HOW BIG IS THAT?

There’s been a lot to critique in the UK government’s communications to the general public during the pandemic. The dearth of clarity and simplicity (M&C Saatchi’s ‘brutal simplicity’ might have been useful in prepping the comms); you could have a go at the “ramping up” of “unprecedented” empty phrases; you could pick on the tardiness of essential communication (we’ve just received a “you’re on the list” 5 weeks after lockdown began); you could pick on the general slipperiness around the datasets , what the actual numbers are (including home and care home deaths) and what the actual  trends are.

Today, I just want to focus on one thing: a small thing that is also a BIG thing (well, bigger than most us think) about using communication to change behaviour.

I’m sure that many of you have experienced someone not keeping their distance as they pass you along the street or in the park. Lots of us have runner stories (it’s now a thing on twitter); many of us have at one time or another over the last few weeks found themselves shouting (and even swearing…) at people who don’t seem to have got the message.

The late great Erving Goffman documented the very complex rule-bound worlds we create – with etiquettes and rituals – in shared public spaces and how we create moments of escape.  While he did some work in the Scotland, Goffman might have been surprised quite how angry a Brit can get over someone breaking an unspoken etiquette. If you’re interested in reading more and in understanding how we manage public and private selves in public spaces read his 1963 book Behaviour in Public Places. Essential.

So here’s the challenge: to make social distancing in public spaces work, the government needs to get people to stay 2 metres apart from each other (or 6’6″). They need to re-engineer the algorithm that lies behind the crowd’s behaviour.

So what do they do?

They tell us what to do.

They tell us to stay 2 metres apart.

Again and again.

2 metres apart.

So why do the joggers (and the nice lady that tried to walk at us on Sunday), the crazy cat lady down our road and the family groups we encounter on dog walks not get it?

Lots of psychology-based answers plausible here: attention and distraction, cocooning, habit, high levels of stimulation,  etc

But the obvious one is this: telling me something has much less power than showing me something. And showing you and me something that you and I can adopt as a simple behavioural rule of thumb – a heuristic – to shape our interactions with each other is bound to be more effective than telling us stuff.

On the paths in the park, on the pavement on the street – that’s where the comms needs to be (grocery stores and pharmacies have started to mark out the queue waiting points on the street). That’s where the communications needs to be impacting.

Far too much “2 metres” as an info nugget and far too little of this kind of thing:

Show, don’t tell.

Last week I saw one rather eccentric lady of mature years on the Heath using a crutch stuck out at right angles to the way she was walking to stop runners coming within 2metres. I’ve seen golf umbrellas used this way and today noticed that some dog owners are deliberately placing the dog (on a lead) between them and anyone they might come across. Update: I’d forgotten this marvellous example from the BBC’s Health Correspondent Laura Foster a month ago. Why wasn’t government doing this?

All of these are pretty good and better than a minister or newsreader intoning “social distancing”. All of these start from the audience and the desired behaviour and work back.

We humans are an approximate bunch – we need to have proxies and rules of thumb to help guide are actions. What does 2m look like? Not many of us could pick a 2m rope out of a bundle of different length ropes.

The comms brief should have been: find simple helpful ways for us all to model the desired new behaviour of social distancing in a public space. This is how far apart 2m is…

this is what it looks like

Show me; don’t tell me. Help me learn, don’t just transmit the information. Help me and you – together – learn what’s wanted and put it into practice so it becomes the norm.

It’s a classic public communications mistake but one that also many other organisations work – they think that telling people to act differently changes their behaviour; it rarely does.

[Of course, there is one tiny problem with the 2m social distance recommendation in London: TFL planners suggest that 2m should be the width of a pavement – slightly wider if you have street furniture in. Bottom line: if someone’s on the pavement you should be in the road if you are to maintain social distancing in public]