Persuasive communications that change minds and actions – for brands, and for good
Some challenges are bigger than awareness. You might need people to change how they dispose of waste, how they use water or energy, how they travel, eat, vote or spend. Behaviour Shift is our solution for comms that influence medium- to long-term attitudes and actions, driving positive change at scale.
We blend behavioural insight, creativity and integrated PR + social to make complex or entrenched issues simple, human and actionable.
What Does Behaviour Shift Mean?
Behaviour Shift is Prohibition’s specialist programme for organisations that need more than awareness – they need people to actually do something differently. It combines behavioural insight, creative communications and integrated PR and social campaigns to turn complex issues into simple, everyday actions, whether that’s reducing waste, changing how people use water or encouraging healthier lifestyle choices.
Rather than pushing out messages and hoping for the best, Behaviour Shift focuses on understanding what really drives and blocks change. We analyse attitudes, social norms and practical barriers, then develop campaigns that make the desired behaviour feel easier, more rewarding and more relevant. The result is measurable progress and improvement over time, with communications that stimulate long-term transformation instead of short-lived spikes.
For public sector bodies, utilities, charities and purpose-led brands, Behaviour Shift turns communications into a strategic investment in social and environmental impact. It helps you unlock the full potential of your programmes, creating momentum around positive habits and delivering clear evidence that your campaigns are driving real-world change at scale.
When to use Behaviour Shift
Behaviour Shift is ideal for:
- Public sector and utilities brands needing to change everyday habits
- Organisations with environmental or social impact goals
- Brands tackling apathy, scepticism or entrenched misconceptions
- Campaigns where the KPI isn’t just awareness – it’s behavioural adoption
How Behaviour Shift works
We apply our Create → Engage → Convert methodology to your specific challenge, so each campaign is engineered for long-term development, not one-off spikes.
Create – Understand the real behaviour barriers
- Audience and behaviour insight: what people think, feel and actually do
- Identification of triggers, barriers and social norms shaping current behaviour
- Message and creative territories tested against “Would this make me do anything differently?”
Engage – Make the message impossible to ignore – and easy to act on
- Bold, public-facing activations that bring the issue to life in everyday settings
- PR stories that earn coverage and conversation, not just column inches
- Social content that reframes the issue in plain, relatable language
Convert – From awareness to everyday action
- Clear calls to action that feel achievable, specific and worthwhile
- Measurement frameworks that look at engagement, sentiment and behaviour proxies
- Iteration over time as norms, attitudes and policies evolve
What Behaviour Shift delivers
A Behaviour Shift programme can include:
- Behavioural insight and audience segmentation
- Behaviour-change comms strategy and creative platform
- Integrated PR, social, content and experiential activation plan
- Community and stakeholder engagement approach
- Measurement framework (from reach and engagement to attitudinal / behavioural indicators)
In brief: Yorkshire Water – turning “unblock it” into everyday action
To change how people think about what they flush, Yorkshire Water needed something more compelling than another leaflet. Together, we created Yorkshire’s most disgusting art exhibition – a Cabinet of Curiosities showcasing the real items causing blockages in the region’s sewers, installed in one of its busiest shopping centres.
As part of an integrated PR and social activation, we:
- Brought the issue into a high-footfall, everyday environment
- Used striking visuals and storytelling to make the problem tangible
- Supported the event with infographic-style social assets, photography and video to extend reach online
The campaign reframed an environmental message in everyday terms, reached audiences across the region, secured widespread media exposure and prompted public discussion and support for Yorkshire Water’s “Bin it, not block it” / “unblock it” messaging.
Our Integrated PR Services In Leeds
Growth Catalyst sits inside our wider integrated services, so you’re not buying a siloed campaign, you’re tapping into a full PR, social and content engine.
We’re a full-service PR agency. We possess a team of digital marketing specialists, multi-skilled designers, video editors, event planners, and expert researchers who work together to create and implement airtight strategies.
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Our sector expertise:
Why Choose Prohibition?
We Create Attention-Grabbing PR Campaigns
Using clever PR tools such as press releases, sales promotions, direct mail and launch events, we work with our clients to build and maintain their brand visibility.
We understand that once we grab the attention of the audience, keeping it is vital; this is why our campaigns are insight-driven with creativity that secures real business results. Such as our ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ campaign with Yorkshire Water which uncovered the most shocking items found down Yorkshire’s drains – reaching 6 billion people, as well as hitting headlines on the BBC. And that’s just one campaign of many!
One of the North’s leading PR agencies
Good work deserves to be credited, and ours is exactly that. Our campaigns have won us over 45 different awards and established us as one of the North’s leading Public Relations agencies, so you can trust good PR comes from us.
From high-level feature stories in influential media to innovative programmes, partnerships and that drive conversation online, we devise smart strategies and create content that reaches the right audience and builds your brand.
Share a few details about your challenges and we’ll come back with ideas, not a generic credentials deck.
