Episode Details

Today I am very excited to introduce you to Elina Halonen, a behavioral insights strategist who has worked in the space for 15 years and co-founded a London-based insights consultancy working with global brands on branding, communications, and product/service development projects. She has expertise in behavioural analysis & design, consumer insights & market research, Cultural understanding, desk research & trends, branding & marketing strategy, and more.

Today on the show we talk a little about the COM-B and MOVE models, as well as Elina pre-committing to us all that she is going to write a book, called the Behavioural Blueprint!

COM-B is for: Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior.

MOVE is for: Meanings, Observations, Viewpoints, and Experiences. We dive into what these models mean, a couple of examples, and so many other great topics.

• [00:40] Today I am very excited to introduce you to Elina Halonen, a behavioral insights strategist who has worked in the space for 15 years and co-founded a London-based insights consultancy working with global companies on branding, communications, and product/service development projects.
• [03:13] Elina and Melina have been connected on LinkedIn for years and officially meeting for the first time for this interview!
• [03:53] Elina shares about herself and her background.
• [05:15] For the last couple of years she has worked as an independent consultant and has worked with various research agencies.
• [08:02] Tips for starting a business in an emerging market? Find a niche where you can raise awareness for what you do. Some areas are easier than others. Find a way to educate the market.
• [09:52] You will need a lot of creativity to promote yourself and what you do.
• [12:07] If you pick what you are going to do, you have to be all-in on that thing for at least a year to give it a chance to be successful.
• [14:55] Elina's first degrees were in marketing and it was always about consumer behavior.
• [16:42] All of business is a long game.
• [17:22] Give information generously. Make sure you add value to people.
• [20:31] She works with market research agencies and brings her behavioral science expertise.
• [22:19] There are different ways of talking about behavioral science depending on what it is you are doing. It is not one size fits all.
• [23:01] When they do a project, they think about the target behavior, what is the business objective, and what behaviors do they want to influence or change.
• [25:04] Elina shares her commitment to writing her book, Behavioral Blueprint. Hold her accountable on Twitter. (handles below)
• [27:51] Melina shares her tips for writing a book, including to break it down and just get started.
• [28:39] Break it down into chapters and look at what content you already have that fits that information and start segmenting it in.
• [31:34] Bringing cultural psychology into behavioral change is becoming increasingly important.
• [33:45] She has an intuitive process of looking at things in a certain way that is her Behavioral Blueprint.
• [35:02] Start by looking at the situation and accessing what you are up against.
• [35:44] She is a big fan of the COM-B model: Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior.
• [36:46] There is a huge amount of context that applied behavioral science often ignores.
• [39:11] When she is analyzing or trying to organize things she likes to make it logical.
• [41:54] Solving the wrong problem is very common and very human. Not spending enough time identifying the problem is the biggest mistake Melina sees companies make.
• [43:37] Elina shares her blog post that she wrote about Netflix solving the wrong problem.
• [45:10] Everything you do has an opportunity cost. We need to be