Behavior Change Communication: A Practical Guide for Impact Teams

Behavior change communication (BCC) is the strategic use of communication to shift what people know, believe and, above all, do. It is built on evidence about the audience and on theory about why people act as they do. It is not built on a good slogan. If you run communications at an NGO, a foundation, an EU-funded consortium or a mission-driven startup, it is the difference between a campaign people notice and a campaign that changes something. Below we cover what BCC is, the models behind it, how to plan a campaign, what real results look like, and where communication alone runs out of road.

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TL;DR

Table of Contents

What behavior change communication actually is

The label has moved over the years, from information, education and communication toward behavior change communication, and now mostly toward social and behavior change communication. The practitioner community that maintains the SBCC implementation kits treats BCC and SBCC as interchangeable terms for strategic, theory-grounded, evidence-based communication that promotes change in knowledge, attitudes, norms, beliefs and behaviors. The “social” in the longer name is a reminder that people do not decide in isolation.

That same guidance describes influences on behavior at four levels: the individual, family and peers, the community, and the wider social and structural environment. A campaign that speaks only to the first level is asking people to swim against the other three.

Two features separate BCC from ordinary awareness work:

The field grew out of public health, which is why most of the published evidence comes from health. But the logic travels well to climate action, nature restoration, safer public spaces, financial inclusion or responsible consumption. Wherever an organization needs people to do something differently, the same discipline applies.

The models that make it work

You do not need to be a psychologist to run a campaign, but you do need to know which question each model answers. A review of BCC’s past, present and future sorts the main theories by the level at which they operate:

LevelModelsThe question they help you answerIndividualHealth Belief Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, Transtheoretical ModelWhat does this person believe about risk, benefit and their own ability to act?InterpersonalSocial Cognitive TheoryWhom do they watch, learn from and copy?CommunityDiffusion of InnovationHow does a new practice spread, and who adopts it first?

The same review points to the socio-ecological model as a meta-framework. Its message is that interventions must run across individual, interpersonal, community and societal levels to deal with the factors that help or hinder change.

Using a model without being ruled by it

A model is a checklist of questions, not a recipe. The Transtheoretical Model, often summarized as “stages of change”, is a good example. It reminds you that someone who has never considered the behavior needs a different message from someone who is ready to try. Sending both the same call to action wastes budget on one and bores the other.

In practice we recommend choosing one model per level as a lens, writing down what it predicts about your audience, and then checking that against what you hear in interviews and data. When the model and the people disagree, trust the people.

Our perspective: why impact communicators get this wrong

We work with organizations whose success is measured in changed lives rather than clicks, and we see the same pattern again and again. A team has a strong cause, a limited budget and a deadline, so it jumps to the output: a video, a hashtag, a landing page. The behavior it hopes to change is described in a sentence, usually a vague one, and nobody has asked the audience what is in the way.

We think that order needs to flip. Strategy comes first, and it starts with an honest question: who exactly are we asking to do what, and what makes that hard today? Creative work then becomes a response to a real barrier, not a decoration on top of a hope. It is why we treat brand, campaign and measurement as one system. A brand people trust makes every behavioral ask easier, and a campaign that cannot be measured cannot be improved.

We also believe in saying the uncomfortable part out loud. Communication will not fix a clinic that is too far away, a product that is too expensive or a policy that punishes the behavior you want. Good agencies tell clients when the real lever sits elsewhere, and good clients thank them for it. That candor is part of how we try to work, and it is what we would ask of any partner you choose.

How to plan a behavior change campaign

The published frameworks differ in vocabulary but converge on a sequence. A practice guide from the conservation organization Rare describes it as contextual analysis, intervention design, testing prototypes with the target actors, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Here is how we would translate that into a working plan for a busy communications team.

1. Analyze the context

Gather what already exists before you commission anything new: program data, surveys, policy documents, previous campaign results, social listening. The same guide recommends identifying behavior-actor pairs, which means a specific behavior tied to a specific group of people, and running a socio-ecological analysis that engages stakeholders at different scales.

A useful output is a one-page table with three columns: the behavior, the actor, and the top three barriers and motivators. If you cannot fill it in, you are not ready to brief creatives.

2. Design the intervention

Match each barrier to a lever. A knowledge gap calls for clear information. A social-norm barrier calls for visible peers who already do the behavior. A practical barrier, such as cost or access, calls for a change outside communications, and you should flag it to program colleagues early.

Set a single primary behavior goal and no more than two supporting goals. Teams that try to change five behaviors at once usually change none.

3. Test prototypes with real people

Show rough versions of your message, format and channel to a handful of people from the target group before you produce anything polished. Ask what they understood, what they would do next and who they would tell. A day of testing can save months of correcting a campaign that has already launched.

4. Implement across channels and levels

Pair mass reach with closer, more personal touchpoints. Broadcast or paid social builds awareness. Peer voices, community events, partner organizations and direct email or messaging give people the nudge and the permission to act. If your campaign includes live events, these low-friction guest engagement ideas show how to make participation easy enough that people actually join in.

5. Monitor, evaluate and adapt

Build the measurement plan before launch, not after. We cover this in detail below, because it is where most campaigns quietly fail.

Examples of behavior change communication that worked

Readers often ask for examples, and the best ones come with an honest evaluation attached. These are drawn from published studies. Notice how different the approaches are and how modest, and therefore believable, the effects tend to be.

Storytelling for maternal and newborn health in Papua New Guinea

The WHO country office in Papua New Guinea piloted a television and radio drama, “It Takes a Village”. The pilot report says the programme used dramatic storytelling and was associated with positive changes in panelists’ knowledge, attitudes and intended behaviors on maternal and newborn health. The design drew on formative research and storytelling together, which is the right order: listen first, then tell the story.

