But not so fast.  We can all score some learning from the Super Bowl ads; namely, whether you’re releasing a PSA or a multimillion-dollar campaign, the takeaway from this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads is that it’s all about buzz.

Almost half of this year’s Super Bowl spots appeared on the internet up to a few weeks in advance of the big game, up from just a few last year. [1]  Volkswagen, which had one of last year’s most well-received commercials, premiered this year’s spot online on January 18^th, a full 17 days in advance of its on-air premiere.  This generated over 11 million views on YouTube in advance of the game.  Advertisers that waited until the Super Bowl to surprise their audience and make a big splash were themselves surprised when their Super Bowl spot failed to make the same impact as their counterparts who released their spots early.

Insurance company MetLife is using social media to maintain their buzz.  They have incorporated the famous cartoon characters used in their Super Bowl commercial into their Facebook brand page, inviting viewers to meet the cast and asking them how many times they spotted Waldo in the commercial.

Marketers must not discount that traditional and social media play complementary roles, and marketers that take advantage of this will have a higher-impact campaign.  Indeed, the Advertising Research Federation’s (ARF) report on Super Bowl advertising found that, pre-game, “[c]ompanies that … engaged the media with announcements, commentary, advertising creatives, and controversies increased their coverage after the game.”[2]

The ubiquity of the internet has made it possible for marketers without big budgets and those with Super-sized budgets to create a buzz and engage with their audience.  Marketers should look for creative ways to mix traditional and social media to win big with their campaign.

REFERENCES:

[1] Elliot, Stuart. “Before the Toss, Super Bowl Ads.” The New York Times. 2 Feb. 2012; Web. 3 Feb. 2012.

[2] Pak, Mi. “Research on Super Bowl Advertising Effectiveness.” Warc.com. Warc, 2 Feb. 2012. Web.

Unfortunately, changing our habits and behaviors — no matter how committed we are to doing so — is really hard.  Even if we are “resolved to change”  . . . our intentions often fizzle out a few weeks after New Year’s.

This year the “official U.S. government web portal” site, USA.GOV, is feeling “our pain” and offering help in taking the first steps.  The site lists the most popular resolutions and links each resolution to a government-sponsored site specific to that behavior.  All of the sites provide information and many provide contacts and support to help tailor our resolution plans to combat the very real barriers to change we face.

Noral understands that sticking to New Year’s resolutions is almost impossible.  We applaud Uncle Sam for giving us a helping hand.

As many of you have heard, the U.S. is doing a lousy job at teaching our kids STEM.  Compared with other developed countries, our K-12 students appear to be falling consistently and significantly behind [1].  Furthermore, once ill-prepared and in college, fewer are choosing to pursue the STEM-related degrees so critical to the global market [2].

Noral has written about the importance of community partners and community outreach for social change.  So we are pleased to have done work for TimeWarner’s exemplary STEM program, Connect a Million Minds, and more recently to learn about the 100Kin10 “movement.”  The latter, in response to President Obama’s State of the Union “call to action” — prepare 100,000 new science, education, math and technology teachers in the next 10 years — is a collaborative brain child of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Opportunity Equation, and NewSchools Venture Fund (a trinity of well-known experts in education).  They have turned their attention to “multi-organizational, multi-sector collaboration.”  In other words, they are mobilizing for outreach and partnerships.

So far, the 100kin10 campaigns’ strategic outreach efforts have solidified more than 80 ‘best-in-class’ partners, unified to transform how the U.S. approaches STEM education. We believe this campaign using partners may actually meet Obama’s call to action because of the following steps.  It:

• Provides a “hook.”Believe it or not, there is a lot of competition out there for cause-related projects and collaborative. Understanding this reality, 100Kin10 provides a variety of incentives for those organizations who participate such as:
• access to other well-known organizations and funding opportunities;
  encouragement for creative, innovative approaches; not attempting to enforce a “one size fits all” response to the problem among all partners irrespective of their differing capabilities, communities and opportunities;
• public relations support, visibility in the press and a variety of marketing materials.
• Facilitates community.  Once part of the 100Kin10 effort, organizations are treated as an important part of an exclusive community.  Partners are encouraged to provide continuous feedback and play a leadership role in the campaign.  100kin10 provides ample opportunity to support relationships and allow partners to collaborate with one another.
• Offers clear and measurable direction.  The leadership of 100Kin10 worked hard to develop a strategic plan to include goals and measurable objectives.  Partner organizations understand their mission and have a clear ‘roadmap’ to follow (i.e., their role in the campaign; expectations of being part of 100Kin10). Once they agree to participate, partners sign a commitment based on their agreed-to plan.
• Embraces evaluation.  The 100Kin10 campaign is clearly committed to using evaluation to continually improve efforts and ultimately measure long-term outcomes.  The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, who also vets organizations prior to partnership, is designing a rigorous evaluation. It will not only gauge whether or not 100Kin10 actually recruits and trains 100,000 new teachers, it will track the process of the movement as it works toward its goal.

