From Kinky Fantastic
In 2006/7, around 8000 teenagers were admitted to hospitals in the UK because of alcohol abuse, according to figures from the Liberal Democrats. Yet, while there are increasing restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and plans to ban “All-You-Can-Drink” as well as the CAP Code on Non-Broadcast Promotions and the BCAP Code on Broadcast Advertising, the trend in teenage/underage drinking remains upward. A variety of studies have shown that there is a direct effect between exposure to alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption (Anderson, de Bruijn, Angus, et al, 2009).
Yet, the evidence seems to be that young people see more not less alcohol related advertising. In Australia, there was a virtually identical exposure of underage (under 18) teenagers to television alcohol advertising in Melbourne as those old enough to drink, with lesser but still significant exposure in other cities (Fielder, Donovan & Ouschan, 2009) and in one US survey, underage adolescents (under the age of 21) saw almost 10% more alcohol advertising than those old enough to drink (Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, 2007). However, few studies have so far addressed the situation in the UK, nor have any studies addressed how teenagers get exposed to alcohol related messages through other media forms, especially online and mobile social networking platforms.
A short survey of social networking website (Dahl, 2010, under review) shows that however there is a significant presence of alcohol related promotional messages and fan groups on social networking websites. And, what is probably equally worrying, is that while some of these groups are not visible to underage adolescents - the vast majority of them is not. Given the unique context of social networking, the power of vWOM - and the lack of a regulatory framework (and even possibility for regulation), this topic may well become a major concern for public policy and health prevention policy in the near future.
Posted in Advertising, Health Promotion, Research, Social Media, Web 2.0.
Tagged with alcohol, Health Promotion, Social Media, teenagers.
In times of funding cuts across the board, accessing a little extra help may be a particularly good idea for organisations especially in the public, non-profit and health sector. Even more so, if the extra help comes with additional help, research skills and consultancy expertise.
In the UK, organisations can easily access additional funding for projects by using what is known as a Konwledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) - a part government-funded programme to encourage collaboration between businesses (including charities and public sector organisations) and universities. To look at a Social Marketing example, Breast Cancer Care and Kings College formed a KTP in order to look at the barriers preventing women from BME and socially deprived backgrounds accessing breast cancer care. This KTP helped to identify the barriers and help more women access the services provided by Breast Cancer Care.
At Middlesex University, we are currently working at setting up a KTP with a local health care provider to look at the barriers of ethnic minority groups accessing certain services - combining our expertise in Social Marketing and Cross-Cultural Psychology, and enabling the service provider to better reach its patients.
With KTPs lasting anywhere from 10 weeks to 3 years, and the government contributing up to two thirds of the cost, KTPs are an attractive, but often not fully exploited, option to add a little extra help and make limited funding go a lot further. The key to KTPs are “KTP Associates”, who are graduates employed by a university and based at a company, charity, other organisation, for example an NHS Trust, where they are carrying out their project work. In return, the organisation and university work together on the project, providing joint supervision and expertise. For example, for a project costing £60,000, the government provides funding up to £40,000 .
For more information, have a look at the KTP website ( http://www.ktponline.org.uk/ ) or just email me for more information.
Posted in Research, Social Marketing, University.
Tagged with Cross-Cultural, Funding, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, KTP, Research, Social Marketing.
A reader of this blog sent me a link to a rather interesting news item from California over the weekend (Thanks!). According to the US magazine The Advocate, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in California is planning on petitioning for a law to require condoms being used in adult movies (the article can be found here). The arguments that the AHF uses are that workers in the adult industry should be protected, which is of course a very valid point. Another point though is absent from the statement, and that is the question whether or not what is happening in adult movies may influence perceptions of “normality”, and “what is expected”, which is part of an ongoing research project we are working on (see the post about the project here) . Our research is grounded in the Theory of Reasoned Action/Theory of Planned Behaviour (see image below).
In other words, what we are interested in is, if people do form their views of what is expected and “normal” from media consumption, even if this is not (usually) a major plot line (as using a condom or not using a condom would be) - and how that then in turn does (or does not) influence their intentions and potentially behaviours, especially behaviours that are often very private and for which there are only limited other experiences apart from media and own experiences. This is, of course, ultimately leading us to ask if and how this can be used for social marketing purposes. In other words, while the original AHF petition maybe mostly about workers in the adult industry, it may be, that if such a ban comes into force, and if the TRA/TPB model guides us in the right way, such a ban on condomless sex on screen may have also a prevention effect in the much wider public that consumes adult movies (for an interesting discussion on how many this may be, see this Time article).
Posted in Health Promotion, Research, Social Marketing.
Tagged with Bareback Porn, Health Promotion, HIV, Research, Theory.
It isn’t often that Social Media campaigns are really imaginative, especially when it comes to spreading a serious message. For the most part, many campaigns still try to imitate the traditional media campaigns, similar to the many websites that tried to replicate printed media in the 90s.
Take the example of World AIDS day. There are various campaigns out there trying to get social network users to display red ribbons on their profile pages, exchange their profile pictures for the day or similar. All of these are really nice, and a great show of support, but they are ultimately nothing more than a virtual display of something many people would do in real life, i.e. an attempt to replicate real life in the virtual world rather than working with the unique possibilities of online world.
Luckily though the Swiss AIDS Federation has thought a little harder this year and developed an application that harnesses the powers of social networking, and really takes into account the unique environment in which social networking operates. As many good campaigns, the campaign is actually pretty simple. All it does is, it posts a post to your friends homepage that xyz and XX other friends have deleted you as a friend.
