[00:00:00] Here's your communications challenge. You are currently working for an up and coming organisation and you are struggling to build momentum and support from the community. You know you've got a great inspiring product and there's a sister product that's going absolutely gangbusters.

[00:00:17] But for some reason people don't see your product as something they should invest in. So what communication strategies would you employ to try and change people's minds and get more support? And what product am I talking about? Well, it is currently AFL grand final week here in Australia, which means I'm heading down to Melbourne to watch my team, the Brisbane Lions, have a second crack at getting the title.

[00:00:42] But we are also in the middle of the women's season. And while there's been a lot of progress in recent years, they still struggle to get members despite the popularity of the men's team and the club's long history. For background, membership of the women's and men's teams are currently paid separately.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] So if you were in charge of communications at the Brisbane Lions AFLW, what would you suggest they do to help change people's minds and get more members? Well, today I'm going to share a few of my ideas in the first of a series on problem solving change comms challenges for different organisations.

[00:01:19] Let's get started.

[00:01:23] Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Less Chatter, More Matter - the communications podcast,.I'm your host Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggara and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, also known as Brisbane. Now, speaking of Brisbane, it is a big week here with the Australian Football League Grand Final coming up.

[00:01:44] For those of you who are listening to this from outside of Australia, AFL or Australian Rules Footy is our own special brand of footy and people are raving mad about it, especially in the southern states. Now, if you don't know much about the game, I highly recommend you look up some clips on [00:02:00] YouTube.

[00:02:00] Essentially, very tall people, run a lot, they crash into each other, they jump high and they kick goals, hopefully, over the course of about two hours. Now, in recent years, the women's professional competition has been established, which is a huge step forward. Previously, many girls who played the game as kids wouldn't have a professional career path to pursue in the sport.

[00:02:22] These days, most of the major clubs have a women's program in their academies and a women's top tier team. The challenge, however, is that most of these women's teams are just not getting the level of support the men's teams enjoy despite training and playing just as hard and often while having to earn a living through a day job as well.

[00:02:42] This year, the Brisbane Lions women's team, who were premiers last year, were getting creative on their social media to try and bring in more members. But what else could we do to try and change people's minds and drive more members? Today, I'm going to share potential strategies based on behavioural [00:03:00] science that the Brisbane Women's AFLW club could use, and you might find some inspiration for your own business or even your own local sports club.

[00:03:08] So let's get into it. I do want to say though, I haven't been asked by the AFLW to do this, so they can feel free to ignore everything. Okay. The first strategy is appealing to people's sense of identity. This is a really powerful way to inspire and motivate people and can be used in changes of all shapes and sizes.

[00:03:29] The way I would do this for the Lions AFLW is to start to talk about an identity of a true fan in inverted commas. Now, what I mean by that is challenging people using phrases like true fans support the whole club, not just one team. This appeals to what we call in group and out group bias. So essentially, we are biologically wired to try and belong to a group.

[00:03:54] It's part of our early survival mechanisms where not being a part of a group meant you were [00:04:00] at a disadvantage insofar as trying to find food, stay safe, procreate, etc. And that in group bias, unfortunately, shows up every day, even today. Hundreds of thousands of years later, think about all the times you may have witnessed somebody not speaking up for what they really think or what they really believe in because that that would be contrary to what the group believes or just going with the rest of the group because it was easier than going against.

[00:04:28] And the challenge with this is that outgroup bias plays a part where we start to believe everything we and our group think is right and any other group is wrong. If that sounds familiar, that's because of today's political environment. But anyway, back to the Lions AFLW. I think we could build on an existing sense of identity with those who support the men's team and challenge them to become true fans by also supporting the women's team.

[00:04:55] Another tactic you could employ here is priming whereby we prime people's [00:05:00] thinking and then draw on their consistency bias. So what would that look like? Well, you could ask a question at the start of your communication. Like, do you consider yourself a true Brisbane Lions fan? Now, most people you'd speak to who were currently members would say, yes, I do.

[00:05:17] Then you follow that up with, well, true fans support the whole club. Not just one team. True fans are also AFLW members. Now, this then plays on our consistency bias, which is our desire to remain consistent to what we've previously said, even if our thoughts on the subject have changed. It's proven over and over.

[00:05:38] And this kind of phrasing also leans into the research around the use of language and identity. I think I've mentioned this before on the show, but to recap, there's been a few studies on how simple changes to nouns and verbs can sway people's behaviors. In one study, a kindergarten teacher accidentally, in inverted commas again, knocked over some pencils.

[00:05:59] Now one group [00:06:00] of children were asked, will you help clean up? And the other group was asked, will you be a helper? The children in the latter group who were asked to be helpers were more likely to assist. Now, a similar study in the United States found that those people who were asked, will you be a voter? , Versus: will you vote? Were much more likely to actually go and cast their ballot in the federal election.