Thankfully, there will also now be a national evaluation of the impact of all STEM programs collectively.  The National Assessment Governing Board, the people behind The Nation’s Report Card, are launching a Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment in 2014 that will measure U.S. student achievement in these new areas.

Social change is never easy.  But steps to encourage a breadth of organizations to engage in communities can magnify the opportunities for success.  They can help stem the STEM crisis.

There are already many case histories of marketing run amuck without adequate consumer research to inform decision-making.  Remember the “new Coke?”  Did we really need one more example to reinforce how important it is to research your audience’s perceptions, attitudes and needs?

But we have one anyway: the Netflix sibling, Qwikster.

Netflix, the leading household brand for renting movies and TV show series, recently boasted of 23.6 billion customers last Spring and fantastic increases in share value.  So, with so much success, one wonders if it was a level of arrogance that led the marketing team to decide they didn’t need to worry about what their consumers needed, wanted or thought.

Let’s look at the recent history.  Netflix first warmed up to their customer base by increasing pricing for their combined DVD/streaming service by 60%.  Those increases came without warning, explanation or, worse yet, additional services and with customers reeling in a sagging economy.  Then Netflix decided their consumers might prefer a second, separate site.  Presto: Qwikster, where Netflix DVD-by-mail services would be housed.

Let’s get that straight.  On top of a price hike, there would be two sites, IDs and passwords impeding access to services and, no doubt, eventually added charges.  A whopping 810,000 are estimated to have canceled their membership.

As a research-based marketing firm, Noral spends a lot of time discussing the absolute necessity of using research to “get” what is right for consumers, not just marketers’ needs.  Attitude tracking and qualitative research with those who use Netflix services would have revealed trouble in the making.

Just last week, Netflix began back-pedaling furiously — they have presently folded plans for Qwikster.  A spokesperson for the company told the New York Times, “We underestimated the appeal of a single website and a single service.  We greatly underestimated it.”  Translated, that seems to say:  we underestimated the importance of consumer research that would have helped us make better decisions.  A reaction as strong as 1 million subscribers would not have taken much to pick up in research.

Although many feel the damage done to the Netflix brand is irreparable, we don’t think so.  They just need to remember some very simple truths:  1) The consumer isn’t a moron.  2) In fact, the consumer isn’t even wrong; it’s the marketing that’s wrong.  And 3)  Consumers have the answers.  Never forget to ask them!

*Citation:  Tweaked from a David Ogilvy quote, “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.” Confessions of an Advertising Man, p. 96 (Ballantine Books)

It challenged conventional wisdom.  Both in the UK and the US, many seem to think that smokers still aren’t aware that smoking cases death.  Hence the now conventional strategy to affect long-term smoking behavior is to shock people into understanding and knowledge with graphic images depicting the ramifications of smoking.  The NHS broke out of this mold.  They looked around at the many “quit websites,” graphic images on cigarette packs, and anti-smoking public service announcements and realized there is something missing: 8 million people in the UK still smoke!  They then asked the question, why?

It based the strategic communications approach on in-depth research.  A recent article by the Boston Consulting Group [1] reiterates how important research is to develop the “brand benefit ladder.”  In sum, it’s important not to address people about the technical and functional facts of smoke; smoking leads to cancer and possible death.  It is important to address people based on their emotional needs and the inter-related and complex factors that drive human behavior.  The NHS conducted in-depth audience research with UK smokers to identify a unifying “value,” digging deep to understand unconscious motivators, barriers and emotional triggers associated with their long-term smoking behaviors.

It translated research findings into an “ah-ha” moment and messaging.  Very similar to Noral’s findings for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Parents Speak Up National Campaign, NHS strategically analyzed research and found a breakthrough based on the strong bond parents naturally feel for their children.  With so many pressing matters in life to handle, smokers felt smoking was one of those small pleasures in life that they just weren’t willing to give up; they were able to dismiss the long term risks as hypothetical.  And as a result they could also dismiss the conventional fear-based/awareness messages.  However, the research showed a way to replace the pleasure and reward they felt  from smoking with an even more powerful emotional benefit: the desire to have their children be happy and to provide for their children.  And for that they need to stop smoking.  The NHS took a strategic leap to avoid the conventional wisdom and tap into the emotional trigger — real kids speaking for themselves, to their parents.

