After ICE was commissioned by a council to reduce alcohol consumption in 18-25 year old women, I tried to recall what was already out there. As a 25 year old woman, I knew I was being targeted but I could not for the life of me place when, where or how an existing campaign had impacted my decision-making when it came to alcohol. This isn’t to say I had never seen one. In fact, I had seen and heard so many that they became a bit like the coat rack in my flat. I know it’s there and I know its benefits (I bought it as a solution to my bad habit of scattering my possessions as a kind of trail that my partner can follow to find me), but I just cannot bring myself to use it without a prompt. In a market that is saturated with so much noise, how could we connect with 18-25 year old women in a way that would resonate with them, as well as nudging them towards changing their drinking patterns?

Another key factor to consider is culture. It can be incredibly frustrating to announce you’re not drinking alcohol on a night out, or during a night in with friends. In my experience, the only ‘accepted’ norms for not drinking are those with links to religion, medical reasons, being the designated driver, pregnancy or alcohol abuse (experienced first person or through a family member/close friend/partner). If your reason for not drinking doesn’t fit into these categories, then all too soon, you can find yourself being accused of being ‘boring’, ‘putting a downer on the night’ or being asked ‘why did you even come out?’

In a society where the term ‘binge drinking’ has seemingly lost all impact, how could we connect with these women to create a shift in their relationship with alcohol?

Let’s be honest – it’s not shocking to read that high alcohol consumption can cause serious negative consequences in both the short-term (accident/injury) and in the long-term (chronic liver disease). I am equally familiar with the fact that drinking alcohol at a young age increases the risk of alcohol dependency or abuse later in life.

Key insights:

During ICE’s research, it was discovered that - owing largely to a national campaign called ‘know your limits’ - young women define responsible drinking as drinking to their own perceived limit. However, they define this limit as a state when they are highly intoxicated and vulnerable. Young women are aware of drink protective behavioural strategies (such as drinking water, slowing down, spacing their drinks out), but in real time drinking terms, this can mean that the damage is already done as these changes in behaviour were found to only be implemented once they had hit their self-imposed and normalised ‘limit’.

Reaching this limit was described as ‘can’t see straight’, ‘the floor is moving’ and ‘I see double.’ Although this did serve as a nudge to deter more alcoholic drinks, this is too late to reduce their risk of short-term negative impacts of alcohol consumption.

Young women were clear that posters that included visuals and messaging that told them to stop drinking or drink responsibly would not change their behaviour. Are these posters no more than a tick-box exercise, serving as a ‘well done’ to everyone involved in the campaign for radicalising the world of young women and alcohol? In my opinion, there is a lot to be answered for when it comes to message frames that place the onus on the individual to judge their own actions using their own moral compass, without providing any attempt to educate, inform or alter the judgement of the individual. These posters often contain shocking statistics and graphic depictions of what can go wrong when drinking alcohol, but they often lack the basic understanding of the audience they are supposed to appeal to, and can come across as patronising and judgemental. So, what do these women who are drinking to excess actually respond to, and what will increase their engagement with these behaviour change messages?

Importantly, we identified that the young women’s judgement of whether they had reached their limit relies heavily on their visual acuity – when they judge they can’t see properly, they change their behaviour. Accordingly, using their subconscious mind to nudge them to judge that their vision was failing is likely to change their behaviour sooner and reduce the risk of negative consequences. Many of the decisions we make are not rational and are made without us consciously thinking about them. These nudges position themselves within the subconscious of an individual, and are consequently more proactive than reactive when it comes to behaviour change.

Solution:

ICE designed a series of behavioural nudges (e.g. blurred images in toilet mirrors) that were employed in situ at pubs and clubs to use young women’s unconscious thoughts and nudge them to self-identify that they may be approaching their limit, thus enabling them to apply drink protective behavioural strategies more proactively.

