Change spreads sideways: Why social networks are behaviour change’s secret weapon

Driving behavioural change doesn’t have to involve big lofty ideas. Ogilvy’s Joel Clegg writes that influencing the culture that surrounds your target audience can be the most effective means to encourage change.

Joel Clegg is a behavioural strategist at Ogilvy, a WPP agency.

Some people called it “irresponsible”. Others called it “genius”. A stand-up comic used it as material in a raunchy set. But the power of Ogilvy UK’s “Maaate” campaign, which aimed to encourage men to call out misogyny, wasn’t in a lofty, big idea, but in a single word that was built to spread and hard to kill.

We marketers have long thought about behaviour change in central, linear, individual terms. There is a messenger, a receiver, and a message that is hopefully potent enough to get the receiver to do something different. But there are two problems with this way of thinking: one, it ignores behavioural science. Two, it reduces the entire creative solution-space down to one, tired question: “What can I say to change someone’s mind?”

The painful truth is that “head-on” persuasion is the most difficult way to change someone’s behaviour. Why? Because change hurts. Literally. Kaplan and colleagues (2016) found that when presented with challenges to beliefs, people’s brains don’t show signs of learning, they respond as though their physical safety is in peril.

Luckily for us, there are other ways to get the job done. Over the last 30 years or so of developments in behavioural science research, we haven’t just seen a flourishing of new and exciting insights, but a small revolution in the way experts think about human behaviour – from something an individual does, to something that spreads. And this revolution all began with “memes”.

Not that kind. First coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 in book The Selfish Gene, memes are the cultural equivalent to DNA. And according to this theory, ideas and behaviours don’t merely arise – they replicate, mutate and evolve over time. This one insight has set off a chain reaction in sociology and psychology, with researchers increasingly looking to convert its wisdom from interesting to useful. Flash forward to today and, with the help of some serious computing power, we are now able to track exactly how behaviours spread through communities and “go viral”.

As sociologist Damon Centola points out, information may travel rapidly through loose connections, like paid influencers or social media acquaintances, but real behaviour change usually travels in “clumps”. That is, before a person is willing to adopt a new behaviour or innovation, they often need to see that behaviour reflected in those around them – their community, family, close friends or co-workers.

And of course, the opposite is true too: a stubborn behaviour may be incredibly difficult to prevent through direct confrontation or top-down persuasion, but it can be deterred easily from “the side” – by influencing the culture your audience swims in, and the opinions of those they care about most. And excitingly, when we approach influence this way, we open the solutions space back up: from refining complex, persuasive messages to injecting new cultural stimulants – like a single word designed to spread and infect men’s conversations.

The marketing genius of the “Maaate” campaign wasn’t really in the specifics of its message, but in the problem it was trying to solve – “85% of London men already had the intention to call out misogyny, but most didn’t know how to do it without damaging their social connection”. In the pursuit of changing minds, we often miss out the much, much larger behaviour change opportunity in hiding: like, lubricating a difficult conversation, and starting a fire.

Or, as Ogilvy vice-chairman Rory Sutherland likes to say: “Rather than trying to aid better decision-making in individuals, we shall have to spend more of our time combatting collective insanity in groups.”

When it comes to behaviour change, the more precisely you can define your community and meet people where they are, the more likely the ideas will light fires and spread.

The Normal for Me campaign used a simple behavioural prompt, delivered with humour to help encourage younger women to start having conversations about breast cancer. The campaign line “know what’s normal for you, so that you’ll know what’s not” encouraged women to chat about the different shapes and sizes of their breasts with friends.

Another behavioural change technique that can be immensely successful is to focus on social reward within context rather than “mind-changing” benefits. When the Australian government wanted to encourage young people to get STI-tested for the betterment of their health, they did want to be seen as “sexually enlightened” masters of Beforeplay.

Finally, the infamous Pinkie campaign by the Roads & Traffic Authority expertly showcased how giving people the tools to model behaviour in the right contexts while minimising social risk can facilitate behaviour change. Young men weren’t willing to slow down for safety reasons, but they were more than happy to wiggle a pinkie finger to indicate their friend is compensating for something.

As the marketing industry stares down severe economic headwinds and diminishing brand differentiation, we need to be open to rethink what makes a great campaign – from a “cracking bit of individual persuasion” to a fire that spreads … even if it just takes a single word.