So, drum roll please! The winner of the APG awards should well be the Smokefree Campaign.  But if it’s not, there are plenty of winners among all those parents whose long-term smoking habits are likely to be affected.  And for that we applaud!

REFERENCES:

[1] Bolden, D., Mel-Pochtler, A., Sajdeh, R., Barrios, G., George, E., Melker, K, Taskiran, D. (2011) Brand-centric transformation:  Balancing art and data. Retrieved from: www.bcg.com

We have seen significant change in the last four decades in the communication tools available to social marketers (Twitter, anyone?) and in the definition of what constitutes “good social change.”  Even so, the fundamentals of social marketing — the “nuts and bolts” — remain the same.

Focus on Behavior.  Changing human behavior is difficult and only happens when we apply a process to understand what drives people to act the way they do.  Whether it is motivating people to exercise, recycle or quit smoking, humans have various barriers and motivators that are internal, external and complex.  Social marketers focus on a targeted behavior as the product they are trying to “sell.”  Just like commercial products, people have to emotionally connect with the benefits of adapting a new behavior or changing an old one.

Know the Audience.  Successful campaigns and programs “get” their target audience.  It is absolutely crucial to use audience research to uncover the benefits and realities around a chosen behavior.  Social marketers understand that we first must dig deep to understand the stated and unstated attitudes, beliefs, barriers and motivations of behavior, and only then, translate this knowledge into integrated strategies.

Go Beyond Awareness.  Unfortunately, many efforts to influence social change still depend on increasing awareness and knowledge.  Although this can be part of the social marketing “mix,” it is likely just a first step for an integrated strategy.

Go Beyond Advertising.  A social marketing campaign is more than social advertising.  Campaigns need to address the interaction of the multiple factors influencing behavior.  Ads may be particularly ineffectual, for example, at addressing important environmental factors.  Effective campaigns are likely to need local grassroots tools and “pull” components as well as advertising “push.”

Evaluate and Refine.   Even the best social marketing efforts must be evaluated.  Things change, we sometimes don’t get it “entirely right,” and it is important to assess whether or not our efforts are hitting the mark.  Sometimes minor corrections can make a very major difference in impact and outcomes.

Think long-term.  Once you get your message right, “stick with what works” as Les Binet and Sarah Carter point out in Admap (July/August 2011). [2]  “The best brand custodians, like the best parents, know the value of consistency.”  Don’t get carried away with what is new and different or change for the sake of shaking things up.  Powerful emotive advertising works on a less conscious level and takes a longer time to build. 

So when you finish eating your slice of birthday cake and tweeting about change, pause to salute the insights that have remained the same and essential to effective social marketing.

REFERENCES:

1. Kotler, P. & Zaltman, G. (1971). Social marketing: an approach to planned social change. Journal of Marketing, 35, 3-12.

2. Binet, Les and Carter, Sarah. (2011). Mythbuster: Stick with what works. Admap, July/August, pp. 9-9

So just how big is big?  As posted on The Next Web, MyCube estimates 360 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook in a year.[1]  Thirty-five hours of video are uploaded every minute on YouTube and 60 billion videos are watched each month.

This year’s Super Bowl ad experience should, therefore, be no surprise.  The Super Bowl media coverage and audience is widely considered the mecca of advertising and marketing.  This year, of the five most popular Super Bowl ads identified by USA Today’s AdMeter[2], three were UG spots created by consumers.

Even the federal government, not always known for being an “early adopter,” is onto UGC.  In 2009, the CDC awarded Dr. John D. Clarke, MD, FAAFP of Baldwin, NY, a prize for his contest winning PSA about influenza, “H1N1 Rap.”

So what makes a user-generated ad, and especially a public service ad, effective?  It’s a distinctive voice, of course.  With 360 billion pieces of content on Facebook to compete with, an ad had better resonate with the intended audience and cut through the clutter with a distinctive voice.

Interestingly social media just may offer a truly unique opportunity to nail the audience on the head in that way.

Social media is driving effectiveness in ad competitions.  In a recent analysis of prize winning communication campaigns in Asia, Warc, the largest database of online case studies, declared the “death of global campaigns.”[3]  “The campaigns that increasingly work hardest are the ones that drive the most buzz and sharing — and these are almost without exception very local.”  Of course, these are without exception also the ones that narrowly target their audience, speaking directly and distinctively to them.

In a report on reaching a narrowly defined youth target through public service advertising, the Ad Council came to similar conclusions extolling the virtues of social media, UGC and PSA effectiveness.[4]   The report notes a trend in PSAs to “not necessarily gear the advertisement to any one demographic” but aim to “give an umbrella effect to all demographics.”  The conclusion: “narrowcasting Millennials and constructing PSA messages that specifically speak to [these young Americans] is crucial” for effectiveness.  Social media websites are the answer, not just because they are where this group spends its time, but because the websites expect and reward distinctive messages.  They are the messages that get shared, passed on, create buzz and conversation.

