The Drum Beat 431 - Social Advertising

From The Communication Initiative Network - where communication and media are central to social and economic development.

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This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on how advertising and marketing have been used to address social development issues. It includes programme examples and evaluation reports that illustrate how advertising and marketing can help tackle health issues such as nutrition and obesity, tobacco use, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. It also features a few strategic thinking publications on gender issues in advertising, with a focus on the country of South Africa. The issue closes with a selection of articles and excerpts related to advertising and marketing principles.

Below are just a few selections related to the above topic. To find other items of interest to you on The CI websites, please search for "advertising" and "marketing" or click here.

Please send us information about how you and your organisation are using advertising or social marketing to address social or economic development issues. Contact Deborah Heimann anytime at dheimann@comminit.com

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ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC HEALTH

1.PlayPumps International - South Africa
This project builds water pumping systems that use a South African-designed patented system to enable borehole water to be pumped via an underground pump and stored in an elevated sealed water storage tank. The idea is that, when children play on the roundabout (merry-go-round), the mechanism pumps water from the borehole into the water storage tank at a rate of up to 1,400 litres per hour. In addition to producing water, this project is designed to raise awareness and spur discussion by communicating educational and public health messages. The tower housing the water storage tank features 4 billboards, one per side of the tank; 2 sides are used for educational and health messages and the other 2 are rented out for commercial messages. Messages highlight issues such as HIV/AIDS, cholera, and malaria prevention; learning the alphabet; good hygiene; road safety; and water-saving methods.
Contact: Sandra Hayes sandra@playpumps.org OR Jill Rademacher jill@playpumps.org

2.Evolution of an Epidemic: 25 Years of HIV/AIDS Media Campaigns in the U.S.
by Julia Davis
Published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, this report focuses on how national media campaigns on HIV/AIDS have evolved over the last 25 years in the United States, reflecting the changing nature of the disease as awareness and treatment have progressed. It also provides insight into the approaches, historical context, and impact of leading national public education campaigns. The report documents some of the shifting interests shaping advertising related to HIV/AIDS, including government-sponsored efforts, campaigns developed by non-profit and non-governmental groups, and messages developed by or through partnerships with the media industry itself.

3.Spot On Malaria: A Guide to Adapting, Developing and Producing Effective Radio Spots
by Cate Cowan and Lonna Shafritz
This guide focuses on malaria prevention and treatment messages and ways to tailor them to reach communities often missed by national malaria programmes. The guide takes the reader through a 7-step process for planning, adapting or creating, testing, and producing radio spots. It shows how to adapt or localise materials from national malaria programmes, as well as how to create original radio spots or advertisements to respond to local needs. The guide encourages collaboration with colleagues and local experts.

4.Advertising and Obesity: A Behavioral Perspective
by Janet Hoek and Philip Gendall
This article explores the role that advertising plays in reinforcing and normalising behaviour, presenting an analysis of how marketing contributes to obesity. According to the authors, advertisers have rejected claims that advertising contributes to this health problem by arguing that it cannot coerce people into purchasing a product, and does not affect primary demand. This reasoning, the authors claim, is deeply flawed; they use behaviour modification theory to show why. In addition to examining the "fast-food" industry's promotions, they review the New Zealand government's response to obesity and suggest policy interventions that they believe would foster healthier eating behaviours. The authors stress that, to counter obesity, those responsible for health strategies need to develop programmes that change individuals' environments so that healthier lifestyles become easier to follow. They illustrate this claim by looking in depth at the New Zealand government's Healthy Eating Healthy Action Plan, and outline an alternative intervention agenda.

See Also:

5.Know Your Status - United States

ADVERTISING TO CHILDREN

6.Impact Data - VERB Campaign - United States
The VERB campaign was a multiethnic social marketing campaign that combined paid advertisements with school and community promotions and internet activities to encourage 9- to 13-year-old children to be physically active every day. Launched in 2002 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), VERB used commercial marketing methods to advertise being physically active as cool, fun, and a chance to have a good time with friends. The campaign ran from 2002 through September 2006. The evaluations being summarised here focus on national paid advertising using the VERB brand from June 2002 through June 2004.
Contact: Marian Huhman mhuhman@cdc.gov OR cdcinfo@cdc.gov

7.Role of Media in Childhood Obesity
Published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004, this report reviews more than 40 studies on the role of media in the United States' increasing rates of childhood obesity. The report concludes that the majority of scientific research indicates that children who spend the most time with media are more likely to be overweight. Contrary to common assumptions, however, most research reviewed for this report does not find that children's media use displaces more vigourous physical activities. Therefore, the research indicates that there may be other factors related to children's media use that are contributing to weight gain. In particular, children's exposure to billions of dollars worth of food advertising and marketing in the media may be a key mechanism through which media contributes to childhood obesity.

