The challenge of supporting Social and Behaviour Change has never been greater.
We live in a world of more information but less trust.
More connection, but less consensus.
People are easier to reach, but harder to move.
And quicker to reject what doesn’t feel like their own.
When we want change to be transparent and voluntary, when we ask people to choose, not comply, identity shifts from being one of many influences to the defining one.
Working with identity reduces resistance, minimises backlash, and leads to more sustainable outcomes.
Because lasting change doesn’t come from coercion, compliance, or short-term incentives.
It comes from alignment. Where a new attitude or behaviour feels not only possible and desirable, but true to who someone is.
That’s why we start with identity.
What sets us apart: five core principles
1. Respect complexity. Create simplicity.
Attitudes and behaviours are shaped by a tangle of systems, social structures, and lived realities. We don’t oversimplify, but we do distil complexity into applicable insights and practical strategies that can be understood and acted on.
2. The past shapes the path forward.
Past experiences, emotional associations, and learned responses shape how they perceive new behaviours. We explore the habits, heuristics, and mental models people bring with them to better understand what will support or stand in the way of change.
3. Build with, not for.
We treat expertise as something shared, not centralised. That’s why we prioritise co-creation, participatory research, and deep collaboration with those with lived experience and those with specific subject matter expertise.
4. Acknowledge bias. Ask better questions.
Every brief, conversation, and campaign begins with assumptions and our own biases. We surface these early through tools like Bias Workshops and Hypothesis Amnesties, not just to challenge them, but to reframe the questions we ask. Because when you start with better questions, you uncover deeper truths.
5. Good intentions aren’t always good enough.
Even the most well-meaning interventions can have unintended consequences. We anticipate identity misalignment, backlash, and behavioural reactance, always designing to avoid harm, not just do good.