The Real Cost Campaign

So we meet again... :-) 

In this post we will cover 2 weeks worth of material and 4 chapters through examining “The Real Cost” anti-smoking campaign! Specific topics we’ll examine, include:

1.) Determining research needs and options: 

• What types of research are mentioned?
• Does this campaign utilize ongoing research?

2) Choosing a social issue, purpose, and focus:

• This one is almost a trick question it's so easy-  What is the focus of this campaign?

3) Segmenting, evaluation, and selecting target audiences:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is the desired behavior?

4) Setting behavior objectives and target goals:

• What is the target goal for this campaign?

1.) Determining research needs and options: 

• What types of research are mentioned?
• State and national youth tobacco prevention campaigns
• Youth-focused health campaigns
• Best practices for mass media campaigns
• Lessons learned from previous efforts 
• FDA's research 
• Formative research
• Literature Reviews (secondary data)
• Consolation with experts (key informant interviews)
• Focus groups with youth
• Pilot testing of messages (this can enable evaluation research (and changes) before the message is widely distributed) 
• Does this campaign utilize ongoing research?
• Yup!  Ongoing research and evaluation is tiled through a multi-year in person and nationwide study.

2) Choosing a social issue, purpose, and focus:

• This one is almost a trick question it's so easy-  What is the focus of this campaign?
• Smoking among youth 12-17 years of age (which will ultimately assist in improving overall health outcomes)

3) Segmenting, evaluation, and selecting target audiences:

• Who is the target audience?
• Youth 12-17
• Target audience analysis was done to help develop messages 

4) Setting behavior objectives and target goals:

• What is the target goal for this campaign?
• The overall goal of this campaign is to reduce the number of youth aged 12-17 who smoke. Beyond this long term goal, the campaign aims to change knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors over time.

Moving forward to examine behavior change communication (BCC) vs. Empowerment in "The Real Cost" campaign. Featured below are two PSA examples from this campaign.  At fist glance I would say the campaign developers did a good job addressing the target audience and no large red flags go up in my mind. 

While I didn't come across any major ethical considerations I do believe the first example doesn't  give much information on why cigarets could potentially "control you".

This second example seemed much more intense to me!  What did you think? 

More information on "The Real Cost Campaign" can me found here: http://therealcost.betobaccofree.hhs.gov

References:

(1)FDA,. The Real Cost: Research + Evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/downloads/TobaccoProducts/PublicHealthEducation/PublicEducationCampaigns/TheRealCostCampaign/UCM384308.pdf

(2)YouTube,. (2016). Don't Let Tobacco Control You.. Retrieved 17 February 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jeocrjZOUY

(3)YouTube,. (2016). The Real Cost Commercial: "Your Skin". Retrieved 17 February 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asarKLMCvdo

Social Marketing Process

This week’s content was based on the nature of campaigns.  Let’s review the social marketing process, according to the good ole Lee & Kotler (2013)…

1.     Define the problem, purpose and focus.  To do this you can conduct a situation analysis.

o   Where do you get information these aspects?

o   Who is important to include in the situation analysis?

2.     Identify the target audience.

3.     Set objectives and goals.

4.     Identify factors influencing behavior adoption and craft a positioning statement.

5.     Chose marketing mix strategies including product, price, and place for the social marketing campaign.

6.     Further develop marketing mix stratifies for promotion based on the messages and media available.

o   4 P’s- Product, price, place, and promotion

7.     Plan for monitoring and evaluation.

8.     Establish budget and find a funding source.

9.     Complete a plan for implementation and management.

Do you agree with these steps? Do you think they go in this order or are they as cut and dry and they may appear at first?  To have a successful campaign, maybe the idea isn’t to go in a certain order but rather to ensure we address all these points.

One of the first social marketing campaigns was lead by Rotary International to end Polio in India.  It was extremely successful!  This campaign demonstrates the afore mentioned social marketing process eloquently:

1.     The uptake of polio vaccines was slow among communities in India, much of this slow uptake was due to distrust in the government and religious preferences. The purpose of the polio campaign was to educated community members about the polio vaccine and eradicate polio in India by focusing on educating mothers and promoting the oral vaccine in newborns and children under 5 years old.

