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Deepening Our Understanding of the Target Audience and the Competition

Chapter 8

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What More Do We Need to Know about Our Target Audience

Assume that you are to help reduce the amount of litter on roadways. Behaviour objectives: use a litterbag and cover loads in the back of open pickup trucks. You have a geographic, demographic, and psychographic profile of people who litter, but doesn't tell you what (preferred) behaviors and associated benefits you are competing with. Imagine how important (and helpful) it would be for you to know the answers to the following questions before developing strategies in Step 5?

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What would they rather do than the behavior we are promoting and why?

What benefits do they see to their current behavior? (remaining liquid spill on the car floor; a leak-proof litterbag that sealed; a productimplication)What costs do they see to their current behavior? (won’t be seen littering; could get caught and severe penalties, and would think twice; setup 800# for reporting littering; a promotion and place implication)

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What do they know about the desired behaviors? to know that to have a litterbag in the car is a law and fines is as much as $500; increased awareness is important’ a price and promotion implication.To know where to get free litterbag; make locations visible and accessible; a place implication.How to properly secure loads? A demo booth at county fairs and car shows can be effective; a promotion implication. How much litter is dumped on freeways and how much it costs to pick it up? During annual litter awareness week, displace litter collected alone the road, a promotion implication.

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Do they believe? What are their values and attitudes relative to the desired behaviors?

What benefits do hey see to using litterbags and securing their loads? What in it for them to do this? (being a good role model for their children matters more than being a good environmental steward, messages about saving the earth should be secondary, a promotional implication.What do they perceive it will cost them to adopt this behavior? (toss beer bottles out the window so that they won’t be caught with open containers in the car; make penalties for littering asgreat or greater than their current behavior, a pricingimplication; make community service penalties as a severe cost)What barriers do they have to performing the behavior? (18-24 single males wouldn’t like to be seen with the white plastic litterbags with cartoon graphics in their black leather interiorcar; thus the need to develop cool litterbags, a productimplication).

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What Models Might Be Used to Explore our Audience Perspectives Further?A review of existing literature and research and discussions with peers an colleagues. If info gaps still exist, it may be important to conduct original research using qualitative methods, e.g., focus groups and personal interviews, and/or quantitative instruments, e.g., phone and self-administered surveys.

Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, and Belief (KAPB)The Health Belief Model (HBM) Innovation Diffusion Model The Social Cognitive Theory/Social Learning TheorySocial Norms

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Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, and Belief (KAPB)

Survey dataFor example: conducted by Gallup Organisation, supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using telephone surveys to track knowledge and behavior related to folic acid among women aged 18-45:

9 out of 10 women did not know that folic acid should be taken prior to pregnancy.More than 8 out of 10 women did not know that folic acid could help prevent birth defects.Only 1 in 3 women not pregnant at the time of survey reported consuming a multivitamin containing folic acid daily.

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Addressing Smoking Attitudes

This Norwegian ad addresses young people’s smoking attitudes by arousing strong negative feelings. The ad reads (left panel) “Smokers are more sociable than others.” (Right panel): “While it lasts.”

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The Health Belief Model (HBM)Developed by social psychologistsThe perception of a personal health behavior threat is itself influenced by at least three factors: general health values; specific health beliefs about vulnerability to a particular health threat; and beliefs about the consequences of the health problem. Once an individual perceives a threat to his/her health and is simultaneously cured to an action, and his/her perceived benefits outweighs his/her perceived costs, then that individual is most likely to undertake the recommended preventive health action.Key descriptors include:

Perceived susceptibility: perception of the likelihood of experiencing a condition that would adversely affect one’s health.

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Cont.

Perceived seriousness: beliefs a person holds concerning the effects a given disease or condition would have on one’s state of affairs: physical, emotional, financial, and psychological.Perceived benefits of taking action: the extent to which a person believes there will be benefits to recommended actions.Perceived barriers to taking action: the extent to which the treatment or preventive measure may be perceived as inconvenient, expensive, unpleasant, painful or upsetting.Cues to action: types of internal and external strategies/events that might be needed for the desired behavior to occur.

11Adopter Categorization on the Basis of Relative Time of Adoption of Innovation

Innovation Diffusion Model

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Elements of the diffusion model that are useful for diffusion planning

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The usefulness at this stage in the planning process would be in providing additional information regarding:

What might motivate our target audience to adopt the new behaviour given where they are in the adoption sequence;How to ‘speed the diffusion along’ to remaining segments

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The Social Cognitive Theory/Social Learning Theory

Two major factors influence the likelihood that one will take preventive action:

1. A person believes that the benefits of performing the behavior outweigh the costs (i.e., more positive than negative outcome expectancies)

2. The person must have a sense of personal agency or self-efficacy with respect to performing the preventing behavior (must believe that he/she has the skills and abilities for performing the behavior under a variety of circumstances)

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Social Norms“Everyone is doing it” due to the influence from “imaginary peers”Whether and how much students drink partly depend on their perceptions of campus drinking norms

When they see several/fewer students using alcohol, they may feel more/less pressure to drink more/less

Self-fulfilling prophecy: the more students who overestimate the drinking behavior of their peers and tend to believe that high-risk drinking is common (i.e., normative), the more high-risk drinking will actually occur.This model highlights the potential benefit of understanding perceived versus actual behaviors among target audiences. Results may signal opportunity to correct the perception.

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SummaryFor a person to perform a given behavior, one or more of the following must be true:

Positive intention (or make a commitment)No environmental constraintsNecessary skillsAdvantages of performing the behavior outweigh the disadvantagesSocial (normative) pressureMore consistent than inconsistent with his/her self-imageEmotional reaction to performing the behavior is more positive than negativeCapabilities to perform the behavior under a number of different circumstances

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Who is the competition in social marketing environment?

Social marketers have tough competitors, for we define the competition as follows:

Behaviours and associated benefits our target audience would prefer over the ones we are promoting (e.g., taking long showers)Behaviours they have been doing ‘forever’ that they would have to give up (e.g., driving alone to work)Organisations and individuals who send messages that counter or oppose the desired behaviour (e.g., the Marlboro Man’)

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The Marlboro Man

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Examples of Competing Behaviors and Messages

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Key Tactics to Create Competitive Advantages

Greater benefits in the behavior we are promoting than in their current or preferred behaviors.Lower costs and fewer barriers to adopting the desired behavior than their current or preferred behaviorSocial pressure or norms that signal this as an acceptable cultural value.

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Examples:

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Star Power: Celebrities as Communications Sources

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Competition in Social Marketing Environment

Cigar Advertisements

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Competition in Social Marketing Environment

This Singaporean beer ad reminds us that not all product decisions are made rationally.