On Social Marketing and Social Change

CECCR Presentations Announced

The agenda for the May 10th symposium featuring the NCI Centers for Excellence in Cancer Communications Research is set. Presentations include:

Robert C. Hornik, PhD
University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication
“Extending the Reach, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of Health Communication”

Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD
Saint Louis University Health Communication Research Laboratory
“Communication-based Strategies to Eliminate Health Disparities”

Victor J. Strecher, PhD
University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center
“Distilling the Essential Ingredients for Tailored Communication in an Era of Personalized Medicine”

David H. Gustafson, PhD
University of Wisconsin Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis
“Using a Comprehensive Informatics Support System to Improve Patient Outcomes”

Here is the full program for the symposium. Maybe I'll see a few of you there? BTW - my latest information is that a 'webcastable' version of the symposium is in the works. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: Health Communication Research, National Cancer Institute

Social Marketing in the News

College Curriculums Take Environmental Slant

Students in her social marketing class are learning business by being green. Students did research and created a marketing plan to reduce energy use in an academic building and a dorm. The marketing effort ranged from stickers reminding students and faculty members to turn off lights and computers to posters mounted in bathroom stalls explaining how electricity use contributes to global warming...

After monitoring power usage, staking out bathrooms and computer labs, and conducting surveys, members of "The Green Team" are confident that their marketing strategies are working. And they're excited about the business skills they've learned in the meantime.

Uganda Should Be Wary of Donors 

If you look at Global Fund activities, you just go to sleep. Why for instance would you spend Shs600 million on Information, Communication and Education (IEC) materials, social marketing of condoms and music dance and drama in an area coverage of one sub- county?

Such money if directed to household income generating activities like piggery (pigs have a high regenerative capacity) you would have a whole sub- county transformed and equipped with capacity to protect orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) and generally get them more insulated against HIV/Aids.

Caribbean Red Cross to Develop HIV/AIDS Action Plan

The Caribbean Red Cross HIV/AIDS Network (CARAN) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (International Federation) is currently meeting in Panama City, Panama to begin development of a four year strategic plan for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean... Since the last CARAN Meeting in Jamaica, CARAN’s membership has scaled-up considerably in HIV/AIDS programming. In the past they focused almost entirely on the vitally important areas of youth peer education and anti-stigma and anti-discrimination.

However they are now broadening their approach to include highly successful social marketing and social mobilization campaigns that reach many more people with key HIV/AIDS messages.

Empirical Research Shows Jordanian People Reject Honor Killings

Mohammad Ben Hussein writes that, "Meanwhile, local human rights groups have been facing strenuous challenges in their uphill battle to put an end to the killings:... "The society looks at the criminal with sympathy. They see them as victims," says Manal Asha of Jordan's Institute for Women."

That is certainly the conventional wisdom. However, recent empirical evidence does not support this view. Not at all.

Last autumn I came to Jordan… to conduct the empirical marketing research that precedes any professionally-conducted social marketing campaign...So what is the bottom line? The conventional wisdom is wrong. Generalizing from the survey sample to the wider population, there is not much justification or support for continuing to offer legal leniency to the perpetrators of "honor" killings.

Technorati Tags: Environment, HIV/AIDS, Honor Killings, Social Marketing

Tailored Messages for Changing Eating Behaviors

An analysis of 30 different studies finds that tailored diet messages are more effective than general advice to lower fat and increase fruit and vegetable consumption (Health Behavior News Service). Social marketers no doubt are scratching their heads about what the news is here  - but that's another story for another time.

A majority of studies found that the groups who received personalized advice increased their daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Eleven of the 14 studies that tested the short-term effect of tailored education on fat intake showed a significant improvement in the participants’ diet. Among the 11 studies with strong results, six compared tailored information against no information, while four studies tested personalization against generic education and one study tested tailored feedback against results after a video lecture.

Now it becomes building scalability and mechanisms for maintaining these changes over time. Of course, the question is (as always when it comes to diffusion and dissemination research in public health): who funds the important work?

Technorati Tags: Diet, Health Education, Health Communication, Message Tailoring, Nutrition Behaviors

Massive Passives, Gadgetiers and Kool Kids

It is 'the beginning of the end of television as we know it' declares a study from the IBM Institute for Business Value.

