3. What we will cover
1. Review successes (mostly) and challenges (some) in a 5-city social
marketing campaign to engage parents and children
3
4. What we will cover
1. Review successes (mostly) and failures (some) in a 5-city social
marketing campaign to engage parents and children
2. High-level overview of the research that provided our foundation
4
5. What we will cover
1. Review successes (mostly) and failures (some) in a 5-city social
marketing campaign to engage parents and children
2. High-level overview of the research that provided our foundation
3. Present specific, concrete strategies and tactics
5
6. What we will cover
1. Review successes (mostly) and failures (some) in a 5-city social
marketing campaign to engage parents and children
2. High-level overview of the research that provided our foundation
3. Present specific, concrete strategies and tactics
4. How to apply these strategies and tactics in your work, setting
6
8. Follow the research
“The literature is beginning to amass evidence that targeted,
well-executed health mass media campaigns can have small-tomoderate effects on health knowledge, beliefs and attitudes, but
on behaviors as well…these results can only be achieved,
however, if principles of effective campaign design are carefully
followed.”
– Seth Noar, A 10-year Retrospective of Research in Health Mass Media
Campaigns
8
9. Framework 1: Social marketing
• Utilizing the principles of marketing to:
– Impact the common good and/or
– Motivate individuals to make positive behavior changes
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10. Framework 1: Social marketing
• Utilizing the principles of marketing to:
– Impact the common good and/or
– Motivate individuals to make positive behavior changes
• Community-based social marketing
– Tapping the power of community to influence behavior change
– Prompting, high-touch personalized outreach, social norming, etc.
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11. Framework 1: Social marketing
• Utilizing the principles of marketing to:
– Impact the common good and/or
– Motivate individuals to make positive behavior changes
• Community-based social marketing
– Tapping the power of community to influence behavior change
– Prompting, high-touch personalized outreach, social norming, etc.
• Traditional vs. social science-based behavior change
– Rational economic beings vs. the interplay of feelings and analysis
11
12. Framework 2: Understanding behavior change
• Social psychology, behavioral economics revealing why we
decide what we decide, do what we do
• Most powerful motivators of behavior change:
–
–
–
–
Loss aversion
Social norming
Deviance avoidance
Intrinsic perception
12
13. Framework 3: Relevance of diffusion research
• Mass media and interpersonal communications have different
roles
• Understanding change agents and our target audience
13
16. The study
• Can summer learning programs in public school districts:
– Combat summer learning loss?
– Improve educational outcomes and social competency?
– Potentially reduce the achievement gap?
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17. The study
• Can summer learning programs in public school districts:
– Combat summer learning loss?
– Improve educational outcomes and social competency?
– Potentially reduce the achievement gap?
• Assessing two years of intervention for children in 3rd grade in
spring 2013
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19. Outreach and communications objectives
• Increase recruitment
– Across all districts, more than 100 percent increase
– Get 30 to 40 percent of eligible population to register
• Increase percentage who show up/reduce no-shows
• Increase ongoing attendance
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21. Goals
• Very specific, quantifiable goals for each district
• Recruitment goals:
–
–
–
–
–
District 1: 415 students to 875
District 2: 600 to 1,800
District 3: 425 to 1,004
District 4: 255 to 627
District 5: 600 to 1,200
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22. Objectives: non-divisible actions
• Fill out and return the form
• Get your child to the program on the first day
• Get your child there on a regular basis
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23. Challenges
• Recruitment is not a core competency of public schools
– Relatively little experience
– Public school is mandatory
• Parents:
–
–
–
–
are protective of their child’s summer
equate summer learning programs with traditional summer school
do not understand or see risk of summer learning loss
believe they can handle it themselves
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24. Marketing research (achieving empathy)
• Culturally sensitive
• Message testing to understand motivators
• Understand key perceptions and decision drivers
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25. Understanding relevant worldview
• Our marketing research revealed:
– Parents feel institutions impact them, they don’t influence institutions
• A different conceptualization of fairness
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28. Message concepts that were tested
Loss aversion
Prevent the “summer
slide.” Make sure your
child’s learning keeps
going forward, not
backward.
Social norming/
Deviance avoidance
We cannot let our
children fall into the
“achievement gap.” A
summer learning
program gives every
child a greater
opportunity to get
ahead.
Intrinsic perception
Take charge of your
child’s future. A
summer learning
program is a fun, safe
way to keep your
child’s education on
track.
Gain framing/Intrinsic perception
Social norming
You can give your child a special, free gift—a
fun and safe summer learning program that
will help prepare them to do well in the 4th
grade
Join the parents who
are giving their
children an
advantage. Summer
learning programs
keep their minds and
bodies sharp.
You want your child to be doing something
safe and productive this summer. The
district’s free Summer Learning Program is a
smart choice.
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29. Positioning
“Your child can take part in unique, exciting activities like field
trips and also sharpen the reading, writing and math skills they
need to succeed in the 4th grade. At no cost, your child can keep
his or her mind and body active this summer.”
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31. The strategy to engage parents
• Empower parents
• Get children excited
• Utilize credible messengers, relationships
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32. Ensure accessibility of materials
• Objective is 5th to 6th grade reading level
• Use Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level
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33. Assertive, sustained recruitment
• Utilize a variety of methods to reach parents
• Ongoing, consistent outreach
• Multiple ways to take the action
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34. High-touch personalized outreach
• Structured opportunities for change agents to engage with
parents
–
–
–
–
Phone calls
Notes home
Intercepts at school
Events
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35. High-touch personalized outreach
• Structured opportunities for change agents to engage with
parents
–
–
–
–
Phone calls
Notes home
Intercepts at school
Events
• Equip change agents
– Talking points, FAQs, scripts
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36. Children are consumers
• Promote, employ relationships with adults
• Marketing materials for children
• Direct outreach, including mailings, to children
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37. Relationship marketing
• Create connections, relationships with target audience
• Help our audience feel part of something, not just “buying a
product”
– We used personal connections
– Engagement events
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38. Results
• Every district exceeded recruitment goals, more than doubled
• Most districts reduced no-show rates, some dramatically
• Average daily attendance remained static
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39. Notes about a needle not budged
• Possible lessons from our challenges with daily attendance
– The more complex a behavior:
• The more difficult it is to motivate that behavior
• The more likely it is that countervailing forces will depress action
– Increasing, changing target population attributes increase difficulty
– Societal context can limit impact of social marketing
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41. The rules of engagement
• Understand your audience—what do they think about your issue, how do
they view the need and the service, what motivates them
• Briefly state how the audience should understand your service or
organization (positioning)
• Write the messages that will clearly communicate the positioning to your
audience (message platform)
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42. The rules of engagement (cont.)
•
•
•
•
Agree upon numeric goals
State the specific behaviors you want to change or impact (objectives)
Make the behaviors as easy as possible to complete
Write a brief plan that relies heavily on interpersonal
communications, high-touch outreach, multiple touch points and multiple
ways of delivering messages
• Create a tracking mechanism and put feedback loops in place
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