How Behaviour Change Campaigns Work in Queensland Government

Most government communication campaigns start with the right intention and the wrong assumption.

The assumption is that if you tell people something clearly enough, they'll act on it. Update the website. Send the newsletter. Run the ads. Put the message out there and wait for behaviour to follow.

It rarely works that way. And when it doesn't, the usual response is to say the same thing louder.

Behaviour change is a different discipline entirely. It starts not with what the agency wants to say, but with what's actually stopping people from doing the thing the campaign needs them to do. Those are often very different problems.

Why information isn't enough

People don't recycle incorrectly because they haven't been told how. They do it because the system feels confusing, the effort feels higher than the reward, or they've normalised a habit that's easier to maintain than change. Telling them again doesn't solve any of those things.

The same applies across most government behaviour change briefs. Flood preparedness. Road safety. Health screening. Financial assistance uptake. Biosecurity compliance. In almost every case, the audience already has access to the information. What they're missing is the motivation, the confidence, or the environmental conditions that would make the behaviour feel achievable.

Effective campaigns are designed around that gap - not around the message the department wants to send.

What the research actually says

Behavioural science has been informing public sector communication for more than two decades. The core principles are well established. People respond to social norms - what they believe others around them are doing matters more than abstract instruction. They respond to identity - behaviour that aligns with how they see themselves is far more likely to stick. They respond to friction reduction - making the desired behaviour easier is often more effective than making it feel more important.

They also respond to emotion before logic. A campaign that makes someone feel something - recognised, understood, slightly amused, gently challenged - will outperform one that simply informs them. Every time.

What this looks like in practice

A Queensland recycling campaign we produced - Let's Get It Sorted - generated 18.5 million impressions in six weeks and hit 37% brand recall against a government target of 25%. Among 18 to 24 year olds it reached 54%. Sixty-seven percent of viewers reported taking action after seeing the campaign.

That result didn't come from better information design. It came from casting real characters audiences recognised, using humour to lower defences before delivering practical content, and framing recycling as something achievable rather than something they were failing at.

A council dog ownership campaign - Don't Be a Shih Tzu - hit 45,000 unsponsored views on a local government budget. A storm preparedness animation reached 48,000 views in a single week. Neither of those outcomes happened because the information was well presented. They happened because the audience felt something first.

What Queensland Government agencies should ask their creative partners

A creative agency that understands behaviour change will ask different questions at the brief stage. They'll want to know what the audience currently believes, not just what they need to know. They'll ask what makes the behaviour feel hard or irrelevant. They'll want to understand prior campaign history - what's already been tried and why it did or didn't land.

If a creative partner is only asking about deliverables, formats, and timelines, the behaviour change thinking probably isn't there.

Who does this well

The best government behaviour change campaigns are produced by teams that combine genuine creative capability with evidence-based communication strategy. Not one or the other. Creative without strategy produces work that feels good but doesn't shift anything. Strategy without creative produces work that's correct but invisible.

Welcome to the Fold has been delivering behaviour change campaigns for Queensland Government departments for more than twenty years. One of our directors holds a PhD in psychology with more than two decades of applied behavioural science experience. That's not a credential we mention as decoration - it shapes how every brief is approached, from the first conversation to the final asset.