Our analysis indicates that market evolution hinges on two key market drivers: openness of access channels and levels of consumer involvement with media. For the next 5-7 years, there will be change on both fronts – but not uniformly. The industry instead will be stamped by consumer bimodality, a coexistence of two types of users with disparate channel requirements. While one consumer segment remains passive in the living room, the other will force radical change in business models in a search for anytime, anywhere content through multiple channels.

What this means for any health communications or social change program that intends to use ccommunication technologies is that you will need to determine how your audience fractures into these segments of media users. Planning will need to include strategies that reach and resonate with this bimodal distribution of media consumers, with consumer control over their media exposure being of the most concern (see the large shift of the Massive Passive segment over the next 5-7 years). The authors of the study also note the importance of providing 'seamless content mobility' across delivery devices to meet the needs of the open access segments. [via The MIT Advertising Lab.]

Added Link: How ABC TV is confronting the problem of content mobility.

Technorati Tags: Health Communications, IBM Institute for Business Value, Media Use, Social Marketing, Television Viewing

Social Media and Social Ties

Some critics suspect that new technologies and social media are eroding social networks and social capital. Yet, a research report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests just the opposite.

The internet helps maintain people's social networks, and connects them to members of their social network when they need help. 60 million Americans have turned to the internet for help with major life decisions...

Our work shows that internet use provides online Americans a path to resources, such as access to people who may have the right information to help deal with a health or medical issue or to confront a financial issue. Sometimes this assistance comes from a close friend or family member. Sometimes this assistance comes from a person more socially distant, but made close by email in a time of need. The result is that people not only socialize online, but they also incorporate the internet into seeking information, exchanging advice, and making decisions. Contrary to fears that email would reduce other forms of contact, there is “media multiplexity”: The more contact by email, the more in-person and phone contact.

People are rapidly learning how to incorporate new media and social networking into their daily lives. As they become more comfortable, and in control, of these experiences, it will be the change agents and organizations who learn how to work with the 'social' context of these media that will be most successful. Putting these technologies to use to foster collaboration and build relationships among like-minded organizations is another place to look for inspiration. Also, be sure to check out the Special Report on new media in the latest issue of The Economist (limited access to articles here: via Church of the Customer).

multiplicity
multiplexed
multiplexing
multiplex
multiplexer
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

Technorati Tags: New Media, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Social Media, Social Networks

Social Marketing in the News

Kenya: The Pitch - Beyond the Real Product 

Traditionally, the communication of health-related issues has been left to governments. It has essentially consisted of a one-dimensional approach in the form of public service announcements. Over the past 10 years or so, this has rapidly changed with healthcare communication taking on a more complex approach similar to that of commercial brand marketing. This is known as social marketing.

As opposed to the previous manner of public announcements, which tend to be dictatorial, social marketing involves listening to the needs and desires of the society and using the information to compile a consumer-focused communication strategy similar to that of a brand sold by manufacturers.

The main difference between the two is the objective of the organisation. While marketing of brands aims at delivering financial profit to an organisation, social marketing seeks to influence social behaviour to benefit the target audience and the society.

Controversy Taints Choice for ANWR PR

Pac/West Communications, an Oregon firm the Alaska Legislature is about to hire to promote oil drilling in the Arctic, has run political campaigns for hunting and resource development that have been marked by two qualities: aggressiveness and success…

[Pac/West President] Phillips says it's time for Alaska to apply "social marketing" to the state's long effort to convince Congress to open the refuge to drilling. He wants to target particular areas of the country and tell people there why it's in their interest to open ANWR. The campaign would be directed at voters, and at their representatives in Congress, he said.

"It really is building awareness of the issue, educating people as to the 'why does this matter to me,' " he said.

University of British Columbia a Test Site on Hydrogen Highway

UBC’s Campus Sustainability Office (CSO) has proposed a $10-million suite of projects -- approved in principal by Industry Canada-- to test and showcase the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells.

“Our role in the project is to integrate fuel cell technology into our plans for a sustainable campus,” says Jorge Marques, CSO energy manager. “We want to explore community-oriented applications for hydrogen technology.”

“We want the UBC community to experience concepts they may have only read about or seen on TV,” says Irfan Rehmanji, project co-ordinator for the UBC node. “The node will integrate a number of concepts that affect our daily life and will be a phenomenal outreach and social marketing tool.”

