Managing the environment

There's a ton of good stuff out there about how people really do things, and how behavior really spreads (Mark clearly has contributed a huge amount to this).  And as someone working in advertising, it's often quite depressing learning that it's not what we do that really matters, but what people do to what we do; that advertising hasn't got the strong influence we might like to think it does (shock horror, people don't do what we tell them or think about things how we ask them to).

So, is there a role and future for communications?  Well, perhaps there is but it's a little different to what we tend to think.  This week's New Scientist has an excellent article about some research at the University of Groningen that empirically proves the 'broken window' theory. Here's an excerpt:

In the most striking experiment, Keizer left a €5 note protruding from a fully addressed envelope that itself was poking out of a mailbox. The team discovered that people were less likely to steal the money if there was no graffiti or litter on or around the mailbox.

With no litter or graffiti, 13% of the passers-by stole the money. Thefts doubled to 27% when the mailbox was daubed with graffiti, or to 25% when it was surrounded by litter. "It's quite shocking that the mere presence of litter doubled the number of people stealing," says Keizer.

In another experiment, motorists returning to collect their cars were three times more likely to trespass through an illegal, 200-metre short-cut to the car park if bicycles had been illegally locked to railings next to the forbidden entrance.

A massive 87% took the short cut when they saw the illegally parked bicycles, despite a police sign saying "No Trespassing". This compared with 27% trespassing when the bicycles were not locked to the fence.

Another experiment in a cycle park bearing a clear anti-graffiti sign, revealed that cyclists were twice as likely to leave litter if the researchers had daubed graffiti on the walls. The team attached bogus flyers to the bikes' handlebars to put the owners in a situation where they had to decide whether or not to litter.

So, perhaps we should think about communications as being more about environment management, creating an environment where people are more likely to behave in a favorable way. About seeding the right environment where behavior is more likely to take hold.  Which puts us squarely back in the culture business...

Comments

[niko]

Top Post.

The Japanese designer Kenya Hara has touched on similar thoughts. he speaks of designing “circumstances” or “conditions” rather than “things.”

[John Gerzema]

Hey Gareth,

I posted something on Twitter today about 'herd-like copying' and its impact on individual behavior. I definitely see the cohesion between this behavior and marketing as culture creation and management. It seems both of these studies are founded on the fundamental insight that humans, are first and foremost, social creatures. With new tools for rapidly assembling our social circles and disseminating information within them, marketers will have to seek holistic, cultural touchstones to generate interest in their brands.

Challenging and incredibly exciting times for marketing. One other thing, with equity values decimated, perhaps business will have the opportunity to move beyond the quarterly earnings call and think strategically for the long term.

Interesting times.

[gareth]

Totally agree John, Interesting times, but I think truly exciting ones despite the economic pains of the moment.
Hope all well with you
Gareth

[Nick]

Hi Gareth,

You and your readers might be interested in Dan's excellent pres., entitled Design with Intent:

http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/what-is-design-with-intent/

Cheers,
Nick

[Charles Sipe]

This makes a lot of sense and demonstrates the power of suggestion or priming. The graffiti on the mailboxes encourages certain behavior and is similar to the famous study in which people who solved a word puzzle with "elderly" words walked significantly slower afterward. Suggestions or cues can influence behavior, even if they are barely above our subconscious.

[gareth]

Suggestions and cues even work on us cynical folk in the ad industry, as Derren Brown showed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f29kF1vZ62o

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