Is your brand misbehaving? Is your audience not responding to your brand message as desired? Perhaps, you should consider creating a behavior intervention plan (BIP) for your brand.
Behavior plans are a useful classroom management tool for students engaging in inappropriate classroom behavior. They serve to teach and reinforce positive behaviors and are a way of documenting the success of the intervention.
We can apply the same principles to brands. After all, we are in the business of changing behavior; We want people to buy our products, purchase more, stop or increase a particular conduct.
While this might have been hard to pull off a few years ago, today's data and technology allow us to simulate a classroom environment. We can use social network platforms such as Facebook to target behaviors at the micro-moment level and create proactive and reactive strategies to modify our audience behavior.
Changing behavior is hard. We are human, imperfect and irrational. Data and technology help, but to change people's behavior we still need a plan designed for the irrationality of the human mind.
How would a Behavioral Plan work on brands? With some creative liberties, here are five steps to create one for your brands.
Let's say that we want to convince Carl, a New Yorker in his early 30's who works in a consulting firm, to try a new brand of Belgian White beer that we want to sell.
1.Description of the targeted behavior
Describe the behavior, and what does the action looks like?
Carl likes to drink Bluemoon, another Belgian white. The goal is for Carl to try our new beer, which is within the same category he likes.
Identify the frequency of the behavior (how often it occurs), intensity (how severe is it), and the duration (how long does the behavior last)?
Carl drinks three beers every Friday after work at the bar. And occasional on weekdays around the same time.
2.Functional behavior assessment
What are they trying to achieve? What are they getting and avoiding?
He drinks beer as a reward for the hard working day or week. He enjoys the taste of citrus and wheat of the Belgian white. He also likes to support brands that are environmentally and socially responsible.
3. Desired behavior
Identify the behavior that would be taught to replace the existing behavior, which must be related to the function.
We are going to prime Carl to try the new beer through a mix of modeling, direct instructions, and non-verbal cues. We are going to link to the function by highlighting the great citrus and wheat taste of the new brand as a reward for a hard working day. We are also going to emphasize the company commitment to protect the environment.
4. Behavior Change Plan
Proactive: What active support would be used to encourage the replacement of the behavior?
Obedience/Modeling: We would leverage the power of authority to drive compliance. People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their power as morally right or legally based.
For instance, we could create a short video of an influencer, whom Carl follows, recommending the new beer. We would target the video on Facebook a couple of hours before the end of business day on Friday. And reinforce the message through the weekday on about the same time.
The power of small commitment: By making small, but firm commitments to ourselves, we can begin to move in a consistent direction and finally start to see some significant changes.
We could ask Carl to make a small commitment by liking the video, which is not necessarily an endorsement for the brand, but more of a commitment to support an independent brewery, which is environmentally friendly.
5. Data Collection
How will progress be monitored and data collected to ensure the effectiveness of the behavior plan?
Besides measuring Carl's interaction with videos and visitation to the brand site, we can use digital coupons that he can redeem at any liquor store to track purchase behavior.
In summary, today's data and technology are empowering a different approach to marketing; One that focuses on actions, not attitudes. Act with surgical precision, not with careless timing. One that is personalized, not for the masses. A marketing approach closer to the world that we live in, which is active, real and human.
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