[00:06:24] So if we can use language like fan and supporter rather than supporting. For example, we may be able to persuade a few more people to consider membership. So that's strategy number one, appeal to people's innate in group bias and sense of identity by using messaging along the lines of true fans are supporters of the whole club, not just one team.

[00:06:48] Okay. The second tip or the second strategy I would try is defaults. This is more of a technical or logistical one, I suppose, rather than a comms one, but defaults have been found to [00:07:00] significantly improve rates of participation, especially when choices are unclear, uncertain, or as in this case, require effort.

[00:07:10] So defaults are being used more and more in policymaking and in different contexts around the world. So for example, people are automatically enrolled in a superannuation fund when they start a new job in Australia. There's a few great examples elsewhere, like increasing the participation rate of and amounts of retirement savings in the U S, uh, increasing organ donation rates across the EU and increasing charitable donations in the UK.

[00:07:38] It's all about making it easy. That's a big part of any change. If it's not easy, then people will resist it. Think about any time you worked on a change where you're asking people to use a new piece of software or a new piece of technology. If it's not easy, they're not going to do it. The other thing to note about defaults is that if something is set as a default position, it anchors [00:08:00] it as the status quo, and that also increases the chances of it being chosen.

[00:08:05] So, how do we apply defaults to AFLW membership? A couple of ideas here, and again, I have no idea if this is even technically possible with the way the Lions is set up right now, but number one: Perhaps when you purchase your annual men's membership, you could also automatically have the women's membership added to your cart.

[00:08:25] And again, you can opt out if you want, but it takes away the effort. Another option here is that when membership options come up on your screen, the default selected option is the one with both memberships. And another default could be that it's an automatic renewal of membership at the end of each season.

[00:08:42] So many services already do this. I mean, think about your Spotify account, Netflix, Amazon. All those things. These nudges work because they're not mandatory. People can opt out at any time and that's part of what makes them so effective because as I've said time and time again, change isn't hard, especially when we [00:09:00] feel we're in control.

[00:09:01] Change feels hard when it feels like it's happening to us. So that's strategy number two. Make it a default. Okay. Still on the actual membership buying process itself. The third strategy I would try is anchoring. Now anchoring is effectively showing a price or an option first that people then use as a benchmark or comparison to others.

[00:09:26] So on the membership website, you could show a high price for a single women's membership up front, then show how both memberships would decrease overall if bought together. For example, this kind of tactic has been shown to work on cafe menus. For example, we're having the highest priced options at the top tend to result in people purchasing more expensive meals because everything after that price feels like a bargain.

[00:09:52] And now this also leads me to another couple ideas in this category, decoy pricing. And the Goldilocks effect. Let's start with [00:10:00] decoy pricing. So this is a pricing strategy that's used to switch a user's choice from one option to another. And that other option is usually more expensive, but more profitable for the business.

[00:10:12] One of the most famous examples of is the Economist magazine's subscription model. So they had three options, option one, Option one was an online subscription only for 59 US. Option two was this print subscription only for 125 US. And option three was print and web subscription for 125 US again. Now of course a consumer is likely to pick option three because it appears they get more value than just, just buying the online one or just buying the print one, especially when print only is exactly the same price as getting both.

[00:10:49] Why does this work? Well, the genius part is that it moves consumers away from the cheaper option, which is online only to the more expensive and profitable option. And it's actually believed that the [00:11:00] magazine increased sales by 43 percent after using this tactic. So how can we apply this to the AFLW?

[00:11:08] Well, you could have three options for men's membership. One is women's only price at the cheaper rate. The second is men's only priced much higher. The third is the same price as the men's only, but also includes the women's competition. Now in the background, of course, we would have hiked up the price overall because you know, We're trying to cover both, but in the foreground, it doesn't look like that.

[00:11:31] It looks like, Hey, I could actually get both memberships for the same price as getting one and getting that perceived extra value would likely drive more memberships. You could also try a variation on this, which is called the Goldilocks effect. So essentially we choose a middle option. Because as humans, we're often risk averse and we avoid extremes.

[00:11:51] So option one might be a very basic, scarce membership offer. Option three would be VIP, all the bells and whistles, plus all the things [00:12:00] you don't really need and more. And of course it's much more expensive. Option two, the middle ground, becomes the safe ground in between. You get a bit more value than basic for a few more dollars, but it's cheaper than option three.

[00:12:13] Again, even in my own experience, I find people tend to go for the middle ground. So that is strategy number three, anchoring. Okay. Strategy number four is all about one of the most powerful things you can ever use in change communication. It's social proof. It's part of why change champions are such a great communication channel, because People see them role modeling the change and getting value out of it.

[00:12:41] But also they are people we can relate to. And they usually, because they're team members, people that we like and trust. Social proof also plays into that in group bias that I spoke about earlier. Like people want to feel like they're part of a group and they also want to feel like they're doing something meaningful.

