Greetings Everyone!
This week we had a wonderful video showing the application of the Social Marketing model to motivating tweens (9-12 year olds) to get their vaccinations. Here are my thoughts:
I found it very beneficial to see the model actually applied to a real scenario from start to finish in a specific order. Too often we want to rush right to promoting our message before doing any prep work. When we are presented a new model, we don't really get a good idea of how deep we must dive into certain aspects of it. It was very helpful to see how this was applied in the movie. For example, with benefits/barriers, there were intangible and tangible items outlined as well as health related and non-health related topics. This was also true when looking at the target behavior and listing all the attitudes/actions that lead up to the target behavior. I also found it useful to see how the psychographics were determined. It is amazing to see how many variables are involved in a given scenario and how this all must be balance with available resources (time, money, expertise, etc.) for the project.
On a side note, one statistic that I found very interesting was the projection that 64% of CA children by 2025 will be of Latino descent. This is a very important fact that must be kept in mind as we developed various programs for the future.
Have a wonderful weekend!
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This was a great video to watch at the beginning of our campaign-making process. The video did a good job of relating theory to practice through the example of a real campaign. I was surprised by the depth of the formative research required for the most seemingly mundane details, and by the complexity of the procedure in general.
ReplyDeleteI found the information regarding tweens especially helpful, as this is the target population for our group. It gave me some insight into this population that I might not have gotten elsewhere.
The Tweens and Vaccine video was very interesting. I have never placed wanting to get or deciding to get vaccines and tweens together. Just as younger children, I have always imagined vaccines as a duty the parent must comply and coax/ deceive their children into. It is a very interesting and empowering concept to target tweens, educate them, and then empower them towards deciding to get vaccinated. The Social Marketing Model within the video suggests that the tween could reach out to the parents regarding vaccines. Therefore, the tween is immediately at the forefront of this health decision. Proactively engaging in this health decision increases the tweens sense of responsibility of self. Since the tween is in a in between stage leaving childhood and entering young adulthood, empowering a tween by being in charge of the need to vaccinate could also help the tweens self confidence and help create a strong sense of self.
ReplyDeleteEspecially since the emergence of the HPV vaccine, I do see the importance of the need for a tween to be knowledgeable of the benefits within the tween years. The HPV vaccine is administered from tween age up until 26 years old. Since this vaccine lessens the risk of a sexually transmitted disease, it is also a stigmatized vaccine. I know of some parents who would have a hard time imagining their children in that situation and thus fail to get them vaccinated. A tween, in this instance, could enlighten their parents and advocate for the vaccine- and thus be protected at an earlier age from the most common viruses.
The video does an excellent job in outlining how a social marketing is important in a behavior change program. This outline will be very helpful in our group projects.
This was an interesting video, specifically how it focused closely on the tween population. I don't think there is enough consideration for this group in our society. Tweens are often included in groups that are characterized by children or teenagers. This special age group is very different from the two that I just mentioned, therefore requiring a completely different marketing approach. However, I don't know how effective a vaccine intervention would be within this group. I think that the last thing on the mind of a tweenager is obtaining a list of needed shots from the doctor. I think that when a child is this age, we should still be targeting this type of intervention at parents. Except for the case of Gardisil, the vaccination to protect against HPV. I think that this topic is relevent to tweens, unlike a the need to vaccinate against hep A. Tweens might be much more motivated to talk to their parents about this vaccination as they enter "teenagehood".
ReplyDeleteI also thought they did an excellent job with formative research, they really new their audience. I think it's very important that tweens don't get lumped into the teenage and children groups because they are a specific population, and the video highlights this. I agree with Laurel thought that this intervention should be largely targeted to parent. It's important to address tweens and make sure they understand why they need the vaccine but in the end it's up to the parents to take their child to the doctor and actually get the shot. I think a vaccine intervention must be two-fold, you need to target the tweens and the parents. It is not solely up to the tweens to get shots so we must include their parents. I liked how thoroughly they applied the model in a real life application, I just think that even if we target tweens we need to target parents as well.
