Transcription Audio

Hello and welcome. If you’ve ever poured your heart into a gorgeous wildlife video, posted it everywhere, and wondered why nothing changed on the ground, this episode is for you. Awareness alone doesn’t shift behaviour. What does is storytelling that lands at the exact moment people are deciding what to do, paired with an easy next step, backed by social norms and local voices, and supported by programs or policies that make the wildlife-friendly choice the obvious choice. After teaching this to hundreds of professionals across councils, NGOs, NRM groups and consultancies, I kept seeing the same pattern. The campaigns that move the needle aren’t just telling better stories—they’re engineering better choices. That’s when you see real numbers: wildlife-safe netting sales up 300% after a targeted push, or dog leashing compliance during shorebird nesting season jumping from 40 to 85%. That’s behaviour design wrapped in compelling narrative. Two frameworks will keep you honest: COM-B and EAST. COM-B: Capability, Opportunity, Motivation. If people don’t have the skills, they won’t act. If the environment doesn’t support the behaviour, they can’t act. If the motivation doesn’t resonate, they won’t want to act. Interventions that build all three perform far better than those targeting just one. A video alone won’t cut it. Pair your message with simple how-tos or training, a supportive setup in the real world, and a reason that matters to the person you’re trying to reach. EAST: Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely. Easy means remove friction—cutting steps from five to three can boost completion dramatically. Attractive means make the benefits vivid and local—“here, now, your place.” Social means show the norm—when people see most neighbours using wildlife-safe netting, adoption rises. Timely means show up right when decisions happen. Timing is everything in Australia. Wildlife decisions are hyper local, seasonal, and shaped by identity. If shorebird nesting peaks September to February, a July sign is invisible. You want that campaign just before the season, on the exact beaches, with messages at leash decision points: the car park, the path start, the leash rack. Do the same with garden netting: run your push before fruiting. On roads, target dusk and spring dispersal. Precision is the difference between nice and effective. Voices matter. Stories grounded in Country, place, and identity consistently outperform generic “save wildlife” messages. When we co-design with Traditional Owners, respect cultural protocols, and let Country lead the narrative, trust climbs. First Nations leaders, local rangers, surf lifesavers, farmers, fishers, and trusted vets carry more credibility than a distant brand. It’s not tokenism—it’s legitimacy and social proof. Here’s a reality check. Even well-run public campaigns typically shift behaviour in single digits at a population level. A five to ten percent change is a win. Use that as a planning tool. But when you align media with infrastructure, incentives, or regulation, you can lock in bigger, lasting changes. Think container refunds. When New South Wales launched Return and Earn, comms and convenient refund points rolled out together. By late 2024, more than twelve and a half billion containers were returned. Or the 2018 plastic bag phase-out: not just a restriction—clear in-store signage, staff prompts, and a swift norm shift delivered an estimated eighty percent drop in bag use within months. The lesson: when retailers adjust the default and the story shows why and how, norms flip fast. Wildlife-safe standards follow the same pattern. When states introduced requirements for wildlife-safe fruit tree netting, effective campaigns showed the why—reducing horrific entanglements—and the how—what compliant mesh looks like, where to find it, and how to fit it. Retailers labelled the right products. Councils ran demos, bulk-buys, and quick-fit guides. The choice architecture shifted: right netting was easier to find, easier to understand, and on the shelf at the right time. That trifecta moves behaviour. You’ll notice a theme. The story doesn’t live alone; it’s strapped to a frictionless action and pushed by policy, pricing, and peers. Double-digit behaviour change shows up when emotional storytelling meets smart choice architecture. Don’t just inspire—rebuild the path so the inspired person lands on the right step without thinking. Let’s translate this into your next campaign. First, pick one behaviour, not five. Maybe it’s keeping dogs on leads on specific beaches during nesting season, swapping to wildlife-safe netting, or reporting koala sightings via a particular hotline. Name the single moment when the decision happens. Is it at the pet shop buying a lead? At the car park before the beach? At the hardware store before fruiting? Or at the dinner table choosing seafood? Then remove friction at that exact point. Stock compliant products. Place signs where hands reach for leashes. Integrate the reporting app into local Facebook groups. Put a QR code on the trail. Offer default pickup for containers. Find credible local voices. On the coast, a surf lifesaver or respected fisher. Inland, a farmer or wildlife carer. Always co-design with Traditional Owners—start with Country as the core of the narrative. Keep language plain, local, and concrete. Show people like me in places like mine doing the behaviour you want, and explain why it matters to my mob, my kids, my patch. Make the norm visible. Don’t let good behaviour happen in the dark. Celebrate blocks where nine out of ten houses use safe netting. Show the map where most dog owners are leading by example. Share that local vets recommend cat containment and why. People move toward what their neighbours do. Time your push. Hit the pre-season window, the policy announcement, the big local event. Align with fruiting calendars, migratory patterns, or school holidays. A great message at the wrong time is just noise. Measure. Decide upfront what success looks like and how you’ll count it. For dog leashing: observational counts at peak times on targeted beaches. For netting: track sales of compliant mesh in target postcodes and log entanglement reports to local carers. For citizen science: track app installs, active users, and usable data submissions. Without this, you can’t improve next season. Here’s when not to run a campaign. Don’t launch awareness when there’s no feasible action. If safe netting isn’t stocked locally, fix that first. Don’t run a nesting blitz in the wrong months. Don’t pour effort into storytelling when you could change the default—like persuading retailers to stock only wildlife-safe options. And don’t ask people to climb a mountain of steps. Shorten the path. A quick word on motivation. Conservation often leans on abstract values—biodiversity, extinction risk, global crises. Those matter, but local identity and practical benefits often move faster: protect your favourite beach, save that familiar family of shorebirds, keep your fruit and the wildlife, avoid fines, do what most neighbours already do. Pair heart with habit. Show the immediate payoff. Let the right people say it. If you’re running a koala-safe neighbourhood project, a cat containment push, a shorebird campaign, or a citizen science rollout, anchor your plan in COM-B and EAST, build for local context, and align with policy or infrastructure that cements the change. If you want more on governance, partnerships, and delivery, there’s a companion playbook for building local initiatives for Australian wildlife. Pair strategy with execution. Here’s a simple test for any piece of content. Ask: Who exactly is this for? What single decision are they about to make? What’s the one action I want? What’s the easiest way for them to do it right now? Who do they trust to say it? And what cue in their environment will back it up? If you can answer those, you’re not just telling a story—you’re designing a behaviour. Thanks for listening. If this sparked ideas for your patch of Country, take one behaviour, one place, and one season, and build from there. Small, specific, and local beats big and vague every time. And when in doubt, make it easy, make it social, and make it timely.