Why Most Government Awareness Campaigns Don't Change Behaviour

Government awareness campaigns are one of the most common forms of public communication and one of the most consistently ineffective at producing the outcomes they're designed to achieve. Understanding why helps agencies commission work that actually does something.

The awareness trap

Awareness is a measurable output. You can count impressions, reach, and recall. You can demonstrate that people saw the campaign. What you often can't demonstrate is that anything changed as a result.

The implicit assumption behind most awareness campaigns is that if people know about something, they'll act on it. Decades of behavioural science research has demonstrated that this assumption is wrong in most circumstances. Awareness is a necessary condition for behaviour change in almost no case that matters. People are already aware of most things government campaigns are trying to address. They know floods cause damage. They know smoking causes cancer. They know recycling matters. They do not act accordingly.

Information campaigns that increase awareness without addressing the actual drivers of behaviour produce measurable outputs and invisible outcomes. They generate reports showing reach and recall. They don't generate behaviour change.

What drives behaviour instead

People behave in accordance with what they believe others around them are doing. If the social norm around a behaviour is negative -- if most people in someone's community seem to share a practice the campaign is trying to change -- awareness of the issue changes nothing. The social norm is more powerful than the information.

People behave consistently with how they see themselves. Identity-consistent behaviour is sticky. Identity-inconsistent behaviour requires significant motivation to adopt and is rarely sustained. Campaigns that ask people to behave in ways that conflict with their self-image will fail regardless of how much reach they achieve.

People take the path of least resistance. If the desired behaviour is harder than the current behaviour, many people won't make the switch regardless of how important the campaign tells them it is. Reducing friction -- making the desired behaviour easier -- often achieves more than any amount of communication.

People respond to emotion before logic. A campaign that makes someone feel something -- understood, recognised, slightly amused, gently challenged -- is more likely to be remembered and acted on than one that presents information clearly. The feeling creates the opening. The information fills it.

What good government behaviour change campaigns do differently

They start with research into the actual drivers of the behaviour rather than assumptions about what the audience needs to hear. They define a specific behaviour objective rather than a communication message. They design the creative work around the psychological and social barriers the audience actually faces. And they measure outcomes -- actual behaviour change -- rather than just outputs.

The Let's Get It Sorted recycling campaign produced 18.5 million impressions in six weeks and 37% brand recall against a target of 25%. More importantly, 67% of viewers reported taking action after seeing the campaign and 71% felt more confident about their recycling practices. The campaign wasn't more effective because it reached more people. It was more effective because it was designed around what was actually stopping people from recycling correctly.

That's the difference behaviour change thinking makes.

Welcome to the Fold

One of our directors holds a PhD in psychology with more than twenty years of applied behavioural science experience. That's not a credential -- it's how we approach every brief. We're appointed to the Queensland All-of-Government Creative Services Panel (GGS0120-25) and six other government panels. If you want to talk about what behaviour change thinking would mean for your next campaign, get in touch.