Social Marketing in the News
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Schools Get Caught Between Cash, Calories |
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Westmoor High School senior Veronica Flores blames a cash cow for students' poor nutrition: vending machines. Ban the machines, improve school lunch fare, and watch the students slim down, she says.
In spite of money troubles, Westmoor High School has found creative ways to slim the student body. This year, students will use a grant obtained by the Jefferson Unified High School District to launch a social marketing campaign on nutrition. They'll create posters, television commercials and songs about healthy food, similar to a highly successful anti-tobacco campaign the school did a few years ago.
Net Gains for Africa
PSI pioneered the concept of "social marketing" in the 1970s to promote family planning in Kenya. It used all the bells and whistles of an advertising campaign to create a demand for condoms and then supplied them for sale at subsidized prices through shops and health facilities. The aim, embraced by the United States and many international donors, is to create a market that can sustain itself after outside assistance goes away.
This approach has its critics. Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist and author of "The End of Poverty," is the best-known advocate of giving the nets away. He argues that charging even a token amount puts this lifesaving intervention out of reach for Africans who live in rural villages and urban slums on less than $1 a day. Sachs supports nationwide campaigns such as the one in Togo, which in one week in December gave away 1 million free nets with measles vaccinations.
PSI, for its part, points to Malawi, where it sold 1 million subsidized nets last year and which is now on track to meet net-use targets. It also argues that paying even a token sum has a value that goes beyond building a sustainable system. When people decide to buy a net, they commit to using it and signal that they understand why and how it's used, which has not always been the case when nets were given away free, only to be used as wedding dresses and fishing nets.
Federal Money Fights Drugs in Covington
Unlike other Northern Kentucky school-based drug abuse prevention programs, Covington's is funded by a $5.7 million federal grant the district received in 2001. That money has enabled Covington Independent Public Schools (CIPS) to implement a comprehensive drug abuse prevention program to engage the entire community in helping its students stop using drugs or, even better, avoid them entirely.
The "Youth Out Front" program is run by and for Covington students. Student mentors organize social marketing campaigns to raise awareness of drug abuse, and, obviously, discourage it. They also speak at workshops and public forums. Later this month, the group will launch a "Got Dreams? Lose the Booze" alcohol-abuse awareness campaign, with several more to follow this year on tobacco and marijuana.
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Sex Health Ads Focus on Respect
A campaign to encourage youngsters to respect each other has been launched by a project dedicated to improving teenagers' sexual health. The slogans on buses and in toilet cubicles urge 16 to 18-year-olds not to make swift judgements about people based on the way they look or their sexual habits.
Douglas Eadie, of the Institute for Social Marketing, conducted research on behalf of the campaign and interviewed young people to discover their views on sexual relations and on the advertising. Researchers found that although respect was a familiar concept among youngsters, some gave homophobic views and did not understand that appreciating the difference between people was a key part of respect.
Dona Milne, Healthy Respect project manager, defended the message put forward in the campaign. She said: "The Healthy Respect Campaign was developed from research carried out by the Social Institute of Marketing at Stirling University and it was pre-tested with the target age-group and demographics. The young people involved in the focus groups recommended this campaign from three others as the most effective."
Healthy Respect spokeswoman Yvonne Powell said: "One of the core values of Healthy Respect is respect and that's why we wanted to find out what that value means to our target group. "It's not a safer sex campaign - it's broader than that in its getting young people to have more of an understanding of the difference choices people make in life."
Commercial Featuring Local Students Hits Airwaves
A Public Service Announcement aimed at teens and created by teens started airing Monday on six major television channels in an effort to curb perceptions about underage alcohol consumption.
Members of Students Taking Out Peer Pressure, or STOP, were involved in filming the 30-second PSA in June. It depicts the consequences of underage drinking and ends with the message "Think Again." It is part of a social marketing campaign to get the word out about the dangers of alcohol.
Black Gay Men at HIV Epidemic’s Crossroads
Despite these efforts, are we doing enough to support CBOs that strive to prevent new HIV infections among black MSMs ?
Many would say no.
Another explanation is the paucity of effective prevention strategies and interventions designed for black MSMs. Indeed, research targeted to black MSM—to develop interventions, assess the precursors to risk behaviors or evaluate the effectiveness of interventions—remains scarce. CDC’s list of evidence-based interventions that CBOs and health departments are allowed to use contains no interventions specifically designed for black MSMs. Still to this day, only one HIV prevention intervention aimed at changing behavior toward safer sex practices specifically designed for black gay men has undergone a randomly controlled trial to evaluate its effectiveness.
Since the June CDC conference, a group of black gay activists began meetings to develop a collective, community-driven response. The group has produced a policy document with nine action steps targeted to the federal government and community stakeholders. This statement follows a similar 2003 effort, when a group of black gay and bisexual activists, many of whom had longstanding disagreements in the past, signed a letter to then Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson calling for action steps including demonstration projects, more behavioral research and a national social marketing campaign. Black, gay men and their allies must continue to demand decisive action from national policymakers.
Orange Armbands New in HIV Fight
IN its effort to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the Social Marketing Association (SMA) has produced dark orange armbands to symbolize support for 'knowing one's HIV status'.
“Our wish is for the arm-bands to become a symbol of hope, not only for those affected by HIV, but for Namibia as a whole. We would like to see everyone wearing one," says Jon Allen, Marketing Manager of the Social Marketing Association.
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