Why the New Year is a powerful moment for change
January is one of the most predictable periods for health-related marketing. Gyms, diets, alcohol reduction and wellbeing campaigns all compete for attention as people think about what they want to change in the year ahead.
For public health, this is more than a seasonal marketing opportunity. Behavioural science helps explain why the New Year can be such an important moment to reach people, but making the most of it takes planning. Thinking now about your audience, the behaviours you want to influence and how your campaign can respond means you are ready when motivation to make a change is at its strongest.
Fresh Start Theory suggests that temporal landmarks, such as the beginning of a new year, can create a psychological separation between our past and present selves. The things we did last year can feel like they belong to an earlier version of ourselves, while the year ahead offers an opportunity to behave differently. This can increase motivation to pursue goals and makes January an important window for behaviours where getting started is often one of the biggest challenges.
The same effect can happen at other points, including birthdays, Mondays and the start of a new month. Major life events such as pregnancy, retirement or receiving a diagnosis can create their own moments of change. But New Year is unusual because it creates a widely shared fresh start at the same time, accompanied by conversations about change across families, workplaces, communities and the media.
Make the most of the moment
The temptation is to treat January as a creative theme. New year, new you. New habits. New beginnings. But applying Fresh Start Theory should go further than putting a seasonal message on a campaign.
Start by asking what people are already motivated to change and where that overlaps with public health priorities. Then use COM-B to understand what might prevent that intention becoming behaviour. Does the audience have the Capability to make the change? Do they have the Opportunity to do it? What is influencing their Motivation?
Take stopping smoking. January might provide the fresh-start motivation for someone to think that this is the year they stop. But they may not know that local stop smoking support is available or understand which options could work for them, creating a capability barrier. Appointments may clash with work or support may feel difficult to access, creating an opportunity barrier. Smoking may help them manage stress, form part of their social life or be something they have tried and struggled to stop before, all of which can affect motivation.
For marketing, those insights should change more than the message. They can shape what is promoted, who is targeted, where they are reached and what they are asked to do next. If awareness of support is low, the campaign needs to make the offer clearer. If previous attempts have reduced confidence, the proposition might focus on getting support rather than simply telling someone to quit. If time is the barrier, promoting flexible ways to access help may be more persuasive than another message about the benefits of stopping. The call to action should then take people directly to the support being promised. This is the difference between using January as a hook and using behavioural insight to build a campaign around a moment when people may genuinely be more receptive.
Make it easier to turn intention into action
Another useful model is EAST, which encourages practitioners to make a desired behaviour Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. It provides a simple way to check whether a campaign is helping people move from intention to action.
Consider a cancer screening campaign where people are eligible but have not taken up their invitation. Making it EASY could mean a clear call to action, simple booking or rebooking information and fewer steps between seeing the campaign and knowing what to do. Making it Attractive means creating communications that gain attention and feel personally relevant, based on what matters to the audience rather than relying on generic health messaging.
The Social element could use trusted voices, relatable experiences or reassurance that screening is a normal action taken by people like them. Timely means considering when someone is most receptive. Communications could coincide with their invitation, follow up when they have not responded or use January, when health and intentions to make changes may already be more front of mind.
Importantly, EAST can also expose problems that marketing alone cannot solve. There is little value in encouraging someone to book screening if the process is confusing, inconvenient or inaccessible. The campaign and the service journey need to work together.
A fresh start is only the start
The New Year can create an opportunity to begin, but motivation naturally changes. A campaign should therefore consider what happens after someone searches, clicks, books or takes their first step.
For public health teams planning January activity, the question is not simply how to make a campaign feel relevant to the New Year. It is how to use a period when more people may already be thinking about change to make healthier action easier to start and easier to continue.
Fresh Start Theory helps identify the moment. COM-B helps uncover what is getting in the way. EAST helps turn that understanding into practical campaign decisions. Used together, they can help public health teams move beyond telling people why they should change and create campaigns that give them a better opportunity to actually do it.
Want help turning behavioural insight into action and make the most of the New Year window for your public health campaign? Get in touch with our team.