See also:

8.VERB Campaign - United States

ADVERTISING TO YOUTH

9.Changing Youth Behavior Through Social Marketing: Program Experiences and Research Findings From Cameroon, Madagascar, and Rwanda
by Josselyn Newkom and Lori Asford
Published in 2003 by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), this publication describes 3 social marketing programmes created by Population Services International (PSI) that addressed prevention of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS, among youth 15- to 24-years old in Cameroon, Madagascar, and Rwanda . Research played a critical role in developing the programmes' strategies and key messages. In addition to advertising products, the programmes used a mix of commercial marketing and interpersonal approaches to motivate young people to either use condoms consistently or not have sex, learn their HIV status, and seek treatment for other STIs. The programmes achieved results by making discussion about sex more common and acceptable, creating new social norms for safe behaviour, and motivating youth to seek out and use reproductive health services.

10.A Classroom-Administered Simulation of a Television Campaign on Adolescent Smoking: Testing an Activation Model of Information Exposure
by Donald W. Helme, Robert Lewis Donohew, Monika Baier, and Linda Zittleman
Published in the Journal of Health Communication, this article reports research from a study of a particular communication strategy for addressing the problem of adolescent tobacco use: the use of media interventions that include high sensation-related elements to attract, hold the attention of, and persuade higher risk takers to avoid or delay the unhealthy behaviour. The article examines the premise that the research on televised anti-drug public service announcement (PSA) campaigns based on the sensory, affective, and arousal needs of high sensation-seeking adolescents can be applied to youth tobacco prevention to produce media messages that achieve significant changes in tobacco-related attitudes, intentions, and behaviours.

See also:

11.Television Ads and Young People's Diet in Cyprus

12.Assessing Tobacco Control Strategies in Turkey

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GENDER ISSUES IN ADVERTISING: Focus on South Africa

13.Gender, Advertising and Broadcasting
This report describes the efforts of the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), located in South Africa, to strengthen advocacy and lobbying around gender in broadcast advertising - particularly around gender representation in advertisements. Topics include: the South African advertising industry; gender portrayal in advertising - a survey of selected advertisements; a critical analysis of gender and advertising - intensive case studies; implications for advocacy and outreach; and raising public awareness.

14.Mirror on the Media: Gender and Advertising in Southern Africa
edited by Colleen Lowe Morna and Sikhonzile Ndlovu
Conducted by Gender Links, this study examines gender and advertising in Southern Africa. It forms part of the Mirror on the Media series of monitoring reports on gender and the media coordinated by Gender Links with the support of the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA). Covering 1,650 radio, television, print, and billboard advertisements in Mauritius, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the study aims to establish how women and men are represented and portrayed in advertising.

ADVERTISING PRINCIPLES

15.Social Marketing and Public Health: Lessons from the Field
Published by Turning Point, this publication provides 12 case studies and lessons learned about marketing public health campaigns in the United States. According to Turning Point, because marketing has often been confused with advertising or promotion-only efforts, health professionals will benefit from understanding the key principles and marketing tools involved in a social marketing approach. The examples listed in this publication were selected to illustrate the key concepts of marketing and to document to what extent these principles have been applied in the cases presented.

16.Transnational Media and Contoured Markets: Redefining Asian Television and Advertising
by Amos Owen Thomas
This publication explores - from both a pragmatic advertising perspective and a critical cultural perspective - the implications of the growth of television on audiences in Asia. The author uses case studies of satellite and cable channels across South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia to argue that the globalisation of the media and advertising can only be understood within the broader context of economic, political, social, and cultural processes within nation states, subnational regions and transborder ethnic communities. The book addresses socio-ethical issues related to growing globalisation for developing countries and transnational economies worldwide.

17.Public Service Announcements
The Ad Council campaign development process includes a sequence of 10 steps:

• Literature review
• Expert symposium
• Target audience research
• Strategic brief
• Campaign Review Committee (CRC)
• Rough ad design
• Target audience feedback
• CRC review
• Final product development
• CRC review

See also:

18.When Donor Support Ends: The Fate of Social Marketing Products and the Markets They Help Create

19. The Drum Beat 391 - Social Marketing - April 23 2007

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