MBM’s Carl Sarney says driving behaviour change effectively in the public sector means planning for both future and current compliance.
James Hurman’s distinction between future demand and current demand puts proven marketing science into language that non-marketing stakeholders can understand – and importantly, back.
In public sector terms, those ideas translate into future compliance and current compliance: two distinct outcomes that require different kinds of communication.
This isn’t just semantics. It’s a clearer way to explain how behaviour change actually happens – in policy terms, not marketing ones.
In commercial marketing, demand is the proportion of consumers willing to buy. In government marketing, compliance is the proportion of people willing to adopt a behaviour – often one that asks for effort, compromise or change.
| Commercial economics concept (future demand) | Government behaviour change equivalent (future compliance) |
| Demand | Compliance |
| Consumer | Population |
| Purchase | Uptake/participation |
| Price | Effort |
Future compliance: the role of societal reach
Future compliance is the future willingness of a population to adopt a desired behaviour because it feels normal, legitimate and relevant. In other words, when doing the right thing starts to feel like the obvious thing.
That means growing motivation. From a media perspective, this is where societal reach matters. Broad-reach channels don’t just deliver impressions – they create share visibility. They make behaviours feel publicly endorsed and culturally recognisable. When people see messages in places they know others are seeing too, it signals what people like them are expected to do. Shaping social norms? A powerful motivator.
This is why investing in memorable, widely seen storytelling matters. It’s not about immediate action. It’s about reshaping what feels normal over time, making future compliance more likely.
Without that groundwork, every activation must push uphill, convincing people who aren’t yet ready. It’s why long-term norm-building isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the condition that makes behaviour change scalable.
Current compliance: turning willingness into action
Current compliance is about converting willingness into action. Motivation may already exist – but capability and opportunity often don’t. People need to know exactly what to do. They need to see how others want them to act. Or they need a prompt at the moment action becomes possible. This is where situational reach matters: communications that show up close to the behaviour itself; when people are travelling, transacting, searching, scrolling or engaging with services. The job here is not social norming but timely prompting.
The broad-reach work that builds future compliance can’t be judged by the same criteria as the tactical work that converts current compliance. It’s why one asset should not be expected to solve everything.
A campaign system of behaviour-changing levers
The COM-B model explains how behaviours trigger when capability, opportunity and motivation come together in a moment.
But in practice, those conditions aren’t created in a single message – they’re built across a system. Seen this way, campaigns aren’t one idea repeated everywhere. They’re co-ordinated levers, each playing a distinct role at different moments.
| Outcome | Behaviour lever | Media role | Creative task |
| Future compliance | Motivation: Why | Use societal reach to build awareness, legitimacy and shared norms | Inspire everyone together with an emotional tone |
| Current compliance | Capability: How | Use personal reach to show ‘people like you’ demonstrating how to do the behaviour | Encourage personal opt-in with an educational tone |
| Current compliance | Opportunity: Now | Use situational reach to nudge people into action | Remind people in the moment and reduce friction |
Why this helps stakeholders see the full picture
For government marketers, this framework offers something simple but powerful: a way to explain why behaviour change can’t be measured only by immediate response.
Some channels build future compliance upstream – increasing social acceptance and motivation. Others convert current compliance downstream – making action easier now. Both are working. Just not in the same way, or on the same timeline. That gives stakeholders a clearer lens on channel roles, measurement and investment.
So what?
The implication is simple: plan for both future and current compliance. Use societal reach to build motivation over time. Use personal and situational reach to strengthen capability and opportunity closer to action. And don’t expect one channel or asset to do it all.
Fragmentation isn’t the problem, it’s the opportunity. More contexts mean more chances to influence behaviour and connect communication to the real conditions in which people decide.
The key is cohesion. A campaign that is recognisable across touchpoints, with each part reinforcing the others.
For government marketers, this means valuing broad societal reach – not just for awareness, but for its role in shaping future compliance. And it means showing stakeholders that conversion works better when more people are already predisposed to act.
This framework moves beyond a media philosophy. It’s a practical way to work with how behaviour actually happens, meeting people in the messy, fragmented places where they live, move, scroll, decide – and act.
