Why risk communication doesn't work (and what does)

Floods, heavy storms and the threat of war in Europe – it is no wonder that the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) states that the Dutch must be 'self-reliant' and therefore prepared for 72 hours. But guess what? The current communication and information provision from the government does not encourage action.

Although 70% of Dutch people looked up or received information about risks last year, almost no one took action to prepare themselves. The reason? The information simply does not encourage action (source: Crisis & Risk Barometer '23). This can and must be improved, thought our in-house agency, when we were asked by the Brabant-Zuidoost Safety Region to set up communication that encourages their residents to take precautions against risks such as storms, floods, forest fires or terrorism. Together with our regular partners for the central government (Beaumont Communicatie, research and consultancy agency D&B Gedragsverandering and Osage) we got to work. In this blog we share our golden tips to ensure that risk communication does work. 

Risk or crisis communication? 
The Safety Regions Act, which came into effect in 2010, states that governments must inform citizens about possible disasters and crises. Crisis communication is a task for municipalities, while the Safety Regions are responsible for risk communication. The difference is simple: risk communication concerns the information about risks before a disaster occurs, while crisis communication occurs during or shortly after a disaster.

Safety or panic 

Communicating proactively about risks can sometimes feel challenging for the sender. This is partly due to the so-called 'lose-lose' fear. In other words, the fact that communication about disasters and risks can contain a negative message for both the sender and the receiver. In addition, there is the 'perception problem': the fear that proactive communication about risks causes unnecessary panic.

Tip 1: Avoid panic, involve your stakeholders

 A crucial tip is to involve your target groups and stakeholders from the start and take their concerns seriously. Although safety regions are legally responsible for risk communication, you never develop this in isolation. A safety region can consist of more than 20 municipalities, all of which play a role. That is why municipal support is essential. Involve administrators in the plans to prevent surprises. Set up a sounding board group to brainstorm with during the development of your communication and facilitate the use of expressions via an online toolkit. A joint message to residents is more efficient and powerful. Test your concepts and expressions with the target groups in advance to avoid risks such as the perception problem and to have a stronger position in internal discussions.

Inform or activate

Risk communication is about creating self-reliance. This means that people know what actions they can take before, during and after disasters to help themselves. Nowadays, 'joint reliance' is also becoming increasingly important. You should not only be able to take care of yourself, but also understand what you can do for someone else. Important here are action perspectives, such as "Go inside, close windows and doors, turn on the radio or TV". Made famous in the Postbus 51 campaign 'When the siren goes...'. The national follow-up campaign, 'Think Ahead', goes even further into self-reliance and action perspectives and does this primarily in an informative manner.

Tip 2: Activate from a behavioral strategy

 Action perspectives, self-reliance… Risk communication is more about influencing behavior through smart and attractive expressions than about informing. You want the target group to know the action perspectives and actually implement them. A behavioral strategy as a basis for your plans helps to develop effective communication that goes beyond just informing and educating.

The dilemma of risk communication

What does the recipient of this communication actually want and think? Perception research, conducted in almost all regions, shows, among other things, that:
– Concern about environmental risks is low;
– Attention to risk communication is low;
– The majority of people want to be informed through means and media;
– In the case of a clearly increased (and potentially life-threatening) risk, people want interpersonal communication with government and risk-causing parties.

This creates a dilemma: to stimulate self-reliance, we need to communicate proactively about risks. But the recipient is not really interested in this at all. Compare it to subjects such as your pension or your will. You have to sit down for it at some point, but preferably not today. In a time when brands and messages compete for the attention of their target group, we need to increase the urgency of our communication. However, the 'lose-lose' fear and the perception problem make it difficult to use it powerfully, and fear as an urgency mechanism is not desirable anyway. From behavioural science, for example, we know that too much exposure to fear can lead to a 'freeze' reaction. Someone would rather turn away from such a message and will not take action. Other possible reactions are habituation or numbing. Just think of the pictures on cigarette packets, which students now play quartet with. In fact, the figures from the risk barometer are not at all surprising.

Tip 3: Capture attention 

Our final tip therefore: focus on getting attention first. Don't tell everything in one expression, but layer your communication with, for example, social media use and a landing page. Work according to an 'information funnel'. This allows you to create expressions that are specifically aimed at catching attention and also develop content that is intended for deepening and loading the action perspectives. Catching attention is possible, even with risk communication, without causing unnecessary fear. By using someone with authority or by linking to current events, for example. And ever thought of humor as an effective attention grabber? (And no, this is not a joke!)