[00:12:58] So how do [00:13:00] we apply this to the AFLW? A couple of ideas. Number one, use real life testimonials from real life AFL members, particularly those who look and sound like the people who are usually just at men's team games. So get that big burly bloke to say how much he enjoys going to the AFLW, the atmosphere of the women's games, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:13:23] There's a really great example of this from an old advertising campaign in Texas, USA. where they were trying to reduce people littering, especially by throwing things out of their cars on the highways. This tagline was so successful. It was don't mess with Texas. Now, not only did that appeal to a sense of identity as we talked about earlier, but it also used famous Texans that people could relate to.

[00:13:48] It's been so successful that litter has reduced by 50 percent since 1995 and continues to decline. So you could expand this to including famous Queenslanders or even [00:14:00] players from the men's team. Another way to use social proof during the membership signup process, especially when people are buying men's membership is to use a prompt like: people who bought this membership also bought a membership to the women's competition. Using specific numbers usually works really well in this context, if it's a good story. So for example, 50 percent of people who bought this also bought X. Now there's a great experiment by Robert Cialdini that illustrates how this works.

[00:14:30] He and his research team placed different cards in different hotel rooms. And these cards urged people to reuse their towels. But there were three different versions of the message. One said, for example, help save the environment. You can show your respect for nature and help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay.

[00:14:51] But of all the messages, this one was the most powerful because it used social proof. It read, join your fellow [00:15:00] guests in helping to save the environment. Almost 75 percent of guests who are asked to participate in our new resource savings program do help by using their towels more than once.

[00:15:10] You can join your fellow guests to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay. The first message resulted in a reuse rate of about 38%. The second message I just read, that rate jumped to 48%. So definitely think about how you can use social proof in your change comms. Okay. Final one, make it fun.

[00:15:33] Depending on the context, of course, if you can make change fun, you have a much better chance of succeeding. So with the Lions AFLW, for example, they're already doing stuff like entertainment at the ground on the game day, kids activities, fun, social media, food trucks, et cetera. But you need to get people there first.

[00:15:53] Now, some of you may have seen an experiment that was done in a train station in Sweden. A few years ago, researchers [00:16:00] wanted to get more people to take the stairs up from the train station rather than take the escalator. It's all about a few extra steps, getting healthier, et cetera. So, they turned the stairs into a live giant piano board.

[00:16:15] Each step you stood on was a key that played a note. So just by walking up and down the stairs, you could play a tune, which is really cool. Just do a quick Google for Swedish piano stairs experiment and you'll be able to see it. It's super fun. But what's really incredible is they found that 66 percent more commuters than normal took the stairs when they were fun.

[00:16:37] How can we apply this to the AFLW and getting people to a Brisbane Lions women's game? A bit of context here. Because the women's game doesn't get as many attendees yet, it's currently played at a stadium on the very outskirts of Brisbane. In fact, it's actually in another, technically another council area.

[00:16:54] Now it is a great stadium, but it's a long way from a lot of fans. So we have to make it easy and we have to [00:17:00] make it fun to get there. This idea actually credits my husband. So this would be a partnership with the transport department. And that's how we can make this happen. Essentially, you could use a train as the game train and paint and decorate it to make it clear.

[00:17:15] It's a Brisbane Lions AFLW train taking fans to the game. The train would leave from a few central locations, head straight to the train station at the stadium, and on board you could have free entertainment, maybe a few former and current players walking around. It could be free again, have to make it easy to, and from the venue, but importantly, what a great PR opportunity.

[00:17:37] Think of the imagery you could get from that, the content that could be repurposed across all of your internal and external channels. It would be amazing. So that's idea number five. Make it fun. Okay. It is time for your episode recap. Today was a case study in how we could change behaviour through some behavioural science techniques and communication strategies.

[00:17:59] In [00:18:00] short, we want more people to buy memberships to the AFLW Brisbane Lions. And the five strategies I've suggested are number one, build on people's sense of identity using a phrase like true Lions fans are supporters of the whole club, not just one team. Number two was using defaults. This is all about making it easy.

[00:18:19] When people buy a men's membership, the women's is automatically added to their cart, and we can go further by putting in automatic renewals. Number three was anchoring. So this is about setting a price that sets a benchmark or the status quo for people, and using that to nudge them in a direction that benefits the women's competition.

[00:18:38] It's also about potentially using decoy pricing to deliver a sense of value. Number four, social proof. So powerful in change communication. Use testimonials from people who are like the people you want to attract and show people how to be a part of that in group. And number five, make it fun. Find ways [00:19:00] to not only make it fun at the games, but fun to get there too.

[00:19:02] And maybe even a fun website membership experience. Okay, so that was a slightly different episode from my usual programming. So I would love to hear what you thought of it. Please send me a message via socials or email. I read them all. I respond to them all. I've also just recently recorded a couple of interviews with some wonderful guests, which you will hear over the next few weeks.

[00:19:24] So stay tuned for that. And don't forget that you can join the 1, 200 other people just like you and hop on my mailing list. So each fortnight you will get an email with the latest news, resources, events, and ultimately packed full of value. The link for that is in the show notes. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.