Togo: 'Condoms Are Good, But Abstinence is Better' 

After consistently emphasising condoms in their prevention campaigns, organisations in Togo are advocating abstinence, creating confusion among young people.

"Yesterday they were advertising condoms, now they recommend abstinence. It now looks like those who doubted the effectiveness of condoms have been proved right," said Alfred, a security guard working in the capital city of Lomé.

Many other young Togolese are baffled by the shift to promoting abstinence rather than condoms as the best means of protection against HIV.

In July 2005, Population Services International (PSI), which specialises in social marketing, launched a massive advertising campaign in the media and on the streets of Lomé to promote abstinence, with slogans like "a true man knows how to wait" and "a true woman knows how to wait and does not yield to pressure".

WCB Wants to See Shift in Attitudes

A cultural shift taking several years is needed to make this province a safer place to work and stabilize the finances of the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia [Canada], a board spokeswoman said Wednesday…

National surveys have shown well over half of Atlantic Canadians think of workplace injury as inevitable, Mary Kingston, director of communications for the board, said Wednesday.

"What we’re dealing with here is just a lack of awareness that there is something that can be done to prevent workplace injuries — that it isn’t inevitable," she said.

Gory print and television ads on the hazards of workplace accidents are a first step in a long-term campaign to get workers and employers to recognize the problem and address it, she said. The ads are beginning to raise people’s awareness of workplace safety, but reducing the number of injuries will take time.

"By the time it takes people to understand the issue, change their attitudes and then change their behaviour, you’re looking at a seven- to 10-year process," Ms. Kingston said… In addition to the social marketing campaign, the WCB is working with employers whose firms experience high rates of injury, in order to help create safer workplaces.

Technorati Tags: Abstinence Education, ANWR, HIV/AIDS Prevention, Hydrogen Fuel, Social Marketing, Workplace Injury

The Ideology of Partnerships

RFPs for improving public health and social conditions are loaded with references to ‘coalitions,’ ‘partnerships,’ and other forms of interorganizational collaboration – often as preconditions to either submitting a proposal or in carrying-out the work. Francie Ostrower pleads for ‘greater realism about partnering’s benefits and limitations’ in Stanford Social Innovation Review [free article].

She reports the results of a program designed to encourage partnerships among community-based arts and humanities organizations to help them expand their audiences. As a condition for funding, local foundations either required or strongly encouraged CBO applicants to form partnerships. In interviews with staff from both the foundations and grantees, the investigators found that both groups recognized the positive benefits of partnerships: build organizational capacity, horizons and growth; expand and diversify audiences; and expand organizational networks (build social capital). However, they diverged as funders argued that partnerships increase efficiency by discouraging duplication and encouraging the pooling of resources. Grant recipients, on the other hand, noted the time-consuming and costly work of making the partnerships work (relationship building across organizations, logistical management such as scheduling and attending meetings); asymmetrical responsibilities among partner organizations where large ones spread responsibilities across multiple staff while smaller ones have to concentrate them on just one or two people; and the perceived inequities about roles, responsibilities and influence that lead to contention between partners.

Her analysis of the data pins the underlying problem as this:

Foundations seemed to encourage, and sometimes mandate, partnerships not necessarily because partnering was the best way to achieve a particular set of objectives, given a specific context and problem, but because partnering fulfilled the foundations’ view of how the social sector should operate. Evidence of an ideological commitment to partnerships surfaced time and again in our interviews.

The outcome of this type of commitment is that grantees focus more on making the partnership work [ie., behaving as they are ‘suppose to’] than on achieving the original objectives. Indeed, many grantees said that they would not have formed a partnership had it not been a requirement for obtaining the grant. My favorite quote: …policymakers continue to heed a ‘siren call of coordination remedies’ because of coordination’s value as a symbol that ‘epitomizes widely shared social values or rationality, comprehensiveness, and efficiency.’

The two major conclusions of the study are:

• Assuming that a particular goal warrants forming a partnership…provide planning grants to give potential partners the time and incentive to explore more fully the feasibility and the costs of partnering.
• To ensure the success of a partnership, foundations must be willing to cover administrative costs and, in the case of large projects, they may need to consider funding a partnership manager.

While the study focused on local foundations and CBOs engaged in a specific task, the contours of the problem are embodied in many other contexts. The bottom-line is not to allow the indulgence of ideological biases to take focus, time and energy away from the purpose of the work.

