Recently we’ve had the extraordinary ability to use social norming in changing behavior successfully in our motorcycle safety campaigns with the military. Most notably, Semper Ride has seen a 40% reduction in fatalities year over year. The Outdoor Adventure and Action Sports industry has an enormous opportunity to expand this to influence their audience in a more positive way than to just buy their latest product. Amazingly this can drive up the participation in their sports simultaneously. The question is, will they take up the gauntlet?
Social Norming is the practice of taking an “at risk” audience and making them aware of how their perception of reality compares with actual reality. Take an obvious example such as someone who drinks in excess (say 4 beers a night). Especially with younger audiences the perception is that they don’t drink more than the average person. Using social norming, you would use a credible messenger to show them that in reality they drink significantly more than than the average person who only drinks 1 beer (i’m making this example up) per night.
Semper Ride took the approach of introducing professional athletes to address the perception that they didn’t ride safely and that was the only way to be successful. In fact most athletes work with a team of support personnel, wear more than the standard safety gear and don’t ride in a risky manner on public highways and streets.
The British have been noted for making some very powerful commercials in recent years. One of my favorites involves the Grim Reaper as the messenger. Take note of the statistical comparison between the incidents involving military personnel versus the general public. The rest is just powerful emotional entertainment and messenging.
On Twitter