ReplyDeleteWow what an informative video! I was hoping to see a bit of storytelling worked in to the presentation, but maybe that's just me being lazy ;)
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, I'm glad we got to watch this video while creating our own health campaigns. It did a great job outlining, in extensive detail, the steps we need to take, as well as how we should be thinking about certain issues. I appreciated the focus on knowing benefits and barriers prior to forming the message, as well as the use of demographic patterns to shape future research. I also enjoyed learning that we can and should look at past efforts with the subject being studied. While this video was about tweens in particular, most of what was said is applicable to a wide range of populations, as long as you keep your target audience in mind during every step of the process.
The on-line presentation of the social marketing theory to health promotion was extremely well done. As health promotion professionals we also need to consider policy along with price, place, product and promotion. I thought the campaign was very interesting in that the target audience was a very novel idea. Along with the emphasis on knowing your target audience, one other key principle that I found very interesting was to always focus the behavioral component on a course of action, rather than on attitudes and knowledge as they very seldom lead to adopting the behavior outcome.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a very young audience to target for immunizations, and believe it would be quite challenging to ensure that in the mind of these young people the benefits would outweigh the barriers. I have experienced this firsthand at the high school level and witnessed its success. When my daughter joined the high school swim team the coach told each of the students that they needed to get their parents to take them for a physical and ensure all shots were up-to-date. If all members of the team could get this done by the first week of the following month, the coach would throw a pizza party for the team after practice. Needless to say, it worked and everyone got what they wanted.
This video went into so much detail about the target audience emphasizing doing your formative research. I think it was very helpful that we got to watch this before designing our campaign. I too agree that the vaccination intervention should have been geared more towards the parents rather than the tweens. I remember when I was that age, the last thing on my mind was my immunization record; there was just too much going on, especially having to deal with puberty. The tween age group may also be a little too young to fully understand why vaccinations are needed and why they are important. Another interesting point that was brought up was that it is up to the parents to take the tween to the doctor. I honestly do not know of any tween who has to called up their doctor and made an appointment to get their immunizations; that would be more of a parental role.
ReplyDeleteI think this illustrates why many people choose to avoid formative research despite the benefits. There is so much detail in formative research; this shows just how extensive and consuming it can be. However, as many people have pointed out, i think this would be lost on tweens. Going into undergrad, we were required to have all of our immunizations current, etc. I still didn't know what i had or had not had. Because children aren't really able to do ANYTHING without a parent/guardian's consent, i think this campaign should be tweaked to target both the tweens and the parent population - some sort of split/segment campaign could be employed. Maybe by targeting both populations, communication between the two groups can be promotoed and bolstered... teen/parent communication is always a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIt’s really is nice to have had the ability to hear, read, and see how this was all put together, making it more real to me. I can see how it could be applicable to my areas of interest as well. The step-by-step approach helped me to formulate a flow chart in my mind for the campaign/promotion we will be formulating ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThis was done very well and I liked that we can download this for ourselves in a written/visual format as well.
I don’t know about you guys but when I was a “tween” had to get a vaccine, my parents did not give me an option whether I was going to get it or not. I’m not sure because of my culture, but when it came to my health as a tween I did not really have a say if I went to the dentist, the doctor, or to family vacations!
ReplyDeleteIt’s a good thing that we are trying to teach tweens to develop independent and decision making skills. There were several things that I did not agree with the presenter. First, she brought up the point that tweens admire older teens, so by telling the tweens that if they get their immunization vaccines they will feel a sense of maturity. As health educators, we should not push tweens to be something that they are not. We should focus on providing an environment, and services that are suitable for tweens that will lead to a healthy adulthood development.
I do agree that we need to address the tweens barriers. Since every individual is different, it’s the parent’s responsibility to find out what hinders their child to get their immunization vaccine. When parents are not able to talk to their child due to X reason, then the parent should reach out for external help, such as a teacher, family member, or professional for help. Another approach that I liked in the presentation was that children at that age love music, sports, friendships, etc. so parents and health practitioners should tailor their approach to each tween regarding immunization vaccine. Overall, the video was informative and it had some good ideas on how to empower this particular population to get their immunizations.
