Insight
From sugar to sustainability: The role of behaviour change in marketing
Marketing isn’t just about selling products. It can also play a crucial role in influencing what people think, feel and do. Behaviour change marketing uses psychological principles, data and behavioural science to encourage habit formation and shift changes in attitudes.
Download our full report: Action on sugar. The five guiding principles of behaviour change.
We’ve just spent the last five years working on a massive sugar reduction campaign for Sheffield City Council. It taught us a lot. Fill out the form below to download your free copy of the full report: Action on sugar. The five guiding principles of behaviour change.
The psychology of behaviour change marketing
Well-timed prompts, mental shortcuts and social influence are a few techniques that change the dial from passive awareness to active engagement.
We use nudges as subtle cues to gently push people towards the desired behaviour. We can apply cognitive biases that work on known psychological patterns to encourage default actions and using social proof from PLUs (People Like Us) are known to drive conversions.
How we inspired a city to eat less sugar
These were all tools we engaged with over our 5-year public health campaign for Sheffield City Council. We applied the E.A.S.T. (Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely) methodology to our approach – a simple framework that builds on nudge theory and behavioural economics.
The city of Sheffield was showing worrying levels of obesity, tooth decay and other health problems, such as high blood pressure, related to excessive sugar consumption.
We worked with the council and their partners to develop multiple micro-campaigns, under the umbrella of ‘Sheffield is Sweet Enough’, that could inspire behaviour change at population level. This was driven by five key strategies.
The 5 guiding principles of behaviour change:
• Develop strategy based on real world knowledge
• Take a whole system’s approach to behaviour change
• Understand individual motivations and barriers
• Nudge people in the right places at the right time
• Provide opportunities for continued advocacy
From Sheffield to beyond: the future for sugar
As we only had five years to create lasting change it was important to leave a legacy that communities could build on.
Many of our initiatives were designed with simple mechanics that were easy for teachers, parents, businesses, healthcare providers and group leaders to implement.
We created a centralised hub with downloadable assets to make marketing easy for everyone. The basis is there to use a springboard for fresh ideas and continued improvements in public health.
As AI and hyper-personalisation make behaviour change more real-time, responsive and automated, taking advantage of new technology will be essential for Sheffield to amplify engagement further.
In 2025 and beyond, it’ll be essential for brands to leverage AI and data to influence behaviours while retaining a human connection. If you’re working in public health or on a behaviour change project and want to see how our learnings could help, download your free copy of the full report: Action on sugar. The five guiding principles of behaviour change.