag, it useful to understand the category of change you are seeking, because it means you are clearer about the degree of difficulty in the change you seek. So understand that:-

Fashion changes very fast/Commerce changes quite fast/Infrastructure changes not so fast/Culture  changes slowly/Human nature  changes imperceptibly.

Below is an extract from the first edition.

Behavioural Theory and Tools

Steer – mastering our behaviour through instinct, environment and reason

RSA Social Brain, Matt Grist (June 2010)

This report, based on recent research, advocates a new take on the application of behavioural science yet purports to complement other behaviour change models. This approach – ‘Steer’ – gives individuals the tools and knowledge gleaned from behavioural science and theories of behaviour change and encourages them to ‘use it on themselves’ to modify their own behaviour. It empowers citizens to better guide their habitual behaviour by ‘navigating their automatic, controlled and environmental impulses’ through a set of everyday principles. The report then describes the application of these principles to practical problems.

Full article

Justice and Home Affairs

Excerpt from “A Smarter (and Cost-Efficient) Way to Fight Crime”

New York Times, Robert H Frank (Oct 2009)

This article suggests that the ‘rational actor’ model of behaviour – the supposition that people only take actions when benefits exceed costs – cannot be applied to crime. In theory, deterrents (costs/punishments) should exceed benefits, but levels of incarceration continue to rise in the USA. The article proposes that the solution is therefore not increasing the severity of punishment but the speed of punishment, and thus the illusion of targeting a crime area / group of criminals that makes them feel more vulnerable and causes them to behave more cautiously. The article introduces the theory rather than demonstrating its efficacy

Full article

Applying behavioural theory

Design with Intent

Dan Lockton, David Harrison (April 2010)

This document contains numerous examples of the application of behavioural insight to physical design (see example below). It shows how environment influences behaviour in everyday situations. It categorises these examples into the following groups: Architectural (mainly in buildings and urban planning but couple of examples in product design too); Errorproofing (how to direct people’s actions to avoid doing something damaging); Interaction (using a type of feedback mechanism to describe a person’s actions to them); Ludic (using games and/or a challenge to influence behaviour); Perceptual (using perception and association); Cognitive (drawing on heuristics and biases); Machiavellian (using what can be regarded as underhand methods e.g. not allowing a rival company’s battery to power a product); Security (threatening or affecting counter measures to prevent an undesirable course of action).

Full article

He pointed out that it is emerging as a good tool to integrate and energise multi-disciplinary teams. Two bits of specific advice

1) Agencies have tended to search for a single minded message and this tends to reduce creativity as brain power goes into filtering information to find a simple focus

He suggested replacing single minded promise with single minded purpose such as

- find ways to make it easier to stop smoking ( single minded purpose)

rather than

-what is the most powerful thing we should say to persuade people to stop smoking?  (single minded message)

The former liberates all disciplines to find solutions and ideas, the latter tends to close down options and/or lead to message based solutions rather than nudges and “designed in” solutions.

2) In effecting behaviour change every detail matters rather there being a kind of hierarchy of media in which some are though to have higher status that others. Nick cited the new london bike scheme-we can all see them and are aware of them but there was a psychological barrier to trial that needed to be removed- people are anxious about what to do if they get to a destination and find the bike rack full. Information about this needed to be given greater prominence

Two new IPA publications are available here

We are All Choice Architects Now

and

Behavioural Economics-Red Hot or Red Herring?

Idea- a band was created called SDIA. A song called “Going all the way” was released. It was sent to all radio stations and received extensive airplay and comment from DJs. The song got to No4 in the charts and was No9 on the most downloaded ringtones list. It was played as the wake up tune on Israel’s ( very popular ) version of Big Brother and in coffee shops

Some results- The story of how and why the band was formed was revealed to coincide with World Aids Day ( SDIA spells AIDS backwards) and became a breaking news story in TV print and on the web. Media coverage of World Aids Day was +75 % over 2009 figures.

Information courtesy of Directory

Some key thoughts

Organisations do not  need “a digital strategy” they  need  ”a strategy for the digital age”-because digital is now ubiquitous

( not limited to so called “new media” such as the web and mobiles.)

Communications planning and behaviour change thinking needs to “baked in” at policy development phase.

Agencies need to both do both idea creation and idea planning. ie it about both ” The Work” and “How The Work Works”

Brand planning, network planning and channel planning need to be brought together-this will be the future of a new type of strategy department that combines many talents from different backgrounds. Data now sits at the centre of this new approach.

At the centre of all effective campaigns is an organising idea. Data now informs strategy development and technology is fueling creativity.

With the advent of online networks and communities, organisations  need 365 day thinking not 360 degree thinking

Links to films shown will follow for Kit Kat in Japan and Kevin Kelly

Key text quoted: Michael J Woolf-The Entertainment Economy.

In Nudge, Richard Thaler shows businesses and policy makers how to use the way we really think to improve our decisions about health, wealth and happiness because people often do not make decisions that are in their best interests. A nudge can make all the difference—setting up the decision so that people do act in their best interest, without interfering with freedom of choice.

Policy makers in business and government set up ‘decision architectures’ all the time, environments in which people have to make a choice. Richard explains

why and how the arrangement should be designed to make people better off.

He focuses on three main areas:

Money—how to do a better job of saving, investing and borrowing and nudge people toward wealth and security;

Health—how to improve prescription drug plans, organ donation and

environmental protection;

Freedom—how to improve choices in education and increase the ability of patients and doctors to contract with each other.

What is a Nudge?

A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. Nudges are not mandates. Putting the fruit at eye level

counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.