Develop

You've segmented your audience and decided what research methods you are going to use. Now develop and test activities that are likely to bring about behaviour change. Key elements of the developing stage include:

Look at current services and service provisions

Find out if current services and service provisions can be incorporated into your social marketing programme.

Involve stakeholders

Involve key local and regional stakeholders to help endorse and implement your programme.

Look at national messages

What are the key messages that are being delivered through national campaigns? Use them locally if they are relevant. This will mean that the national campaign will reinforce your activity and vice versa.

Use behaviour change theories

Use behavioural theories to inform your campaigns. The stages of change model recognises that audiences fit into different 'states of change' or likelihood to respond to interventions designed to change behaviour. These stages are:

• Pre-contemplation - people who aren't concerned about their drinking and are not thinking about changing their behaviour
• Contemplation - people who might be aware that they are drinking too much and might be considering changing behaviour
• Preparation - people who are thinking about changing their behaviour and are getting ready to act
• Action - people who are doing something about their drinking - they may have attended an appointment with their GP or an alcohol service
• Maintenance - people who are no longer increasing or higher risk drinkers - they are drinking at lower risk levels
• Transformation/closure - people who have remained lower risk drinkers - lower risk drinking is their normal behaviour

Develop a barrier and exchange model

Develop a 'barrier and exchange' model to base your programme on by looking at national insights into audience motivations and barriers to reduce drinking.

Barriers

Barriers are the internal or external factors that prevent your audiences from changing their behaviour. In the case of alcohol, barriers to change might include:

• Motivations to drink: Drinking gives people pleasure and can relieve boredom. It's socially accepted and has manageable side-effects
• Identified barriers to reduction: Confusion around alcohol units, knowledge of risks of excessive alcohol consumption, disassociation from the issue of 'problem drinking'
• Competition: Your social marketing activity may have to compete with advertising that promotes alcoholic drinks
• Little understanding of lower risk drinking guidelines: Drinking at lower risk levels is often thought to be about whether a person can handle the consequences the next day, which is not the case

Exchange

Exchange is a way to understand the costs and benefits that a target audience associates with a desired behaviour change. It is based on the concept that people compare the costs and benefits of performing a behaviour before actually doing it. So exchange aims to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs to create an attractive exchange.

Example:

Excerpt Drinks Diary from a Times Article, from COI research: Timothy, a lawyer from London. Married with three children:

'I have a drink every day. I can't remember the last time I did not have a drink. It was probably the day I went into hospital for a minor operation about two years ago. I cycle to work every day and eat healthily. I don't think I have an alcohol problem, but I do look forward to my first drink of the day.'