Enriching our understanding of less active Londoners to target and tackle inactivity

Senior Insight Manager Dan Stracey introduces London Sport's Less Active Adult segmentation research and invites readers to join our segmentation launch webinar:

With physical inactivity estimated to cost the NHS alone more than £1 billion a year, and wider costs to society around £7.4 billion, the need to get less active people active has never been greater.

Recognising that the population of less active people is large but also diverse, London Sport has commissioned a major research segmentation, solely focusing on less active Londoners: those doing less than 150 minutes of physical activity per week and, in the most extreme examples, less than 30 minutes.

Our fundamental aim is to develop a stronger sense of instinct, empathy and understanding, to help focus efforts and connect more effectively, to benefit their long-term health and wellbeing.

A holistic view of less active Londoners – our seven segments

Understanding the need to develop a more comprehensive understanding of people's lives beyond their relationship with physical activity, we conducted some initial qualitative research with independent research agency the Behavioural Architects to develop a rich impression of less active Londoners’ attitudes, lives and lifestyles.

Working with market research specialists 2CV we have since further developed this understanding and validated many of our initial hypotheses using a tailored survey, to size and scale segment representation across the city.

This has led to the identification of seven distinct less active segments - from ‘Elderly Evaders’, our most disengaged and least active segment group, all the way through to ‘Almost Actives’ – those on the verge of meeting guidelines. 

Our segmentation applies the COM-B (‘Capability’, ‘Opportunity’, ‘Motivation’ and ‘Behaviour’) model to highlight varying levels of capability, opportunity, motivation.

The application of this model presents clearer opportunities to promote positive behavioural change on a longer term, more sustainable basis.

Join us for our segmentation launch webinar

To herald the launch of our research across our partner network we invite you to join us for our free two-part webinar to introduce you to our less active segments and share some of the key opportunities to engage the segments more effectively based on their attitudes and behaviours.

Register now to join our webinar and hear more.