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It feels like an ideal day for a swim. The summer-heatwave sun blazes in the cloudless blue sky and, on the radio, Rob Brydon is wittily regaling listeners about his new film, Swimming with Men, a comedy about an all-male synchronised swimming team. 

A cooling dip would be lovely, but I’m here in Loughborough to talk about the ins and outs of aquatics, rather than to immerse myself in the water. The person ready to tell me all about deep dives relating to the subject – and how research is used in his organisation, as well as more widely – is Damian Stevenson, insight and partnerships director at Swim England.  

Stevenson joined what was then the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) in September 2014, having forged his research career at the likes of Boots, Nottingham Trent University and energy company E.ON. Next year, the sports governing body will celebrate its 150^th anniversary under new branding, introduced in 2017 after extensive internal and external stakeholder consultation, in which Stevenson and his team were heavily involved. 

Greater clarity

Why the new name? Partly because of the prosaic need to escape confusion with that other ASA – the Advertising Standards Authority. The main rationale, however, was to modernise and bring greater clarity to the organisation’s offer. Over many decades, the ASA had evolved into a
brand trusted and respected by parents for its role in helping children learn to swim – but there’s much more to
the story. 

As the national governing body for aquatics, Swim England faces a wide array of complex challenges and must nurture many relationships with facilities operators, aquatic sports clubs and funding providers. 

“Our change in messaging to the wider sector is, ‘how can we add value?’,” says Stevenson. “Yes, we have expertise around talent and clubs, and in terms of growing participation – but how do we bring that together for a proposition for the sector?”  

When Stevenson arrived at the organisation, swimming participation was in decline after an uplift in the wake of the 2012 London Olympics, and the research function was fairly “reactive” – responding to what people around the business wanted to know. “We had done some schools’ research that was very well considered and helped raise the visibility of the importance of schools’ swimming. But, for me, there was a disconnect in terms of how we were using the outputs of that and how proactive we were being.”

Stevenson was determined to introduce an insight strategy that would transform his team into business partners with a vital role to play in informing, guiding and supporting the decision-making process.  What he styles “a considered programme of insight” is intended to underpin the objectives and KPIs of each of Swim England’s departments.

“It’s woven into the DNA. A lot of people have kindly referred to it as the ‘golden thread’ within the organisation. Hopefully, I have been able to take us on a journey from having some interesting stats and numbers through to developing business plans, future strategies, and implementing plans based on good evidence,” he says.  

Making insight fundamental in this way has led to a broadening of Stevenson’s responsibilities. He now heads a directorate comprising three teams and 19 people. In addition to the four-strong insight team, there is health and wellbeing (more of which later), and strategic partnerships, which focuses on the relationships Swim England has with the leisure industry, spanning local authorities and private sector pool operators. 

Stevenson is quick to make the point that Swim England doesn’t own any ‘water space’, which means delivery of the aquatic experience is in the hands of others. So, he argues, external stakeholders must be given with insight of extremely high quality, otherwise the governing body risks fuelling resentment along the lines of – ‘what right have you got to tell me how I should change
my business?’

“It’s not just about coming up with insight per se, and some good findings, but actually operationalising it – making it relevant for their world and speaking their language,” Stevenson explains.

Inspiring people

Swim England has striven to maximise the impact of its work and inspire people across the sector to listen to its insights by using a variety of approaches. These include behavioural science, co-creation groups, online trackers and blended insights from desk research. A key objective has been getting to grips with ‘what is broken’ with the swimming experience and finding ways to fix it. 

At the heart of this is work by The Behavioural Architects, a global insight agency with nudge theory expertise, which was brought in to conduct three projects. The first looked across audiences for behavioural insights to help strengthen the customer experience. The second focused on inclusion, looking at people with physical, hearing and visual impairments, to understand what improvements were needed to boost their attraction to swimming. 

“That was interesting because what we found was this wonderful sense of equality in the water, where people were not necessarily being judged – it was very empowering to them to be part of a social group, or to have that time in the water,” says Stevenson. 

The third aspect of the project was understanding 11- to 17-year-olds, and the “very different mindsets in terms of swimming” of an 11-year-old versus those on the brink of adulthood.

The behavioural research led to the development of a Three Frontiers Model, now being used by local authorities and pool operators across England to improve customer experience and build growth (see panel, Three Frontiers Toolkit). Undoubtedly, for large swathes of the sector, change is long overdue. 

