The New Way To Win More Support and Save The World

THE NEW WAY TO
WIN MORE SUPPORT
AND SAVE THE WORLD
Behave.LONDON | BEHAVELABS.CO

“An important new agenda that can help achieve development goals in many areas,
including early childhood development, household ﬁnance, productivity, health, and
climate change.”
“Using insights from behavioural science can have profound beneﬁts across
government and business.”
“The behavioural sciences have achieved remarkable success.”
“One of the hottest ideas in public policy”
“A behavioural approach is different…it has has profound implications for
development”
“Where policies have been designed to reflect behavioural science insights they
have substantially improved outcomes for individuals, families, communities, and
businesses.”

TODAY a new revolution is just beginning. A revolution in our
understanding of why we do what we do.
For governments, development organisations, businesses and
charities, the breakthroughs in the behavioural sciences provide a
powerful new toolkit to ﬁnd innovative ways to create a safer, more
prosperous world.
At Behave, we have experience in four continents applying
behavioural science to do more with less.
Here are 14 practical lessons we’ve learned.

How to overcome apathy
and move people to action

Create calm out of chaos
1

HOW does an idea gain acceptance? Why are some
leaders admired and others despised? What is it that
causes changes to decisions, habits and lifestyles?
In this age of distraction there’s no doubt of the need
for wholesale changes in people’s attitudes and
behaviours for economic, social and planetary
reasons.
Ironically, this is precisely the moment when mass
media has become a blunt and expensive way to
achieve this.
But there is hope.
The new toolkit offered by the behavioural sciences
gives you the means to navigate this new world by
creating frugal innovations - innovations that turn
resource constraints into an advantage.
After all, within any democratic society, those
entrusted with public funding are also dependent on
public support to maintain their status.
Has there ever been greater pressure to achieve more
with less? Has there ever been more of a need?
By understanding the means to inﬂuence and change
behaviour, you can break through the noise and
create calm out of chaos.
How can you understand the crowd? Now behavioural
science reveals what moves them.

Anew musical theory for the
mind
2

BEHAVIOURAL science insights should not be
viewed as scientific in the laboratory sense.
It’s scientific in the sense that use is based on
definite knowledge drawn from direct observation
of human behaviour.
It’s scientific in the sense that applications are
based on consistent principles which have been
demonstrated through repeated experimentation.
It’s scientific in the sense that objectives can be
achieved through a repeatable process that
minimises the risk of failure and waste.
Think of it as a new musical theory for the mind.
Now you can find the right notes to play to create
change - rather than relying on imprecise
methods such as surveys or focus groups.
Naturally, a toolkit this powerful can be subverted.
And those using these techniques must only use
them to achieve commonly accepted objectives.
But, in responsible hands, those able to turn
insights into actions are beginning a new creative
revolution within business and society.
Walk or ride? In Denmark they turned the steps
into keys and 66% more people used them.

Help people help you
3

HOWARD Gossage was the Ad Man who set-up the
ﬁrst behavioural change boutique, Generalists Inc.,
back in the 1960’s.
Unlike the Mad Men of the era, he understood how to
create advertising that changed behaviour without the
need for big budgets.
He, along his clients, became wildly successful.
One of these was The Sierra Club, which later
become Friends of the Earth.
First Howard recognised the importance of having a
warm and inviting name, rather than an austere
sounding Club.
Then, when Congress proposed the idea of building a
dam at the basin of the Grand Canyon, he created a
single ad that ﬂooded the mail boxes of the decision-
makers in Washington. Fearing a public backlash, the
idea was dropped within days.
If you want to make people feel guilty, tell them about
your cause.
If you want to make people feel worthy, give them
your petition to sign.
If you want to people to act, help them help you.
How to change the world with a single advert: Howard Gossage
made it easy for people to help the cause with coupons.

Start with simple, timeless
human truths
4

SCOTT Harrison was a heavy drinking New York City
night club promoter. Until one day he stopped to look at
his life.
After fleeing the city to volunteer in Liberia, he returned
hell-bent on providing clean water to the one billion
people in need.
At first he struggled to overcome people’s skepticism
about donating to charity. Then he found the right path
by creating two bank accounts - one for donations and
one to fund operations.
His fortunes changed. And Charity Water was born.
This redemption story well-told, personal charisma,
aspirational design and creative ideas like “donate your
birthday” have raised over $155M (£101M) since 2006.
In a digital age, the ideas, causes and people that cut
through are those that can best understand what moves
us to action - stories, charm and personality are more
important than ever before.
Your archetype - how you are perceived - determines the
response you get, your impact and, ultimately, how you
will be remembered.
As Bill Bernbach, the father of the first creative
revolution, put it, “we deal in simple, timeless human
truths”.
A good story well-told: How Scott Harrison
raised over $155M (£101M)

