Social Marketing - Case Study Example

Social Marketing Number June 18, Faculty Social Marketing Q1. About 16 million Americans ride ATVs. Death rates and injury related to the use of ATV’s have increased with higher prevalence in West Virginia.Q2. Despite the enactment of the safety legislation in May 2004, average ATV-related annual deaths increased from 26 to 45. Thus, the legislation was ineffective in reducing the death rates.Q3. According to the data on ATV-related fatalities, 92% of the ATV fatalities result from controllable behaviors.Q4. The authors carried out focus groups with seasoned ATV riders to collect their formative research.

The participants involved were community members and college students with the experience of riding ATVs.Q5. Watching the behavior of others, lack of knowledge or ignoring recommended safe behavior, and lack of instruction from others were identified as barriers to embracing safe conduct by the participants.Q6. The ATV dealership employees reported that special discounts on safety gears were offered to encourage members of the community to adopt safer practices while riding ATVs. One dealership employee shared the experience that it was not easy to persuade ATV riders who already practiced bad habits to stop them. Q7. Routine riding habits that constitute deeply ingrained riding behavior and norms learned early in life are cultural forces that pose a threat to the success of safety-based campaign messages. Q8. Young ATV riders and particularly those of between 10 and 12 years of age were selected as the target audience.

It was because the quantitative data and focus group participants identified them as having a dire need for safety messages. High rates of mortality and morbidity were experienced for children below 16 years.Q9. Goals are broader in scope than objectives and indicate general intentions that may not be measurable. Objectives are narrow in scope, concrete and measurable as they are set for particular tasks. Goals have a longer time frame while objectives are short term precise targets.Q10. Campaign goals were: To increase use and knowledge of safety behavior, to make the target group feel efficacious and confident about embracing the intended behavior.Q11. Specific behavioral objectives: To ensure that the target audience knew how to handle an ATV, wore a helmet, ignored negative peer pressure, encouraged others to be safe, examined the driving environment, and enjoyed riding an ATV.

Knowledge related: To increase awareness of the safe ATV behaviors that should be practiced, to increase knowledge on how prevalent the accidents and injuries were among the youth.Related to belief: To make the target audience feel positive about safety behavior and to make them effective in being able to embrace the selected types of safety behaviors.Q12. Products: the benefits of fun and protection and the behaviors riders should embrace while riding ATVs. Tangible products included rubber bracelets, ATV safety activity packets, and brochures.

Pricing: costs were nominal. Participants were not going to pay. However, non-monetary costs such as inconvenience and discomfort were involved.Place: the social campaign was conducted in the Middle Schools.Promotion: Oral and written messages were used as promotional materials. The written messages such as brochures bore a CHOICE logo. Letters, announcements, and posters were also used in promotion.Q13. Students distinctly remembered the following form the campaign; wearing proper riding gear and helmet, not riding on paved roads, not carrying a passenger while driving, driving the correct size machine, and others generally recalling that they should be safe.Q14. College-aged students were important in the formative research to help capture the actual experiences and beliefs of ATV riders to develop and implement an appropriate curriculum for the children. Q15. The Social Learning theory says that individuals who had not ridden before are social agents and will practice what they observed from others when riding.Q16. The use of non-target populations and lack of a comparison group with the use of untested measures were limitations of the study.Q17. I learned that it was important to observe safety behaviors while riding ATVs to help reduce the high mortality and morbidity rates.

ReferencesKerry, B., Brandi N., and Maria B. (2012). Using Social Marketing Processes to Develop and Pilot-Test an Intervention for Pre-Teen All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) Riders. Journal of Emergency Medicine, 60(4), S130-S131.