Humor for dengue prevention in Lao PDR

A 2024 risk communication campaign in Lao PDR used humor to engage people on dengue. The evaluation reports a reach of almost 2.9 million unique users, and 90% of survey respondents (360 of 400) said they were more likely to take preventive action. Remember that intention is not behavior, but it is a meaningful intermediate signal and it was measured openly.

Eggs and poultry in Rwanda

In Rwanda, an SBCC campaign was delivered alongside poultry support. A 2021 evaluation found a statistically significant rise in egg feeding to children of 0.28 times per week (p=0.02) compared with a group that received poultry only. Small in absolute terms, yet it isolates the added value of the communication, which is exactly what a funder wants to see.

Mosquito prevention in Western Australia

The evaluation of the “Fight the Bite” campaign found that among participants who recalled it, 43.8% reported increased awareness and 27.4% reported a change in mosquito-prevention behavior. The gap between those two numbers is instructive: awareness is easier to win than action.

Healthy weight and activity: LiveLighter and walking campaigns

A population-based evaluation of Western Australia’s LiveLighter campaign found 54% awareness after the first wave, with associated increases in physical activity intentions and in thoughts linking weight to health harm. Earlier, a community-wide media campaign to promote walking in St. Joseph, Missouri, reached about one in three survey respondents, and exposure was associated with pro-walking beliefs and participation in community-sponsored walks.

What do these have in common? Each combined a clear behavior with a channel the audience already used, and each measured something beyond reach. If you want more recent inspiration from the impact sector, we have collected campaigns for change worth studying and social change campaigns from 2022.

Choosing messages, channels and participation methods

Once you know the behavior and the barrier, three choices remain.

Message. Aim for clarity above cleverness. WHO guidance on communication in health emergencies stresses trust, consistent messaging and the “seven Cs”: correct, concise, clear, courteous, complete, considered and concrete. That list was written for emergencies, but it works as an editing checklist for any campaign. Read every line against it before approval.

Channel. Choose where your audience already pays attention, not where your organization is most comfortable. For a climate campaign aimed at young adults, that may be short-form video and creators. For a consortium reaching policymakers, it may be a briefing, a newsletter and a conference session. Mix reach channels with trusted voices, and test both.

Participation. People adopt what they help shape. The Papua New Guinea programme relied on formative research, and the Rwanda work paired communication with practical support. Invite your audience into the process: co-create messages in workshops, feature real community members instead of actors where it is safe and appropriate, and give people something to do, such as a pledge, a challenge or a local event, not just something to read.

A quick filter for every creative idea

If an idea fails two of the four, send it back.

Measuring whether behavior actually changed

Reach is easy to report and tells you little about change. The Rare guide recommends monitoring behavioral, psychological and social outputs alongside environmental outcomes, and assessing the program against a valid counterfactual, meaning a comparison with what would have happened without it. It also advises mixed methods, such as cross-referencing data sources and adding qualitative interviews.

A practical measurement ladder looks like this:

The WHO notes that researching communication in emergency settings is difficult but achievable with advance planning and formal evaluation techniques, which are essential for producing knowledge others can reuse. The same holds for a small NGO. Decide your indicators, baseline and comparison group at the start, then budget for them as a core cost. Funders increasingly expect it, and so do your future supporters.

Where communication stops and structure begins

Honesty about limits builds credibility. UNICEF’s guidance states that communication alone is rarely sufficient for lasting results and works best when integrated with broader programming that tackles structural and social barriers. If recycling bins do not exist, a recycling campaign will frustrate people rather than persuade them.

Before you commit budget, ask three questions:

When the answers point beyond communications, say so in your strategy and bring those partners to the table. A campaign that names its own limits is far more persuasive to a funder than one that promises the world.

How we can help

Dante Media is a brand and communication consultancy for organizations creating positive impact. We work with NGOs, foundations, startups, scaleups and public and intergovernmental bodies, and we start where this guide starts: with strategy, audience and a clear picture of what should change. Our Impact Campaigns work covers planning and execution, and Brand for Impact builds the identity and verbal tone that make people trust the ask. For a taste of how we approach behavior-minded work, see how we evolved a brand to create safer nights for everyone.

If you are drafting a tender, preparing a funding round or briefing a consortium communication plan, talk to us about your campaign and we will help you turn the behavior you want into a plan you can defend.

FAQ

What is the concept of behavior change communication?

Behavior change communication is the planned use of communication to change knowledge, attitudes, norms and practices, based on evidence about the audience and on established theory. It identifies specific behaviors, the barriers to them, and the messages and channels most likely to help. The newer term, social and behavior change communication, is used interchangeably.

What are the stages of behavior change communication?

Most frameworks follow the same arc: analyze the context, design the intervention, test prototypes with the target audience, implement, then monitor and evaluate. Separately, the Transtheoretical Model describes the stages individuals move through as they change, which helps you tailor messages to where each person stands.

What is an example of a behavior change campaign?

A humor-driven dengue campaign in Lao PDR reached almost 2.9 million unique users, and 90% of surveyed respondents said they were more likely to take preventive action. In Rwanda, a campaign combined with poultry support raised how often children were fed eggs. Both were formally evaluated, which is why they are useful models.

How do you measure whether a campaign worked?

Track more than reach. Measure understanding, social norms, intention and, where possible, actual behavior, and compare against a group you did not reach. Combine numbers with interviews so you learn why people did or did not change.

Is a communication campaign enough to change behavior?

Usually not on its own. Official UNICEF guidance notes that communication works best alongside programs that address structural and social barriers. Check that the behavior is possible, affordable and accepted before you invest in messaging.

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