By doing this, it really plays on the feelings of being “defriended” (and I guess I’m not the only one who has secretly spend way too long trying to figure out who is the person that just made my friend count go down). This impression may be even worsened by having several of the messages on your homepage, ranging from being deleted by your best school mate to partner to friends to casual acquaintances…. No wonder anyone receiving such messages may feel totally anxious!
Luckily, in a unique twist to normal facebook policy, the campaign actually let’s you see who and why you have been defriended. Once you follow the link, you will get an explanation that in reality, of course, the person has not defriended you - but rather that this is how it feels being stigmatised or discriminated against (and loosing friends) for nothing more than HIV-status alone. A very short shock then, but a really thought provoking campaign - even if all is back to normal after a few minutes of shock, which of course is not the case in real a discrimination scenario. Well done to the Swiss AIDS Federation of building something so uniquely suited to facebook - and if you’d like to spread to word, or erm, delete a few friends, then check out:
http://www.facebook.com/RedRibbonNOW?v=app_7146470109
P.S. If you have examples of great applications that harness the powers of web 2.0 effectively to create social change, why not share them via the comment function?
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0.
Tagged with Facebook, HIV, Internet, Social Marketing Intervention, Social Media, Stigma.
I often get asked what is the main difference between Social Marketing and Commercial marketing - or indeed if there is any difference. Of course, this is understandable, not least because after all we are using fairly similar tools (and theories in some cases). However, I’d argue that the main difference is probably in the starting point. Consider the basic definition of Marketing as a “social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others.” (Kotler et al, Principles of Marketing). One of the main points for commercial marketing is the creation and exchange of products that people want and need, for social marketing while that may be true in the long run, it may not be so in the short term. Take the example of healthy food choices: While it may be true for some people that they do prefer a piece of fruit, many more people are likely to prefer unhealthy food choices (chocolate anyone?). For commercial marketers, the main objective is to find out which people want the healthy food and supply them with apples, bananas and grapes - while also supplying and exchanging unhealthy food with the people who want it. In that sense, commercial marketing is pretty value free - it delivers what people want, when they want it (and without starting a discussion about the ethics of such an approach), does not really make a judgement if that is good or bad.
Social marketing is pretty different: In social marketing we would be actively trying to convince those people that want unhealthy food to switch to healthy food (and we would probably not be too concerned about those that already eat healthily). Thus, our target is very, very different (and yes, we are making a judgment call, i.e. that there is such a thing as desired behaviour as well as undesirable behaviour). This also explains why in many ways it is a lot easier to be a commercial marketeer: after all commercial marketing is a little like running in open doors (or delivering what someone wants when they want it in the way they want it) - while social marketing really is about convincing someone that a particular behaviour is bad/unhealthy/undesirable and to do something that he/she may not originally want to do.
Posted in Social Marketing.
Tagged with Commercial Marketing, Difference Commercial and Social Marketing, Theory.
Social Media re a great way to spread the word about local sport and physical activity programmes, and can be used as a tool to further participation in sports.
These are the slides from an upcoming workshop at Middlesex University’s Trent Park campus on how to use social networks such as facebook, twitter, blogs etc effectively to communicate with potential and existing clients/customers - and how to generate a real strategy for creating content and maintaining a social media presence.
For more information about the workshop, please have a look at the Pro-Active North London website here.
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media.
Tagged with Charity, Internet, Marketing, Non-Profit Marketing, Social Media, Sports.
“Framing” health related messages either by focusing on the loss of not engaging in a specific behaviour or by focusing on the gain by engaging into a desired behaviour can have a massive outcome on how people perceive a given message - and more importantly how likely they are to actually act. This effect can be astonishingly large: For example, Mann, Sherman & Updegraff showed that by matching the frame of the message to the motivations of the recipient, the communications were up to 50% more effective in changing behavior - impressive to say the least!
In a new, exploratory research project which we are about to start at Middlesex University, we will go a little further and explore the link between culture and message framing - an area which has not been explored a lot as yet. Starting next week, we will start an initial survey comparing individualistic and collectivistic countries and a number of differently framed messages and appeals - thus linking current advertising research and cross-cultural research with health message framing research. Very exciting! Stay tuned for the findings 
!
Posted in Advertising, Cross-Cultural/Intercultural, Social Marketing.
Tagged with Cross-Cultural, Message Framing, Research, Social Marketing.
The Australian Institute of Criminology has recently published a review paper in which it recommends the use of social marketing principles to crime prevention, very much following along the lines of my earlier post on extending the knowledge we have from using social marketing in health to other areas, such as crime. The full paper can be found here. In short, the paper provides a 12 point plan of how social marketing planning can be used in the prevention of crime, and makes the case for further investigation of how both crime prevention and social marketing can benefit from talking to each other. From a personal view, this is a fantastic step forward in ensuring that the lessons we have learned by using social marketing mostly in the health area are systematically applied in other situations, such as pro-environmental behaviour (see also the DEFRA report published last year), in crime and financial planning/poverty prevention.
Posted in Social Marketing.
Tagged with Crime, Crime Prevention, Future of Social Marketing, Pushing the Agenda, Social Marketing.
Yesterday I received an email from America. It was asking me, given my negative stance on shock tactics in this post, what I was thinking about an anti-obesity campaign currently underway in New York. My first reaction was pretty much (as the reader expected maybe) “Oh no!” - fear & shock appeals that haven’t worked with cigarettes, are now being used to market anti-obesity measures. But then I thought a little more about the campaign, and what research actually tells us about positive and negative message framing. Continued…
Posted in Advertising, Health Promotion, Social Marketing.
Tagged with Add new tag, Message Framing, Obesity, Public Service Advertising, Social Marketing.
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