The ‘rhyme-as-reason’ effect is a cognitive bias that makes people more likely to remember, repeat and believe sayings. Don't believe me? Your thoughts deceive thee.
At Acteon we love using a little neuroscience in our learning and communications. We love a nudge. And we love taking tips and tricks from the advertising industry, the GOAT when it comes to getting people to remember things they didn’t really want to in the first place.
Rhyming has been shown to make content more engaging, but interestingly it’s also been shown to boost believability of an idea by 17% as researchers McGlone and Tofighbakhsh found. Perhaps that’s why I still eat an apple a day?...
Not only does it increase trust in an idea but Shotton and Thompson found that rhymes improve recall by 29%. And they're not the only ones to report that rhythm and rhyme provides a hook for recall. Hence whenever someone mentions the word rhyme my brain automatically recalls that wonderful line word for word from Cool Runnings (“Feel the rhythm, feel the ride, get on up, it's bobsled time”… I haven’t watched that since I was 7.)
Advertisers understand these facts all too well, for years they’ve been harnessing the power of a good rhyme to make their products more memorable and their messages believable! We’ve all caught ourselves repeating the Haribo slogan, right? And I don’t really need to mention baked beans, do I?
So, is it a totally far-fetched idea to think that organisations could use rhyming to make their messages more memorable? Or even use rhyming to increase application of desired behaviours? Not at all. We’ve used rhymes to help Co-op Funeral Care do exactly that.
During 2020, Co-op Funeralcare had to move quickly to develop new ways of working in response to the ever-changing rules and guidance on Covid-19. New behaviours needed to be adopted by colleagues quickly to help look after themselves and others.
Naturally there was a bit more to it than just some fancy rhymes - design thinking, co-creation, alignment to values, flexible content, animation, social learning, a communication campaign - but incorporating rhymes into that campaign approach had the desired result.
“I keep hearing the rhymes being said by colleagues – and every time I stop for a cup of tea, I hear in my head ‘Having a brew? Hand wash too!' It certainly sticks!”- Dan Goodwin, Co-op Funeralcare’s National Health & Safety Manager
To find out exactly how we did it you can read the full case study here: Putting colleagues at the heart of Covid-safety
In a while crocodile.