Technorati Tags: Coalitions, Community Interventions, Partnerships. Philantrophy

Marketing to Kids and Youth Meeting

If you have the $950 registration fee the Connecting to Kids and Youth marketing forum will be held June 14th in Chicago.

The program description notes: Connecting with Kids & Youth will take an in-depth look at the latest strategies being used to reach some of the most influential and lucrative segments of the U.S. consumer market, America's kids & youth. Marketing, advertising, entertainment and media leaders will gather to share insights and examine the newest trends in kids and youth marketing. The program will also deal with critical issues facing marketers, such as marketing with new media, adjusting to changing ethical expectations and experiential marketing.

IDK, but somehow the idea that this is such a 'lucrative' market (as opposed to 'baby boomers') seems like bait to me. And more than a bit cynical. If any reader attends this meeting, be sure to go to this session and report back to us.

Assessing 'The Blame Game' in Kids and Youth Marketing: How Corporate Responsibility and Ethics Fit into Today's Marketing Puzzle        

Marketing, entertainment and advertising communities seem to be the first targets of blame when it comes to hot button issues such as child obesity and adolescent violence.  So what guidelines and best practices can marketers follow to change this perception and protect their brands? This panel discussion will assess the current kids and youth corporate responsibility minefield and offer solutions for marketing practitioners.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Connecting with Kids and Youth, Obesity Prevention, Violence Prevention, Youth Marketing

Marketing Social Marketing

Several colleagues I have worked with over the years have put together their collective experiences of introducing a social marketing approach in a variety of public health settings in the latest issue of Health Promotion Practice [link to abstract].

It examines some of the key reasons that public health practitioners encounter resistance to using social marketing and discusses how a logic model can be used to market social marketing in organizations and communities.

The logic model includes identifying (a) target audience(s), (b) desired behavior, (c) determinants of their management behaviors, and (d) the right mix of marketing strategies to bring about the desired behavior for three resistance scenarios they label as 'Big Dogs,' 'Hard to Reach,' and 'Not Policy Friendly.' The authors note the critical role that 'permission' plays in management's decision to adopt a new intervention model.

Technorati Tags: Audience Segmentation, Marketing Management, Social Marketing

Legislating vs Marketing Behavior

...a city whose residents have long been scorned for their churlish behavior is now being praised for adopting rules and laws that govern personal conduct.

Using legal means as a behavior change tool received more coverage in the NY Times over the weekend.

With its precipitous drops in crime, New York has increasingly been able to turn its attention to policing offensive behavior, from the mere faux pas to outright misconduct that puts others at risk. And that has put it on the front line of a national crackdown on incivility.

Some of the targeted behaviors include interfering with a sports event, using cellphones in theaters and putting your feet up on the seat in subways. While some of these behaviors are certainly obnoxious, it looks like evidence for a 'That's Cheating!' claim.

The Director of the Emily Post Institute calls for a public relations campaign in lieu of forcing good behavior down unwilling throats. Many years ago the question was asked: 'Why can't we sell brotherhood like soap?' Especially when it comes to behaviors like these, ones that are likely quite sensitive to social norms and pressures, why not test a social marketing approach (NOT another public relations program) before reaching for the legal tool?

Technorati Tags: Civil Behavior, Regulations, Social Marketing

 

Walkable Neighborhoods: It's More Than a Design Problem

Alex Steffen talks about an experiment of a colleague and his family to live a car-free lifestyle in Seattle. While it was quite easy to identify a 1 mile perimeter 'walkshed' in which most of their daily activities occur, they identified a need for information tools (such as a map for their walkshed that locates area businesses and public facilities of various sorts) that would help guide their walking behavior. [Guess it beats wandering around aimlessly for at least 30 minutes a day most days of the week.]

Technorati Tags: Physical Activity, Walkable Communities

Social Marketing in the News

Drivers Heeding Slow Down Campaign

As a result of the “Slow Down Around Road Works” campaign, 85 percent of people recently surveyed by AC Nielsen said they were more likely to slow down…

“Changing people’s behaviour, especially that of  New Zealand drivers, is extremely hard,” says campaign co-ordinator, Glenda Hughes. “Our social marketing research strongly suggests that if people are not prone to behave as you want them to, if there’s resistance to change, then your communications will work better if you use an approach that ‘sells’ rather than ‘tells’.”