How to do more good

Small things can make a big
difference
5

THE difference between a no and a yes is often
very small. Because we now know that decisions
are made in systematic and predictable ways, the
impact of “trivial” things can be dramatic.
WE’VE SEEN:  
 
A simple check-list half the rate of fatalities from
surgical procedures.
A new form design increase organ donation rates
from less than 10% to over 90%.
23% more patient’s take their medicine correctly
as a result of a lottery incentive.
An SMS reminder result in 2.6 times more savings.
A clearer process result in 50% less violent and
aggressive behaviour in hospitals.
A public pledge increase healthy eating decisions
by 9.5%.
These were all from small interventions. And are a
fraction of the 537 case studies we’ve collected.
With a simple redesign - making the steps clear - this A&E
cut aggression towards staff by 50% (worth £35M per year)

Context matters as much as
(maybe more than)
motivation
6

DECISIONS are not just based on motivation.
The context of the decision plays a huge role,
often subconsciously. Timing, mood, the way
choices are presented and environmental cues
all influence behaviour. This is known as Choice
Architecture.
For instance:
18% more school children choose healthy food
when it’s the first choice they see.
More people buy German wine in a shop
playing German music. And more French wine
when French music is playing.
Reducing the plate size from 12-inches to 10-
inches results in 22% fewer calories being
consumed.
Try changing the context before trying to
increase motivation. You’ll find it that’s where
you can have the biggest immediate impact for
the lowest cost.
Want to get children to eat their greens?
Don’t nag them, nudge them by changing
the choice environment.

Try reframing the problem
7

SOME problems appear impossible. Take the
problem of seal hunting.
Governments have tried imposing quotas or
difﬁcult to enforce bans. Environmental groups
have tried following hunters or tracking seals.
Both are expensive and reactive.
But what if they’re trying to solve the wrong
problem?
That’s what a few Greenpeace activists
realised.
They couldn’t stop hunters hunting, but, with a
can of green spray paint, they could stop the
fur being valuable. Seal deaths plummeted.
Remember: the person who frames the
problem, frames the solutions.
Before you commit to a large, complex project,
consult with a behavioural scientist to see how
the problem has been framed.
You may save yourself, and you organisation,
months of toil and be celebrated for your
ingenuity.
Saving seals with a can of paint: How activists managed to
reduce hunting by reframing the problem.

Help people make better
choices
8

FERTILISERS result in higher crop yields and
higher proﬁts for a tiny investment. So why do
so few Kenyan farmers use them?
The answer isn’t ignorance; the farmers are
well aware of the beneﬁts. It’s simply that
purchasing the fertiliser is effortful, meaning the
majority put it off.
Numerous government agencies and NGOs
have tried subsidies, which are costly and can
distort markets. Instead the Kenyan branch of
International Child Support tried something
different: offering free delivery to the farmers.
The result?
Up to 60% higher fertiliser usage, which meant
farmers make better use of the land and raised
their incomes at the same time. Over years a
simple solution like this could have a dramatic
effect on the economy.
If you want to make a big impact on millions of
lives, start from an individual’s decision and
make it easier to help them help themselves.
Want to help her help herself? Try making it easier for her.

How to change more
lives

Technology provides radical new
opportunities
9

HOW can you save thousands - even millions - of lives
from thousands of miles away?
The mobile phone is the world’s ﬁrst universal
technology. By 2020, Ericsson estimates there will be
6.1BN connections in service, 2.3x the number in
mid-2015. And usage in the developing world is only
accelerating.
For those looking to change behaviour - be they health
decisions, wealth decisions or other decisions - the
opportunity is unprecedented.
Take healthcare as an example. Often the problem isn’t
diagnosis, it’s adherence. Imagine if you could persuade
more people to take life-saving medicine at the right
time.
SMS reminders have been found to be highly effective.
And, best of all, they don’t require thousands of
professionals to be stationed around the world, they
can focus on high-risk priorities.
If you want to scale your impact, combine behavioural
insights with technology to create the change you
desire.
Your impact will grow. Your costs will shrink. Isn’t that
the purpose of creativity?
How can 1+1 =3? By combining the technological
revolution with the psychological.

