The hardest habits to break

August 28, 2006

In a client presentation today, someone said the most remarkable thing. “Advertising alone can’t change behavior.”

We were presenting concepts for a public service campaign. It’s part of an effort to curtail a common and deadly social problem. The point was that a media campaign alone isn’t enough. Our target audience also needs to hear the message from other sources, preferably human ones.

What amazed me most was that I was the one who said, “Advertising alone can’t change behavior.” And, working my foot only partway out of my mouth, I added, “Unless you’re selling Snickers.”

Is this true? With advertising we can get people to eat candy bars. But we can’t get them to drive the speed limit. Neuter their pets. Stop using meth.

Why is this? We did a direct mail piece recently, which included a coupon for a dollar off a gallon of milk and 5 cents off each gallon of gas. It got a 60 percent response. That’s phenomenal. It changed the behavior of hundreds of people. They went to stores and purchased milk and gas.

Couldn’t “social marketing,” as it’s called in the nonprofit world, change behavior equally well? Why can’t a powerful, well-funded ad campaign get people to stop beating up their family members? Why didn’t one of the most memorable campaigns ever (“This is your brain on drugs”) get a 60 percent response?

I wish we had the answer.

Maybe the 60 percent who responded to the direct mail piece will only shop at our client’s stores just once. And who knows — maybe 60 percent of the people who saw the famous fried egg did refrain from using drugs just once.

Is it that it’s easier to convince people to part with their money? And harder to change deeply ingrained behaviors?

No – because as any fundraiser will tell you, getting donations for even the most worthy cause is extraordinarily difficult.

At HenkinSchultz we do lots of public service and nonprofit organization work. Invariably, these are the smallest budgets we work with. Since funding for research is nonexistent, we generally don’t know if our efforts are effective.

All we know is that heartbreaking social problems march on, rising right along with the population, the cost of living and the earth’s mean temperature. And in the meantime, people keep on redeeming coupons for milk, buying gas and eating candy bars.

Have any ideas on this topic? Please share them. We ALL need to know.

By Clara

Filed Under Advertising, Marketing, Criticism

Comments

4 Responses to “The hardest habits to break”

  1. Nedra Weinreich on August 31st, 2006 2:04 am

    You’re right that advertising alone generally won’t change behavior, especially for the health and social issues we address with social marketing. Don’t forget that advertising is but one part of one part of the marketing mix - promotion - and the social marketing mix is much more challenging to create than for a Snickers bar.

    The important role that advertising can play is in raising awareness that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, or in helping an individual realize that they are personally at risk if they do not adopt the behavior being promoted. Advertising can create an environment in which the target audience develops a favorable impression of the “product” (ie the behavior) and begins to see it as socially acceptable and desirable. But for an everyday lifestyle change (e.g., eating in a healthy way) or even an occasional but emotionally difficult behavior (e.g., getting an HIV test), advertising does not always offer enough personal support to lead someone to take action. That usually takes interpersonal communication from an influential person like a doctor, friend, family member or even a knowledgeable and caring person on the other side of a telephone hotline.

    Advertising can lead the horse to water, but whether the horse drinks 8 glasses a day is another question.

  2. Spike Jones on August 31st, 2006 10:44 am

    Advertising is for awareness and for entertainment. You didn’t change people’s behavior with your direct mail. You allowed them to add something to their errands list - one time. A true change in behavior has to have a personal and emotional connection - something that ads can start, but not complete.

  3. Clara Jacob on September 6th, 2006 3:51 pm

    I concur with both comments. It was interesting to read, the day after the blog post, that the $1.2 billion federal anti-drug campaign was deemed ineffective by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

    Let\’s continue the candy bar comparison for just a moment, though. It\’s been said that consumers must be exposed to a message 11 times before they\’ll take action.

    That means I\’ve seen the Snickers spot 11 times (probably with abundant close-ups shots of rich, flowing chocolate, airbrushed-to-perfection peanuts and gooey caramel) before I just happen to feel like having one. I\’m not aware that I\’ve seen the spots more thatn once or twice, most likely. So I don\’t link the ads to my behavior (hoping, of course, to preserve the illusion that I think and act freely).

    My point is that a great many of the messages urging me to buy a Snickers bar come in under the radar. As do the social marketing messages. They become part of the wallpaper, especially for teens. But shouldn\’t that wallpaper affect them anyway? Shouldn\’t that start to create conditions in which certain behaviors are tolerable in a community and others simply aren\’t?

    We\’re starting creative on several public service campaigns, hoping to change behaviors. Research shows scare tactics don\’t work. Other research shows humor doesn\’t work. Then what CAN work?

    Clara Jacob

  4. Nedra Weinreich on September 13th, 2006 1:23 am

    Sorry I’m a little late getting back to the conversation… I think you are definitely right about the advertising messages you put out there becoming part of the landscape that influences behavior — creating an environment that supports adoption of the action you are promoting. I disagree, though, with a blanket dismissal of scare tactics which, if done in the right context and with the right follow-up, can be very effective (see my post on making fear-based campaigns work). And humor can be very effective in getting people to pay attention to your message and remembering it. But I don’t think you can say what will work for any given issue until you do some research with the audience and find out how they think and feel about the issue.

    Generally, what works is offering a positive message (rather than saying “don’t do this or that”). Showing the audience what’s in it for them if they adopt the product. How will it make them the kind of person they want to be? Make it easy for them to do. As Bill Smith of AED says, make it fun, easy and popular.

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