Climate Change – No Action

It had to happen I suppose. But it took until virtually the last session. At the Climate Change and Governance Conference one of the delegates finally made the pitch for a social marketing campaign to convince people that climate change was a serious issue which needed urgent action by the New Zealand government - and immediately.

Kate Nash: No News is Good News - Unless You Foot the PR Bill

Records I requested show that in 2005, the state [New Mexico] signed at least 19 contracts for publicity and outreach worth more than $1.3 million.

Those contracts included $150,000 for a litter awareness and prevention campaign contract.

The state also spent $110,000 to reach out to women who typically don't get breast and cervical cancer screening to let them know about services available to them...

The list goes on: $35,000 to design and develop a public service campaign for the state's Family Infant Toddler Program.

And: $19,999 for "a social marketing campaign" in Roswell to promote physical activity as a prevention and self-management strategy for arthritis and osteoporosis and to increase physical activities among adults."

Technorati Tags: Climate Control, Physical Activity, Social Marketing, Traffic Safety

Food Product Modifications and Healthy Eating

Two stories today at opposite ends of the spectrum on how food marketers are addressing obesity and health issues.

USA Today notes: Of cookies. And crackers. And chips. And popcorn. And, most recently, yogurt. Even Coca-Cola has recently plopped 100-calorie labels on 8-oz. mini-cans of several soft drinks.

A nation of overweight and portion-challenged consumers is rewarding the big food makers at the cash register for pushing portion-controlled products.

Then, under the headline Fast-Food Fries, Chicken Fatter in US the AP reports on correspondence in today's New England Journal of Medicine [subscription required] that finds -

At a New York City McDonald's, a large fries-and-chicken-nuggets combo was found to contain 10.2 grams of the trans fat, compared with 0.33 grams in Denmark and about 3 grams in Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic.

At KFCs in Poland and Hungary, a large hot wings-and-fries order had 19 grams of trans fats or more, versus 5.5 grams for wings and fried potato wedges in New York. But in Germany, Russia, Denmark and Aberdeen, Scotland, the same meal had less than a gram.

A large order of french fries at a New York City McDonald's contained 30 percent more trans fat than the same order from an Atlanta McDonald's.

So much for standardization. Now what do those trans fat values in the nutrition information charts at McDonalds and KFC really mean?

 

Technorati Tags: Fast Food, Food Marketing, KFC, McDonalds, Obesity, Trans Fat

Now That's Cheating!

Government driven social marketing can turn around and change the law to make our alternative behaviour mandatory. We can attempt to use social marketing to gain compliance to our idea, or we can force behaviour through punishment.  Switching to legislative enforcement when our social change campaigns fail to take a grip is cheating. It's saying that if you won't play nicely, we'll force you to play.

This note was posted on the social marketing list serve as part of an exchange about ethics and social marketing. The writer’s point was that ‘going upstream’ to change the environment and policies has an inherent danger of moving out of the realm of voluntary behavior change and into the world of coercive tactics – thus, it is no longer marketing.

While many social change advocates look to regulatory and policy change as necessary tools in their toolbox, we should also be humble and wise in pulling them out. The larger point is to critically look at our marketing mix and strategies to assure ourselves (and others) that we have indeed done our best work at creating incentives and opportunities for people to choose alternative behaviors that fit into their everyday lives and are effectively promoted before taking this next [giant] step.

I was reminded of this comment while reading the LA Times:

In that spirit, the Christian Legal Society, an association of judges and lawyers, has formed a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court. Several nonprofit law firms — backed by major ministries such as Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ — already take on such cases for free.

The legal argument is straightforward: Policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians. Evangelicals have been suspended for wearing anti-gay T-shirts to high school, fired for denouncing Gay Pride Month at work, reprimanded for refusing to attend diversity training. When they protest tolerance codes, they're labeled intolerant.

[Note to the reporter: your Freudian slip is showing.]

Now how a community of people who ostensibly believe in The Golden Rule decide that it’s appropriate to file lawsuits so they can be intolerant of others could make a case study in Cognitive Dissonance. And while I’m on the subject, Garry Wills noted in a Sunday op-ed piece in the NY Times: There is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian.

