Issue 6 March 2000
Rod Gale: Almost all our day-to-day decisions are emotional
It was August 1986 and we were huddled in our boardroom in London waiting for the client to arrive.
The client was Britain’s Department of Health and Social Securities and as a matter of urgency, we had been asked to assemble our best people to tackle a communication issue of national importance. An issue of life and death. AIDS had come to town.
The client briefed us and we leapt into thought. Australia had recently launched its answer to the AIDS issue, the Grim Reaper. It was a stunning piece of communication: highly graphic, totally engaging and it evoked what we felt was the right response. Right, we said, we’ll have some of that.
So, not long afterwards, our commercial went to air on national television. We patted ourselves on the back. It wasn’t quite as macabre as the Grim Reaper but it did create a similar effect in the hearts and minds of those who watched it.
We had created a piece of communication, which like the Grim Reaper, ripped at your heart and gripped you in terror. A piece of communication that froze any mental reasoning and buried itself deep into the primal instinct of self-preservation.
However, subsequent research conducted by us showed that we could not have got it more wrong.
We had managed to communicate a negative appeal, based on fear, which hardened attitudes and reinforced behaviour in a direction contrary to that advocated by the communication.
Worse still, the key message was “blocked off” by those who most needed to heed it, resulting in little positive persuasive influence to their “unsafe” sexual behaviour.
I was dumbfounded. We had created an attitude in the community, but why hadn’t our campaign resulted in a significant change in behaviour?
Recently, Melbourne Water commissioned a survey of 16 to 24-year-old Victorians, which found that the attitudes of this group strongly embrace environmental and conservation issues.
Like the example above, these attitudes are good news, but don’t necessarily translate into action. So what can change attitudes into behaviour?
First of all, find out where the real problem lies, not what you think it is. To do this you’ve got to dig behind the statistics to get a clearer picture.
For example, I recently saw a documentary which looked at a survey on smoking among a group of young adults in the United States. The survey found that smoking was on the increase among this group.
Then someone had the bright idea to look for a clearer picture within the survey. It was discovered that while smoking among young white adults was definitely on the increase, smoking among young black adults was on the decrease.
An inquisitive researcher found that the black community simply changed its behaviour by having the cohort leaders speak out that “smoking isn’t cool”.
Some time ago, Melbourne Water needed to develop a strategy to reduce the amount of rubbish that was collecting in stormwater drains and ending up in our rivers and waterways.
The perceived problem was that the key message had still not got through to the offenders. That is, litter thrown to the ground ended up blocking Victoria’s rivers and waterways and this was detrimental to the health of the surrounding flora and fauna.
We knew we had to explore beyond rational thought and SWAG (Sophisticated Wild-Arsed Guessing) analysis and delve into “right brain” techniques to release key insights into where the real problem lay.
The offenders (the general public) felt little empathy towards rivers, waterways and wildlife; these issues didn’t really affect them personally. But they did care enormously about the health of their piece of beach and consequently the Bay.
Once the problem had been reframed, Melbourne Water then developed the stunningly effective television commercial, Raining Rubbish, which was supported by the positioning line Care About The Bay – Don’t Throw It Away.
Changing people’s behaviour is possible only if they want to change. Wanting to change usually requires an emotional trigger.
It is often assumed that human beings are rational beings. We’re not. Almost all of our day-to-day decisions are made on an emotional basis; we just rationalise the outcomes.
This means that you may reason with someone until you are blue in the face and gain no significant change in behaviour. However, take the same situation and capture their heart by making the argument entertaining as well as informative and you have a chance to make a difference.
Recently, Western Water wanted to remind its communities about its water restrictions and the need to save water. It seemed to us that many of the other water companies were taking unnecessarily heavy-handed approaches to this issue by being far too rational. Much of the communication was being “board pushed” and not customer driven.
What was needed was an insight that could be translated into a creative message that entertained as well as informed.
Snake tales: A bit of fun with a serious message
While many customers were doing their bit, there was a feeling that some people were not. And this was causing some irritation and frustration in the community. With this piece of information, Sammy The Snake was developed. Sammy is essentially a garden hose who ssssspeaksss like a ssssnake. His (or her) message is clear: “Don’t Be A Snake In The Grass”. Kids, mums and dads and teachers all adore Sammy The Snake.
It is a bit of fun with a serious message. And this is the trick. Normally messages like that are delivered with no fun at all because in taking what we do seriously we also take ourselves far too seriously.
The key to changing behaviour, as any therapist will tell you, is that the first essential step is to make contact with the human you are communicating with as a person, not a demographic.
And then to remember that the person is not like you. Make them laugh with delight or shiver with fright and you’ll get far better results than if you lecture and wag your finger at them.
Rod Gale and his company,Galeforce, worked with Melbourne Water on the Raining Rubbish campaign.