“When we’ve presented the behavioural insights, I’ve had senior people in the industry go, ‘we are 20, 30 years behind the curve on this’. We’re there as the critical friend, holding up the mirror, saying ‘we need to change this’,”
says Stevenson.

The insight team runs around 50 projects a year, about 80% of which it handles in-house. An important piece of ongoing work is the swimming brand tracker, done quarterly by Critical Research, which allows Swim England to keep abreast of participation trends and improve understanding of the Three Frontiers at a national level. The tracker is also used to monitor campaigns – for example, Finding Dory-inspired swimming lessons developed with Disney and implemented in almost 450 pools.

Considering the scale of Disney’s insight firepower, compared with the budget at Swim England’s disposal, Stevenson says presenting the tracker’s findings in a meeting with the entertainment giant was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of his career. Happily, the evaluation married closely with Disney’s, vindicating Swim England’s approach.  

Critical is involved in two other projects – Swim Local and the Parent Survey. The latter is about understanding the parents of two, five, eight and 11-year-olds – what they do in terms of their children’s confidence and competence around swimming. “We can see how that builds before, into, and by the end of primary school.” The survey findings give valuable ammunition for influencing government policy on swimming and schools.

Swim Local is a major pilot programme by Sport England and Swim England, to test ways of getting people into their local pools. Twelve local authorities are taking part, including Northumberland, which worked with Swim England on customer research into awareness and attitudes among adults to offers at four of its pools. 

Customer surveys and focus groups used Swim England market segmentation and the Three Frontiers growth model to elicit responses from 800-plus customers, which informed interventions spanning: local community awareness; information and addressing common preconceptions; customer environment and experience; pool programme variation; and choice. The project is ongoing, but early results indicate a 7% rise in new customers and increased Net Promoter Scores.

“Among the key benefits of working with Swim England has been its technical advice, attention, and support for our local interpretation of its market segmentation and growth models,” says Malcolm Moore, Northumberland Sport senior development manager. “This has helped build confidence and impetus among our project team to progress and start innovative sessions and products based on its original research, and in response to customer insight.”

Moore adds that developing hydro-fitness sessions (attracting a younger, ‘gym fitness-focused’ segment), Aqua Playtime (family focused), Integrated and Progressive Adult Swim Offer, and Hydro Health (GP referral products) are testing the insight that “preconceptions that swimming pools merely offer ‘lanes and lessons’ is a main barrier preventing adults choosing or engaging” with pools.

All of this confirms Swim England is moving in the right direction with its insight strategy. Yet, there is still a long way to go and many opportunities to exploit. One is the #loveswimming initiative, to heighten the profile of swimming, rather than relying on the four-yearly boost brought by the Olympic Games. 

Another is an evolving Health Model, designed to persuade non-swimmers into the pool and given credence by an excellent report on the health and wellbeing benefits of swimming published by Swim England last year. Currently a “small acorn” trial involving 300 people, Stevenson is confident the model can be scaled up. 

“We want to take that to tens of thousands of people. Some might think that’s a bit of a stretch, but given our insight, partnerships, and the expertise of the health and wellbeing team, it feels quite attainable. We are very excited by that prospect of helping pools become more inclusive of their communities.”

Three Frontiers Toolkit

The Three Frontiers Model is a framework shaped by behavioural research. Each Frontier – improving the environment, tailoring the offer and increasing the visibility/relevance of swimming – represents an opportunity to grow swimming. Swim England believes that all three must be addressed to truly succeed in attracting newcomers and retaining existing audiences. To help, it has produced a toolkit, accessible from its website, that has three sections:

• Research into national swimming behaviour
  National research explaining what customers really want from swimming and the reason behind the Three Frontiers Model  

• Guidance documents
  Translating research recommendations into practical advice for improving customer experience across each frontier

• Practical resources
  Industry case studies, guides and templates for planning and delivering improvements. Resources are listed in each guidance document.

Stevenson says the materials available are “version one”. Work is under way to make the content more user friendly – for example, by using PebblePad/building video tutorials to bring information to life. 

The intention is to positively influence England’s 3,000-plus public pools. Stevenson winces when a local authority says its pools are something it just throws money at. “There is a lot of income, if it’s done right. Even the Learn to Swim elements of the pool programme should be generating as much income as the gym. Swimming shouldn’t be the poor relation.”