Technorati Tags: Christian Legal Society, Cognitive Dissonance, Policy Change, Social Marketing

Update on Health Communications

The discipline of Health Communication reached a milestone in its development when it was included as a separate area of focus for achieving the health objectives of the US. Working group members who helped develop the objectives for this focus area (disclosure: I am a member of that group) identified as a priority: To enlarge the knowledge base of health communication and incorporate it into health promotion practice, a research and training infrastructure is needed to develop, model, and coordinate activities.

As a result, one of the health communication objectives is: Increase the number of centers for excellence that seek to advance the research and practice of health communication.

Since then the National Cancer Institute has funded four Centers for Excellence in Cancer Communications Research with the expectation that:

...interdisciplinary efforts will result in new theories, methods, and interventions, including those for diverse populations. The Centers will provide essential infrastructure to facilitate rapid advances in knowledge about cancer communications, translate theory and programs into practice, and train health communication scientists. In essence, the Centers will catalyze major advances in cancer communication.

Their work will be part of a program scheduled for May 10th, 2006.

Technorati Tags: Health Communication, Healthy People 2010, National Cancer Institute

Behavior, Policy and Climate Change

Alex Steffen notes: 2006 may just be the year in which climate change will finally break through into the popular consciousness, and people (especially mainstream Americans) will finally get it that this global warming stuff is really, really serious. With glossy magazines, television shows, feature films and multiple online campaigns pouring forth the climate change stories, it would appear that we are finally reaching the climate politics tipping point. This is our Climate Spring.

Yet, the calls for buying hybrid cars, turning off the water while brushing our teeth, recycling and other individual behavior changes will not be enough, even on a global scale, to forestall some of the more drastic effects of global warming. The call is for a vision of the future that is "exciting and inspiring enough to fight for." What that vision might be is the question.

In related news, the San Francisco Chronicle previews a speech today by the California governor.

In a speech to be delivered in San Francisco, Schwarzenegger is expected to embrace environmental policy rejected by the Bush administration by proposing a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and the creation of market-based systems to help companies meet the new caps...Schwarzenegger will call reducing greenhouse gases a great challenge that will require sacrifices, but he will urge the state to "provide an example to the rest of the world," according to an advance copy of the speech given to The Chronicle.

Policy changes will usually follow public opinion and are not over once enacted.  The hard work of marketing policy change is maintaining the incremental changes through public support and action while moving on to the next step.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Policy Advocacy, Social Marketing

Social Marketing in the News

Plan to Fight Youth Obesity

On Wednesday, the San Mateo County [CA] Board of Supervisors released a report titled "Blueprint for Prevention of Childhood Obesity: A Call to Action." More than 250 community leaders and stakeholders hammered out the action plans in the report.

…[O]ne of the initiatives borrows from a successful model to reduce smoking in teens, explained Alicia Goldstein, a prevention coordinator with the San Mateo County Office of Education, who was involved in the report's development. "We modeled it on basic approaches that have worked in the past for solving youth tobacco use."

That model entails enlisting youth in designing new projects; launching aggressive advertising campaigns to challenge norms; and engaging students in political advocacy to change laws and regulations… At Jefferson High School in Daly City, one of the pilot schools, students are embarking on a "social marketing campaign" to make it just as cool to exercise and eat fruit as it is to play Game Boy while guzzling soda. This type of campaign, outlined in the new report, is crucial for helping to reverse rising rates of weight gain in youth. This approach gets to the essence, Goldstein said, of making "behavioral change happen."

Colombia IDP Products a Success at International Trade Fair

Products made by internally displaced Colombians, former child soldiers and victims of anti personnel mines and endorsed by IOM, were a great success this week at the International Trade Fair (Macrorueda de Negocios Agroindustria) held in the city of Cartagena.

In 2005, IOM began the Social Market Strategy to help vulnerable populations to become self-sufficient. Since then sales have increased by about 30 per cent.  It is expected that by the end of 2006, total sales will reach US$ 100,000.

For more information on the Social Marketing Strategy and to see the products, please visit the IOM Colombia Website. www.oim.org.co.