Applying the social marketing model to promote health behavior is perfectly appropriate for the tween audience. As Dr. Kirby mention tweens are in constant competition for attention and therefore traditional health communication strategies may be ineffective for teens. Tweens are just beginning to become consumers and marketers know this. It might be said that tweens are exposed to some of the most aggressive forms of marketing and advertising. This puts a huge strain on health communicators to compete for the tweens attention. It appears that the best way to compete with advertisers is to join them in their tactics and apply social marketing techniques to their campaigns.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more important observations of the formative research done by Dr. Kirby is the notion that tweens increasingly want to take on more responsibility, but are constantly held back by remnants of their childhood. They want to take charge one moment and be cuddled the next. This stage of limbo makes the tween group a very dynamic target population, which may prove to be an obstacle during the formation of the target message. We want to send a message of taking personal responsibility to these tweens, while also leaving the door open to them for help.
One last additional challenge I was left with after the presentation was the rapid change in demographics and subsequently psychographics. It takes quite a long time to develop an effective campaign, yet given the rapidly changing make up of the target population, campaigns may need to rely even more heavily on a method of constant evaluation and remain open to modifying messages and channels.
One thing I really took from this presentation on social marketing is that ONE target audience and ONE behavior change should be focused on at a time. This is definitely very important. It actually makes things much easier as the developers of a campaign to focus on one specific thing at a time; it helps us assure we are addressing the right people and right behavior.
ReplyDeleteHaving taken a couple marketing classes, I'm fairly familiar with the four P's, and recognize their importance in developing a campaign. I think they are key factors to consider in order to be successful.
As far as the campaign goes, I think it is an interesting topic to address to tweens. Are they the ones making the decisions of being immunized? Typically not. I know when I was growing up and went to the doctor, she told us what we needed and we just did it. I had no say, or understanding. I remember getting the Hep vaccinations and having no idea what Hepatitis even was. I agree with my classmates that this campaign may not be as effective due to lack of importance in the eyes of the tweens. I think it would be more effective in targeting the parents and making them aware of the benefits of having their child immunized.
This training really highlighted both the science and guesstimation (sp?) that goes into health communication efforts. On the one hand, we use logic models with theoretical grounding and familiarize ourself with existing research, but on the other hand as we pioneer out into new messages and populations we have to be creative and conduct research in some not so traditional ways. The balance of applied science and research and new exploratoriy strategies is important to finding effective communication strategies to specific populations on specific behaviors. I think the creative license social marketting strategies offer us helps build the case for its efficacy. Socail marketing in its nature as a marketing tools promotes the idea of a try-anything approach. If you mix that with a research and theoretical foundation, success becomes more likely because the strategies are more relevant and salient to the populations they are targetting.
ReplyDeleteThe webinar, Marketing Vaccines to Tweens, did an excellent job in giving a detailed description of the Social Marketing Theory. I especially liked the break down of the theory and its application to tweens and vaccinations. However, I believe these efforts could have been used to target a different health behavior more relevant to this age group (e.g. substance abuse). At that age, it is the parents who have the say in the management of their children’s health. As others have mentioned, I believe this effort should have been targeted more towards the parents. Overall though, this video is an excellent resource that emphasizes the importance of formative research and truly knowing and understanding your target audience.
ReplyDeleteAlthough every element in the Social Marketing Model is important, I feel that the most vital element is the last element which is feedback. Feedback ensures that a model actually works and how people feel about it. It seems that since tweens want to be viewed as being mature, they are more likely to talk about getting vaccines if it makes them seem that way. Such serious topics of discussions will be viewed more grown up to parents, therefore tweens will be more likely
ReplyDeleteto get vaccines. I also find it great that Dr. Kirby also emphasizes ways of trying to help tweens find a way to communicate wanting to get
vaccines with their parents. In addition, I didn't find it surprising that the best method of successful marketing tool amongst tweens is word of mouth, since tweens still look to their peers as how to dress and act.
