1.2 Research the Target Audience and Their Behaviour

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1.2.1 Assess target audience’s behaviours and potential barriers and benefits to adoption of desired changes
1.2.2 Understand the lives of the target audience and context of the behaviours targeted for change
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step

1.2.1 Assess target audience’s behaviours and potential barriers and benefits to adoption of desired changes

Now that you have identified the priority animal welfare issue(s) and target actors and have an idea of desired behaviours you are interested in promoting, it is essential to better understand your target audience(s) and the context of their behaviours before planning your outreach strategy.

It is extremely important throughout this process to override your own or others’ theories about people’s behaviour and avoid bias by retaining an open mind and allow the barriers and benefits to become apparent as you investigate with your community members. Remember every context and situation is different. This stage may will increase the likelihood of a successful campaign if adequate time and care is taken [21].

When collecting information to understand the target audience and their barriers and benefits to the adoption of desired behaviour(s), it is important to consider the following:

• Seek insights from as many relevant sources and social groups within the target audience as possible, as the most accurate understanding is gained through the inclusion of multiple perspectives [21]. For example, different sectors of the animal owning community, such as men and women and other vulnerable groups can face unique challenges and barriers to change and have different opportunities available to them. Your understanding of intersectionality within the community context will be helpful to ensuring you create opportunities for different voices and their experiences to be considered in the identification of barriers and motivators to the adoption of the desired behaviours.
• Consider using volunteer groups willing to participate in identifying issues, providing information, and sharing their stories and views on what the barriers are for them and others. This could be radio listeners groups, or groups established for different reasons or by different organizations so that they become the sounding board to shape the outreach and campaign messaging and modes of delivery in the long run.
• Use a variety of methods and sources to collect this information to ensure that you can be confident in your results [21]. Methods used may employ participatory approaches, where appropriate, such as when conducting audience research, and the PLA tools used will be dependent on the time and resources at your disposal. These may include:
  • Key informant interviews (KIIs)
  • Focus Group discussions (FGDs)
  • Surveys
  • Direct observation
  • Review of reports and literature
  • Expert opinion

If you feel FGDs would be too daunting for some communities, or you feel the target audience might speak more freely individually, consider house-to-house surveys or semi-structured interviews.

Use results from participatory activities (if undertaken) and your observations throughout the initiation phase to provide useful insights for understanding the context of behaviours and the target audience during this step, including:

• The causal factors identified during root cause analysis of welfare issues
• Priority motivations/concerns both in their lives and in terms of their animals.
• General level of awareness of animal welfare issues
• Existing animal care, management and/or use practices associated with the animal welfare issues
• Gender roles and responsibilities generally as well as in relation to animal care and management.
• Access and availability of animal-related services and resources, and your project/organization’s or its partner’s plans to address any identified access or availability issues.
• Stakeholder influence mapping
• Assessments of target behaviours’ likelihood of adoption and extent of current practice

1.2.2 Understand the lives of the target audience and context of the behaviours targeted for change

In addition, depending on the type of SOC approach, the following participatory tools can be used with representative demographics of the target audience as part of a gender analysis to help understand people’s lives, daily routines, general availability, and potential burdens and challenges they may face to participation and behaviour change.

• Daily activity schedule (T4)
• Gender roles and responsibilities (T5)
• Seasonal Calendar (T6)
• Gender control analysis (T10)

Consulting key informants and other knowledgeable members of the animal owning communities and target audiences will assist you to gauging public opinion, and understanding trends in practices, beliefs, cultural influence, and attitudes. Understanding the perspectives of relevant stakeholders, including those that are rendered voiceless for lack of access to or power to voice their issues is important to informing your development of effective outreach messaging in later steps.

Ensure you frame questions properly, for instance, asking “who are your community leaders” may be more usefully approached by asking “who do you turn to when you need help or when there are issues within the community” this way you will start to gain insight about who the respected and potentially the most influential people within the target community might be.

Through these discussions, seek to explore the following if you have not already gained these insights elsewhere:

• Attitudes and behaviours of the community towards those target behaviours you want to encourage as well as those you want to discourage. Understanding why certain behaviours/practices are prepared or considered as normal even if understood as harmful to animals’ welfare can be useful to informing your outreach strategy.
• General awareness and interest in changing animal welfare issues, and the general stage of change in relation to the adoption of the new behaviour. You can do this by listening for change talk and posing open-ended questions to provide an indication of where the target audience’ is in their stages of change related to the animal welfare issues the project is seeking to address. Understanding where people are in their stage of change can enable you to tailor your outreach strategy and messaging to support progress more effectively through different stages. Refer to the following facilitator resources for more information: 3. Guidance on Listening to Change Talk and 6. Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change.
• Their priority values and motivations. Understanding what people value and why is important because it enables messages to be framed in terms of what matters to the target audience.
• Forms of communication most utilized by target audience – where and when do they get their information, who are the trusted and influential sources or gatekeepers?
• Understanding any factors preventing the target audiences’ from practicing the desired behaviours in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation, including influencing groups that make sustaining the desired behaviour easier or difficult. This may be where you seek to explore gaps in your understanding identified during the COM-B diagnosis. Refer to example discussion questions within the facilitator resource 11. Behaviour Change/COM-B Diagnosis Community Questions Guide for ideas on questions to structure this discussion.

To support the documentation of key findings and insights, consider using or adapting the Project action tracker provided in the facilitator resources.

Link to References Cited