Fight Against HIV/AIDS Reinforced

Last week, a new male condom brand called Dume, was launched by the Tanzania Marketing and Communications project (T-MARC), through the support of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and USAID

Dr David Mwakyusa, the Tanzania’s Health Minister says during the official launch of the product that the road ahead for Dume is positive but a challenging one. ’I say this because, although the actual numbers of condoms being distributed and availed in our country are continually increasing, it is sad to note that male condom usage rates are still alarmingly low in Tanzania,’ he says…

On her side, Vicky Chuwa, a representative from USAID says, the support for new condom product was in line with her organization’s efforts to support the prevention strategies in Tanzania. According to Ms Chuwa, USAID was injecting a lot of money in the five-year project to support T-MARC fostering social marketing activities. According to Chuwa, other HIV/AIDS interventions targeted by USAID are treatment, care, support as well as the prevention of mother to child transmission.

The Age of Denial

Appy, the president of the Home Safety Council, who is in her 50s, had been brimming with enthusiasm about product advances to help Americans "age in place," a desire Baby Boomers express in industry survey after industry survey.

Wireless smoke detectors connecting all the alarms in the house. Innovative pharmacy bottles that make prescriptions easily identifiable. Floor coverings and lighting systems minimizing the risk of missteps, not to mention a stylish selection of grab bars made ever easier to install so they don't crash to the floor with the falling grabber…"We're going to really have to do some social marketing to have the grab bar thought of as a towel rack," Appy said, "as something we get to pick out rather than something that is the beginning of the end."

Strictly Prohibited, Sea Turtle Hunting and Trade Persist

Because six of the seven sea turtle species are Endangered or Critically Endangered, their international trade is prohibited, but consumption and trafficking of sea turtle parts persist. Conservationists are working for tougher laws and stricter enforcement. Social marketing and awareness campaigns may help unravel cultural myths about sea turtle properties, and on an individual basis, consumers play a powerful role in disarming poachers and protecting sea turtles. Without renewed effort to hold poachers and hunters accountable and enforce sea turtle trade regulations, the seas will be quickly and irreversibly emptied of these timeless creatures.

Technorati Tags: HIV/AIDS, Home Safety, Obesity, Social Marketing, Trade Fair, Turtle Conservation

Can You Put These Behaviors Together?

A group of us were talking about behaviors that are important for developing strong bones among young girls to prevent osteoporosis later in life (PSA: consume lots of foods high in calcium and engage in regular sessions of weight-bearing physical activity - dancing, not bicycling). The question came up, as it often does when many different behaviors can contribute to preventing or protecting against a potential health risk: 'Can we promote more than one behavior or concept at a time?'

The answer came out pretty quickly: if they go together in the audience's mind. Pancakes without Aunt Jemima's syrup. Eating well and being more active gives me more energy. A day without orange juice... Cookies without the milk.

Nabisco is sponsoring a contest in June where consumers can send in videos of themselves singing the 'Oreo & Milk' jingle to support the release of a limited edition of Oreo Dunkers. Now if they were dancing while they performed it...

Technorati Tags: Behavior Change, Bone Health, Health Promotion, Oreo Dunkers, Osteoporosis

Improving the Appropriate Use of Antibiotics

The overuse of antibiotics poses serious public health risks by unintentionally increasing levels of bacterial resistance to them.  Goosens et al examine the results of national campaigns in France and Belgium to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics in the latest issue of the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.  From the abstract:

Evaluation of these national campaigns showed the importance of television advertising as a powerful medium to change attitudes and perhaps also behaviour with regard to antibiotics. Moreover, in both countries, strong evidence suggested reduced antibiotic prescribing. However, adverse effects associated with a reduction in antibiotic prescribing were not monitored. We conclude that carefully designed mass education campaigns could improve antibiotic use nationally and should be considered in countries with high antibiotic use. However, these campaigns should employ techniques of social marketing and use appropriate outcome measures.

Technorati Tags: Antibiotic Resistance, Health Campaigns, Social Marketing

Reducing the Stigma of Mental Illness

Corrigan & Gelb review promising strategies to reduce the stigma of mental illness in the March issue of Psychiatric Services.  From the abstract:

Research suggests that stigma may be reduced by three approaches: protest, education, and contact. Three programs that adapt these approaches for mass audiences are described: StigmaBusters, which is a form of protest; Elimination of Barriers Initiative, which involves education or social marketing; and In Our Own Voice, which relies on direct contact between people with mental illness and the public. The authors review preliminary research that offers initial support for the feasibility and impact of these programs, with a particular focus on how the components of social marketing (problem identification, description of target audiences, development of the change technology, and process and outcome evaluation) can be adapted to antistigma campaigns.

Technorati Tags: Mental Illness, Social Marketing, Stigma