Because we rarely use rational decision making processes when deciding when and how much to drink (common reasons include 'it’s fun', 'relaxing' and 'social'), strategies that appeal to such rational decision making (including those that focus on the serious negative consequences of drinking) are unlikely to have a significant impact on reducing how much and how frequently young women drink alcohol. While they may look great and convince everyone in the commissioned agency that they are going to have the desired outcome, they simply get lost when they are applied in the real world and serve as more of a constant cliché than an effective and sustained behaviour change campaign.

By working with young women’s unconscious thoughts and feelings, we were able to nudge these women towards self-identifying that they were nearing their limit (instead of already having hit it). This novel approach changes this maladaptive behaviour and helps to reduce incidences of the serious negative consequences of drinking alcohol.

If you would like to find out more about this campaign or ICE’s approach to behaviour change, feel free to contact myself or Dr Adam Moore, who is ICE’s Head of Applied Behavioural Insights, on 0151 647 4700 or at klara.davidson@icecreates.com / adam.moore@icecreates.com

- Klara Davidson

Key facts

According to a recent government report, suicide is the biggest killer in men under 50 years old. Promoting mental wellbeing and preventing mental ill health in this population is, therefore, vital.

A public health team in the North of England recently asked ICE to create an insight-led campaign that encourages men aged 30-49 years old to engage in behaviours that are known to have positive impacts on wellbeing and mental health, such as those recommended by the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing. This includes: connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give (see here).

Research techniques

ICE conducted insight groups (experientials) and one-to-one vox pop interviews, using techniques like ‘in their shoes’, journey mapping, and ICE clean language to bypass rational thought processes and get to the root causes of behaviour. The insights we gathered not only gave us the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, but also the ‘why’ that helps us to design an experience that truly engages with what is important to the men who will be targeted by this campaign.

Key behavioural insights

• The word ‘mental’ had negative connotations for men and was associated with illness rather than health. To men, being asked to do something to improve mental health indicated there was a problem that needed to be fixed in the first place.
• Men who took part in our research believed that being a man means being strong. Admitting to having problems can be like admitting there is a ‘chink in the armour’, which can be seen as being weak. As a result, needing to improve mental health is an idea that not all men will want to engage with, because it goes against what they think it means to be a man.
• Men were already engaging in many of the activities associated with the Five Ways to Wellbeing and did not respond well to being told to ‘do more’, because it made them feel like there was a perception they were not already doing enough.
• Men liked imagery that clearly showed that they were the intended target audience of a campaign, but could not always relate to photos of men-like-them because, ultimately, they were not them.

Behaviour change

The insight revealed that focusing a campaign on improving mental health, particularly one that is in a preventative space, risks men not wanting to self-identify that the message is aimed at them - ‘well I don’t have a problem with my mental health, so why would I want to improve it?’. Improving mental health is our desired outcome, but communicating this to men may actually put them off.

To change someone’s behaviour we need to focus on what matters to them, not to us.

Framing activities around valued aspects of the male identity that came out during the groups, such as wanting to protect and look after others, and men’s desire to achieve (the ‘why’) is more likely to drive behaviour than raising awareness that they are important for mental health.

Furthermore, to overcome the dislike of being told to do more of an activity, ICE will frame messages as questions, which encourages men to consider how the campaign message applies to their lives and experiences - without making them feel judged. Using questions is especially effective because they work with our brain’s natural use of attentional functions and can be used to subconsciously prime behaviours.

Neuroscience fact– The power of the unconscious mind: Many of the decisions we make are not rational and are made without us consciously thinking about them. The unconscious mind can be primed to nudge individuals to engage in desired behaviours – with the individual themselves making the choice to change behaviour.

Solution

Based on the findings of this study, our in-house creative team at ICE is currently developing a campaign that will use the ‘why’ that drives behaviour to help our client improve mental health outcomes in their area. The concepts being tested also use themes that are generationally relevant to men aged 30-49 years old to help them to identify as the target audience and to start conversations.

These are only a few of our findings from this study. To find out how ICE can help you find out the ‘why’ that drives your citizens’ behaviours and how to encourage citizens to engage in the Five Ways to Wellbeing, please contact Dr Emma Mackley on 0151 647 4700 or at emma.mackley@icecreates.com.