Trials save lives and make
miracles possible
10

WHERE does innovation come from? How do
miracle breakthroughs happen?
Ask the investors of the microwave, the post-it
note, the corn ﬂake, the slinky, potato crisps,
ﬁreworks, play-doh, viagra, penicillin, velcro
(and many more) and they’ll tell you it comes
from testing assumptions.
But that doesn’t mean being reckless. As the
Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman
put it, “Creativity is imagination in a straight-
jacket”. That straight-jacket is experimentation.
By trialling your ideas you open yourself up to
successful new ideas, new interventions and
new ways to do more with less - without risking
budgets and lives.
Because if you have a responsibility to “do no
harm” then you have a responsibility to know
what impact you’re causing.
Trial, review, improve: three steps to creating
miracles without casualties.
Trial, Review, Improve: How to continuously improve
and make miracles possible.
3. IMPROVE 2. REVIEW
1. TRIAL

Expand your window of
acceptability
11

JOSEPH Overton was a political theorist interested in
how ideas catch on.
He found that only a very limited set of ideas are
deemed “reasonable”, placing a limit on innovation and
progress. This became known as the Overton Window.
In the 20th Century economists set the Overton
Window, with the theory and research papers that
framed policy debates. Then the 2008 Crash happened
and we realised the ﬂaws to their assumptions (to our
immense cost).
Behavioural science insights provide you with the means
to expand your Overton Window and base radical ideas
in reality, since these insights are grounded in the rigour
that responsible leaders demand.
For instance, when you realise people are not only
motivated by ﬁnancial incentives then why not try a
lottery instead of a reward?
When you realise people respond to social norms then
why not try informing them when most people do the
right thing?
When you realise people use heuristics - or rules of
thumb - to make decisions, why not try making it easier
to behave responsibly?
Are you out of ideas? Or are you afraid to test
expand your Overton Window?

How to save the world

“Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by
man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human
destiny is beyond human beings.”
- John F. Kennedy

Small beats big
12

HOW do you solve a problem like global
poverty?
Ask Esther Duﬂo, the behavioural scientist
who’s re-thinking how we address social
problems with immense success.
Starting with behavioural insights at the human-
level, she’s discovered ingenious ways to raise
living standards in the developing world.
For instance, how do you encourage teachers
to turn up to teach in developing countries?
By requiring them to take a photo with their
class each day, and adjusting pay accordingly,
absenteeism was cut in half.
Instead of big, complex solutions that involve
huge budgets and immense risk, now there is a
viable alternative. Start at the human-level and
combine behavioural insights with creativity.
Just think, how many of the world’s biggest
problems - corruption, obesity etc - are really
all about behaviour?
Esther Duﬂo: The woman saving lives by thinking big
but starting small.

A
B
C
CLIMATE  
CHANGE
BREAK ONE BIG
PROBLEM…
…INTO DAILY
DECISIONS…
…AND TURN
INSIGHTS INTO
TRIALS
1. RECYCLING
2. GREENER ENERGY
CONSUMPTION
3. HOME INSULATION
THE BEHAVIOURALAPPROACH TO SOLVING BIG PROBLEMS

Emotion beats education
13

EVERYONE knows smoking causes cancer. But
millions of cigarettes are smoked worldwide
each day.
Everyone knows fast food causes obesity. But
millions eat it daily.
Everyone knows climate change is a threat. But
millions of decisions are made each day that
make that threat greater.
We’re struggling to solve many of the world’s
biggest problems - obesity, poverty, climate
change - because we’re using the wrong tools.
Rational tools like education and information only
go so far. You need irrational tools to solve
irrational problems.
As the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has
shown us, our decisions are based more on
emotion than on reason.
If you want to change what we do, start with
emotion. As hardened salespeople will tell you,
“facts tell, stories sell”.
What do men care about more? Organs they can’t see?
Or one they see every day?

Prevention beats cure
14

BENJAMIN Franklin once said “an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure”.
Imagine if he were in charge of healthcare policy. Because
across the EU-24 countries an average of just 2.9% of
healthcare budgets are spent on preventative programmes.
In the UK, obesity costs the National Health Service £5.1BN
annually. In the US this ﬁgure is $61BN. And both numbers
are trending in the wrong direction.
A preventative solution to this, and other, health epidemics
would surely be worthy of a Nobel Prize.
But what?
By applying behavioural science insights to these problems -
understanding how choices are made, why choices are
made, how habits are formed, how lasting change happens
- governments can transform healthcare from a reactive
approach to a proactive approach.
And why not encourage the private and third sector too?
Innovative new funding models - such as social impact
bonds, that pay by results - are kick-starting a new golden
age for preventative healthcare.
Given the potential impact, healthcare organisations would
be wise to invest in incubators to test behaviourally informed
ideas.
SOURCE: OECD
Proactive and preventative: How healthcare
organisations can win the Nobel Prize.

Ready to make change
happen?

THERE are dozens of practical ways behavioural
science can help you achieve more with less.
But only when implemented with care.
At Behave we combine a comprehensive body of
knowledge with the creativity to turn insights into
reality.
We share this experience generously with our
clients.

hello@behavelabs.co
Curious to learn
more? Get in touch.

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