I felt the video gave a detailed description of the various ways and steps towards formative research and how important it is when designing a campaign. It clearly showed that once you know in advance about your target behavior and target audience, things fall into place more systematically at the time of designing a campaign. I also liked the concept of psychographics and how important it is to include it in formative research. I agree with Alicia that since tweens are not mature enough to to go on their own and get vaccinated,it would be a great idea to equally involve parents as the ultimate responsibilty will be theirs. On the whole i felt this video explained well the strategies and steps one should undertake when designing a campaign.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the video i felt that it showed us the basics of designing a campaign and also emphasized the importance of formative research. It is important to understand that there is more to Social marketing than promotion. I had an opportunity to write a paper on the "Role of Social Marketing in Skin Cancer Prevention". I went through a lot of literature review of various social marketing campaigns, particularly in Australia and all of them were hugely successful because of strong formative research and audience segmentation. These key concepts were stressed upon in the video as well.It is vital to know the audience. The video emphasized the planning involved in designing a campaign and i liked the part where they looked at the benefits and barriers in order to come up with a strong message. Although i do agree with Alicia and Naira that it is important to target the message to parents as well in the particular case of vaccination in tweens.
ReplyDeleteA good video to enhance knowledge about campaign designing. In almost every slide of her presentation, she has tried to use a solid example to make it simpler.
ReplyDeleteI think one of public health’s greatest accomplishments in the past century has been the creation and increased use of vaccinations.There are several newer vaccines on the market for tweens. This is often an age group that parents forget to vaccinate, unfortunately this is also an age group that is starting to encounter all kinds of new situations and environments, making them even more likely to come into contact with a bug their body has no immunity to.
In this presentation of hers, she has aptly applied the principles of social marketing theory to help make the target audience change their behavior towards vaccination.
I found the Tween Vaccines video very informative and interesting. It was beneficial to watch before making our personal campaigns in class, especially since that is my target age group as well. Before this watching this video, I had no idea that tweens had the option of getting vaccinated or not. Growing up, I always assumed that these types of medical issues were more or less mandatory. I think it is important to keep the public educated and informed on what is necessary to keep them safe and healthy. Specifically, I thought that the HPV vaccine was particularly relevant for the tween age group (9-12 years), since this vaccine is a preventative measure for contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Although it is oftentimes difficult to talk to parents when you at that age, this is a great way to open the communication channels.
ReplyDeleteThe Social Marketing theory is applied very effectively throughout this campaign. This will be a good theory to integrate in my group’s campaign, since it has been proven effective in getting the audience’s attention and having them retain the information (or at least some of it!).
I have never thought about the idea to target this young population to take a part in making sure they get immunizations. For me, it was just a terrible thing my mom made me do because school required it. I think it's good for them to know the benefits as it does relate to them, (referring to the ones the video found by doing their research). The other stuff was no surprise. It stressed knowing your target audience, when and how to reach them, etc. Also I think stressing benefits and barriers is important because that is what people think about when choosing to do, or not do a health behavior (which is one reason I like the health belief model).
ReplyDeleteThis video was a very informative video.It really helped me to understand how important it is to know your target population. Their barriers and perception of issues such as vaccination is very important to create an effective campaign. It is also very important to educate the target audience on the health issue that is being promoted. I though that this video did a very good job in educating the tweens on the importance of vaccination. I liked how the presenter emphasis that behavior change is taking action, as oppose to being informed. I believe that people tend to just inform others instead of helping them take steps in changing their behaviors.
ReplyDeleteThe marketing vaccines to tweens campaign I think is an interesting concept, especially since the decision to get a vaccine are really the decision of the parent not the child. However, it can be a very successful approach to get the child to pester the parent about getting vaccinated very much like toy ad’s are geared towards kids to pester their parents to buy things for them. Tweens are children between the ages 9 to 12. In the Webcast “Marketing Vaccines to Tweens” Susan Kirby discusses the social marketing model to empower tweens to get their vaccination. She stressed the very important strategy to design a campaign and formative research that we discussed in class, which included: (i) identification of the health problem – which in this case is not taking vaccinations (ii) identify the target audience ( tweens) ( iii) identify the behavior. Overall it was a very informative presentation geared towards health professionals
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