The problem: In the UK each year, 40,000 deaths are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution. Local authorities are now expected to encourage active travel (such as walking, cycling and public transport) and a shift away from using cars for short journeys.

ICE recently partnered with a council who wanted to reduce air pollution within their locality by promoting active travel amongst people who use their cars for short journeys, such as for the school run. In particular, the local authority was interested in understanding why people chose to use their cars for short school runs so that they could create a campaign which would encourage them to change.

What did we do? ICE conducted insight groups with parents and grandparents who use their car for the school run, to explore why they use the car currently and to help the local authority to understand what will make 'people like them' change.

Why do people use cars for the school run? Using the car to take kids to school was perceived to be easier and more convenient than other transport options. Getting kids to school on time in the mornings is stressful and driving was seen as a way to maintain control over the situation - with kids happier to take the car, less likely to misbehave and more likely to be on time for school.

“It’s to make sure you get there on time, because 9 times out of 10 you’re either late getting up or the kids won’t eat their breakfast so it’s one mad rush in the morning.”

“I feel good that I’m dropping her off to school…at least I know she gets there.”

Other methods of transport were generally perceived negatively as being not safe, not as convenient and more expensive than driving. Together, this contributed to a perception that driving was the only option that they had.

Yet…

When asked to describe their morning school run, parents were overwhelmingly negative, describing the morning school run as being: “hectic”, a “nightmare”, a “rush”, “chaos”, “crazy” and “stressful”.

For one parent, the school run was only a 5 minute journey, yet it took them 10-15 minutes to park. This inconvenience and wasted time was, however, discounted when compared to the perceived convenience of taking the car.

A clear disconnect emerged between parents’ perception of using the car for the school run and their lived experience of doing so.

This disconnect needs to be addressed to help parents to see that other methods of travel are less stressful than the realities of using the car. Routine behaviours, such as mode of daily travel, are deeply embedded in our lives. People will, therefore, tend not to weigh up the positives and negatives before making a journey and so may assume the car is more convenient, when in reality that might not be the case.

What would we recommend based on this insight? From the insight we gained, ICE would recommend a campaign which aims to get parents to ‘leave the car at home’, with a focus on kids getting healthy and physically active. Although the overall aim would be to reduce levels of air pollution, this was not a salient issue with the target audience and so messaging around air pollution may not change their behaviour, whereas parents had been influenced by messaging about health and physical activity of their children in the past.

Any campaign messaging should address the disconnect between perceived and actual experience of taking the car. Importantly, by taking part in the campaign, parents will begin to see the benefits of other modes of transport for themselves.

Our insights told us that kids can influence their parents' behaviour, so a campaign which uses ‘pester power’ (kids pestering their parents) could be effective. Competition, rewards and the idea of a challenge could be a good way to engage both kids and their parents.

The insights told us that schools would be a good messenger for the campaign, because it would make the campaign seem official and schools could communicate both with kids and their parents.

Finally, the insights suggested that a campaign which focuses on people making a small change, such as using the car for the school run in the morning but not the evening, could help to make other transport behaviours normal and routine.

For more information, contact Dr Emma Mackley on 0151 647 4700 or at emma.mackley@icecreates.com

 Are your customers’ behaviours threatening your income?

We know that you feel a great responsibility to your customers, and helping them to manage their finances is one of your priorities. Money management can be particularly challenging for your customers on low-level fixed incomes. If they are struggling to make ends meet, they can be at risk of falling into rental arrears, which has a detrimental effect on your income stream and increases your costs by having to chase payments.

We can help

Our social marketing and behaviour change specialists have worked extensively with housing customers across the country to create a simple programme to improve your customers' financial position.

It is called GET MON£YSMART and it received the top award for Behaviour Change Innovation at the annual Nudge Awards.  

It is a structured, multi-channel social marketing programme designed to engage, educate and empower your customers to take control of their finances by making small, manageable, incremental changes to their lifestyle behaviours.

