British Airways, British humour and the COM-B model of behaviour change
How do British Airways use the COM-B model of behaviour change - and lashings of good old British humour - to encourage bored passengers to actually watch their safety films? And how can you apply this model to your own communications, within your organisation and in marketing to customers?
So I was sitting on a British Airways plane at Buenos Aires, waiting for take off, when the safety film started playing. And it was really, really funny.
Normally all the stuff about life jackets and finding the exits and switching off devices is done through voice announcements and an air hostess waving her arms around. And the problem is – despite this being critical information that can increase your chance of actually surviving if there’s a crash – you’re not paying attention, are you? Be honest – it’s boring, you’ve seen it all before, and deep down you think you’ll look like a newbie if you’re visibly hanging on their every word.
How to combat this? With humour.
May We Haveth One’s Attention was set up like a great British period drama. As they explain on their website, “It pays homage to the UK’s rich and varied history, made famous by our literature, films and TV. Set in some of the most beautiful and recognisable locations from the world of period drama, it features our very own British Airways colleagues in modern Ozwald Boateng uniform and in period costume alongside a stellar cast of professional actors.”
So you see scenes like the one below, with the be-wigged lady being handed a laptop and exclaiming, “It moves! What is this witchcraft!”, before being asked to store electronic devices before take-off. One of her courtiers promptly faints behind her. I took these pictures from my seat - see how the film is translated into different languages so everyone can understand.
Read the story behind it from British Airways themselves and see it in full below:
Funny, isn’t it? And I thought it was a great example of using the COM-B model to change behaviour and get people to do the thing you need them to do, ie, watch, understand and retain otherwise dry and boring information.
So, what’s the COM-B model of behaviour change?
Developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen, & Robert West, the context for the COM-B model was public health. You can see the full explanation here: The Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide To Designing Interventions. It helps you pinpoint the behaviour that needs tackling, and decide on the intervention that will need to positive change.
Examples which come to mind would be the policy to restrict the amount of painkillers you can buy, which has reduced the number of overdose deaths by 43%. Or the Five a Day campaign, which gives people the knowledge, the psychological capability, to eat better.
Why COM-B? The B stands for Behaviour, and then there are three essential components, with two factors within:
C. Capability: Are you actually able to do this thing?
Physical: The strength, skills and stamina
Psychological: The knowledge, cognitive and interpersonal skills, and the discipline to do it
O. Opportunity: The external factors that enable you to do it, or not.
Social: The linguistic and cultural norms in the social world in which you inhabit
Physical: Time, money, resources, the physical environment around you
M. Motivation: The driving factors that make you want to do it
Automatic: Emotional reactions, wants and needs, and habits which influence your behaviour
Reflective: The conscious planning, intentions, and beliefs
British Airways and the COM-B model
Thinking about the British Airways safety film, people have the Capability and the Opportunity. They’re physically in their seat - and they’re familiar with the concept of watching a film on a screen in front of them. So how do you get them to watch the film?
The answer lies in Motivation, both automatic and reflective. This is where humour comes in. Directed by Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones's Diary), the film is funny, and it tells a story, triggering that emotion, that urge to keep watching to see what happens next. British passengers will be looking out for cultural references and locations they know and love, while for non-Brits, the knowingly romanticised Pride and Prejudice-ness of it all fits in with the vision of Britain they know and love from our literature, TV and film.
The British Airways safety film launched in July 2024, and was a huge hit online and has now racked up 2m views. I’d love to see data on passenger retention of the information; I bet it’s higher than when they just read a tatty card from the seat in front of them.
How does the COM-B model of behaviour change relate to marketing and communications?
Since completing courses in behaviour change with UCL, Durham University and FutureLearn this year, I’ve been enjoying taking this COM-B model and applying it to marketing and communications.
Why are customers not buying your stuff, for example? Is it C, O, or M? Once you’re worked out why, you can introduce changes which move things in the right direction.
Then you can look at the Behaviour Change Wheel, which gives you nine options for action you can take to change the behaviour.
Education
Restrictions
Persuasion
Incentivisation
Coercion
Training
Enablement
Modelling
Environment restructuring.
In practice: Using the COM-B model in marketing and communications
Here’s a couple of examples for you, one for a lead generation campaign and one for a communication issue internally.
1. You’ve spent months preparing a whitepaper, spent thousands on the ad campaign, people are clicking through to the site. But no downloads. What’s going wrong?
Reason: Psychological capability. People are motivated to come to the page, they have the opportunity, but it’s so full of images and links to articles and additional calls to action, that the download button is buried way down the bottom of the page and your customers can’t find it! There’s so much competing for their attention they lose interest and click away.
Solution: Environment restructuring, AKA declutter the page. Remove everything, strip it right back, until there’s just an image, a line or two of text, and a big fat button telling people to download the whitepaper. Watch your conversions rocket.
2. You’ve just spent all this money on a fancy all-in-one sales and marketing tool, which has the CRM, content marketing, scheduling, publishing, and reporting all in one. Beautiful. But no one’s using it. Arrggghh!
Reason: Reflective motivation. They just don’t see why it’s so important, either to them or the business as a whole. They’re also pretty happy with the current tools they’re using and don’t see any reason to change. Plus they resent having to mess around with different passwords just to log in, whereas the old system was a seamless part of their workflow.
Solution: Education and training. Share sales figures and show the positive impact the new tool is having on the business – and how extra profits can translate into salary increases and progression for them. Run training sessions to spot and address areas of friction, and record a how-to session for new starters too, so they see the tool as the norm and are shown how to use it during onboarding.
How can you use COM-B in your marketing and communications?
Interesting, isn't it? Think of a knotty communications challenge which you just can’t seem to untangle. Then try the COM-B model of behaviour change to make small changes which get people to do the things you need them to do.
At Sookio we are continually learning new ways to enhance your communications from the inside out.
Talk to us about communications consultancy and how we can use behavioural science techniques to get the best out of your customers, clients and team.