2.     Again-  Mothers in order to vaccinate newborns and children under 5.  What was not previously mentioned was that there were several challenges in reaching certain populations.  Because of this, the campaign had to consider and address migrants, nomadic and mobile populations, rural populations, and those with the greatest resistances to vaccines

3.     The overarching goal was to eradicate polio world wide.

4.     As mentioned before this campaign addressed the challenges in reaching remote and transient populations as well as dispelling misconceptions related to the vaccine.

5.      I’m combining the 4 p’s!

o   Product: Polio vaccine

o   Price:  Free

o   Place: directly in communities and at transient locations

o   Promotion: Delivery of the health effects of polio had a strong focus on teaching the benefits of the vaccine and promoting strong community ownership of vaccine delivery as well as dispelling misconceptions.  Catchy taglines were used to promote the vaccine, some included, “2 drops to life”, “every child, every time”, “For my child, two drops every time”.  Lastly, a wide range of delivery platforms were used:  Billboards, posters, bus panels, rickshaws, national immunization day, community festivals, large public gatherings, phone calls and text messages.

6.     Plan for monitoring and evaluation.

o   Through monitoring and evaluation data was collected to determine which children were commonly missed and the campaign was adjusted to reach these children.  Between 1988 and 2011 the burden of disease went from 200,000 to none!

7.     Establish budget and find a funding source.

o   Over $178 million from Rotary alone was used for this campaign.

Image: Example of promotional material.  The person featured here was a famous Bollywood star. http://graphitepublications.com/cooperation-immunization-and-a-polio-free-india/

Whew! That was a lot of information!  Take a breath… Stretch…Now let’s move forward, so much more to cover! ;)

Okay… So why do you think this campaign was successful?  I mean, eradicating Polio in India in a matter of ~30 years is pretty impressive.

Social marketing campaigns use several theories from health promotion planning and in doing so these campaigns aim to influence behavior through a variety of different ways.  Promoting behavior change through campaigns can prove to be difficult because humans normally respond better to a direct reward.  In many cases health benefit rewards will take some time to realize.  In the case of the Polio vaccine we are talking about saving children’s lives, this may seem like a straight forward reward but in reality it can be just an idea or people may have the common response of “this will never happen to me”.  While that may be true, the longitudinal nature of this campaign coupled with the fantastic systematic planning process contributed to the success of the campaign!

This stuff is hard work and very time consuming but has the opportunity to positively influence entire populations.

Ethics:

Back to our ethics discussion…

As a communicator, who do you ethically have a responsibility to?

• Ourselves
• The Public
• Society as a whole
• Our employers
• Journalist
• The government

Also, we may want to consult the code of ethics.  Apparently there are difference ethic codes for each profession and I couldn’t find one directly for “social marketing” although there are several for marketing.  These could be applicable to social marketing campaigns.  Basically: be honest, transparent, and respect individuals.  Some marketing ethical concerns are presented here: http://www.cleverism.com/social-responsibility-ethics-marketing/  

New PSAs:

Okay, this is my favorite part!  This week was extra fun because the two new PSAs I’m presenting were advertised during the Superbowl!

Domestic violence- After the NFL star Ray Rice was caught beating his girlfriend in an elevator along with other related scandals, the NFL committed to donating $5 million dollars per year to the domestic violence hotline with the intention of reducing domestic violence.  Little is yet known if domestic violence within the NFL has been reduced because of “confidentiality issues”.  While this is probably true, and from an ethical standpoint you have to ensure confidentiality to those who report domestic violence, I personally do not think the NFL would willingly tell the public that domestic violence has stayed the same or increased. More information can be found here:
http://www.wfdd.org/story/year-did-nfl-anti-domestic-violence-efforts-work

Testicular Cancer- I didn’t know how I felt about this PSA at first but through talking with a few men, I found that the humor and real life application presented in this PSA caught their attention.  This PSA goes in to great detail on how to check yourself for prostate cancer, thus, enabling individuals to identify a problem if it is present. http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2016/01/29/Deadpool-PSA-is-helpful-and-hilarious/6851454055002/

I personally think both of these campaigns are empowering as they give individuals the ability to take action!  In the domestic violence campaign, a number is provided for the domestic violence hotline and in the testicular cancer PSA specific instructions are presented.  Although this is true, other concerns must be addressed to give individuals full access to services.  What if a woman does not have any where to go to escape violence?  What if she has no access to funds to get away from her current situation?  What if a man does not have insurance?  What if he does not know how to navigate the health system to seek care?  Much more must be done to fully enable these individuals to seek action.