This effective and engaging programme will protect your income by supporting your customers to reduce their spending on non-essential items and to pay their rent on time.

You can take a look at the case study and find out more about the programme here.

The marketing resources can be easily tailored to fit with your corporate brand and can be supplied alongside a communications and engagement plan that can be shaped to meet your specification and mobilised quickly.

To find out more, contact Paul Williams on 0151 647 4700 or at paul.williams@icecreates.com

At ICE, we were delighted to be recognised for our citizen-centred work with NHS Blood and Transplant recently when we won the Best Local Community Initiative of the Year Award at the Public Sector Communications Awards 2016.

Read our case study to find out how we used Insights, Co-creation and Engagement to change perceptions about organ donation with local African Caribbean communities here:

NHS Blood and Transplant - Case Study

To find out more about how you can make citizen-centred strategy a reality, call Marie Broeders now on 0151 647 4700 or email marie.broeders@icecreates.com

Research question: How can local authorities reduce alcohol consumption and increase the number of alcohol free days for 18-25 year old females?

ICE recently partnered with a council that has high chronic liver disease mortality rates for females, as well as an increased proportion of young people who drink alcohol. Continuing this trend will lead to increased mortality for females in the borough. The local authority also wanted to reduce serious alcohol related consequences such as hospitalisations, anti-social behaviour and sexual assault.

Research techniques: ICE conducted insight groups, one-to-one interviews and ethnographic daily diary exercises. The use of clean language and projective techniques allowed our researchers to tap into the attitudes, values, beliefs and emotions that drive young women's drinking behaviours and decision making.

Key behavioural insights: Owing largely to a national public awareness campaign ('Know your limits', Home Office, 2006), 18-25 year old women define responsible drinking as drinking to their own perceived limit. They use this limit as the upper bounds of what is responsible drinking and they define “too much” alcohol as drinking beyond this limit.

“I think responsible drinking is something like knowing your limits.”

Whilst this may sound sensible, when ICE researchers explored this further and asked the young women to describe how they knew they had drunk too much alcohol, they described a physical and emotional state that suggests they were highly intoxicated and vulnerable (unable to speak, falling over and feeling sick/vomiting), which would likely increase the risk of experiencing serious negative consequences such as hospitalisation and sexual assault.

“So it’s over the edge and you start to lose kind of most senses, and you don’t really know what you’re doing.”

Importantly, the young women did know a number of drink protective behavioural strategies (drink water, space drinks, swap a single for a double, don’t mix drinks). They know the desired behaviour change, however, they apply it reactively and too late.

How is ICE using these behavioural insights to change behaviour? 

A key finding of this study was that the young women used a series of visual cues to self-identify if they had drunk too much.

“You start losing, like, your eyesight and stuff. Stuff goes blurry.”

ICE has designed a series of behavioural nudges (e.g. blurred images in toilet mirrors) that will be employed in situ at pubs and clubs to use young women’s unconscious thoughts and nudge them to self-identify that they may be approaching their limit, thus enabling them to apply drink protective behavioural strategies more proactively.

Because we rarely use rational decision making processes when deciding when and how much to drink (we do it because it’s fun, relaxing and social), strategies that appeal to such rational decision making (including those that focus on the serious negative consequences of drinking) are unlikely to have a significant impact on reducing how much and how frequently young women drink alcohol.

Working with young women’s unconscious thoughts and feelings and nudging them towards self-identifying that they have reached their limit provides a novel way to change this maladaptive behaviour and helps to reduce incidences of serious negative consequences of drinking alcohol.

For more information, contact Dr Adam Moore on 0845 5193 423 or at adam.moore@icecreates.com

Social isolation is defined as a complete or near-complete lack of contact with people and society.

Owing to its profound negative impact on health and wellbeing, reducing social isolation is a key priority for many local authorities.

We recently explored the experiences of carers to:

• Understand the causes of social isolation for carers
• Identify what carers need to prevent or manage social isolation
• Explore the wider impacts of caring responsibilities.

Read more:

Insight Research - Social Isolation in Carers Case Study