Even Academia are offering research evidence on PSA effectiveness and distinctive user-generated messages.  In “Peer or Expert?[5]  The persuasive impact of YouTube public service announcement producers,” recently published in the International Journal of Advertising, the authors explore whether a PSA will be more effective depending on who produced it.  Not surprisingly, the answer is yes.  Young viewers were more likely to respond when the advertisement was produced by someone like themselves and, no doubt, someone who understood, because of that similarity and “insiders’ knowledge,” what would resonate, catch their attention, entertain, and even persuade.  It’s again all about having a distinctive PSA voice that is audience driven.

Bottomline: Media have changed.  YouTube may become the channel of the PSA.  But the rules for engagement haven’t changed.  User-generated PSAs offer the opportunity to speak in a distinctive voice that resonates with the audience.  And that’s a prescriptive for effective PSAs.

REFERENCES:

1. Bryant, Martin. “User Generated Content by the Numbers [Infographic].” The Next Web – Technology Blog Covering Tech News, Business and Culture Worldwide. TNW, 22 June 2011. Web. June 2011. <http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2011/06/22/user-generated-content-by-the-numbers-infographic/>.

2. Horovitz, Bruce. “Best Super Bowl Ads: A Doggone Tie for Ad Meter – USATODAY.com.” News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World – USATODAY.com. USA Today, 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 20 June 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2011/super-bowl-ad-meter/43271432/1>.

3. Field, Peter. “The Death of the Global Campaign: Insights from the Warc Prize for Asian Strategy Shortlist.” Warc.com. Warc, 26 June 2011. Web

4. Ellazar, Aaron, Jason Hawkes, Josh Heim, Jen Kennedy, Jillian Vandehey, Christian Varg, and Arielle Watts. “Youth Public Service Advertising: Effectiveness Research.” Ad Council (2011). Print.

5. Paek, Hye-Jin, Thomas Hove, Hyun Ju Jeong, and Mikyoung Kim. “Peer or Expert?”International Journal of Advertising 30.1 (2011): 161-88. Print.

“These labels are frank, honest, and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking and they will help encourage smokers to quit, and prevent children from smoking,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  With these labels, she says, “Every person who picks up a pack of cigarettes is going to know exactly what risk they are taking.”  FDA further states, according to the White House, that these new ads, by raising awareness of risk, will help reduce the number of smokers by 213,000 in 2013 alone.

Wait, what? We are confused.  HHS, in the press release, FDA website and its Secretary’s quotes, clearly connects raising awareness and knowledge with significant public health behavior change. . . and . . . using fear-based appeals to do so. Let us explain why this seems so out of place.

Noral recently applauded HHS for including social marketing in Healthy People 2020 objectives. In other words, HHS set a national goal and measurable objectives to increase the number of public health people, department and efforts trained, and implementing social marketing in their health behavior campaigns — digging deep to understand what motivates and changes human behavior over the long term.  HHS is finally moving the nation’s public health efforts to go beyond raising awareness to strategically address the complex relationship between individuals and the health choices they make.

Social psychology models of behavior would explain that the cigarette “ads” address a routine, frequent behavior.  The graphic pictures help to cause an emotional “stir up” and raise the behavior to the level of conscious scrutiny.  So the “shock and awe” impact leads to increases in awareness, positive attitude and intention to decrease or stop smoking.

Findings from studies [2] do show that the images raise individual awareness and change some attitudes and intentions after only one showing through the initial “shock and awe” reaction.  But what about the real world?  As social marketers, we know attitudes and intentions are just the tip of the iceberg towards behavior change.

Canada has been implementing a similar graphic awareness campaign on cigarette packaging since 2000, and it has had mixed results [3].  This may be because research does not assess what happens when the labels are seen over and over again. In fact, some researchers clearly think the repetition of graphic images, especially in terms of physical consequences of smoking, make the messages ineffective [4] and, at times, can potentially cause harm.  The graphic images start to annoy people; they become humorous, rote, and lose their “punch.”  In fact, in Europe, smokers who have seen these ads on their cigarettes for many years “tune out” and are adept at screening them out.

That’s what cognitive dissonance and defenses are for.  Most smokers are likely to need to address the cognitive dissonance of being aware that smoking is bad for numerous health reasons, but continue to smoke.  They rationalize the behavior. Perhaps smoking helps keep them slim, helps reduce stress, or they know someone who smoked two packs a day and lived to 90.  “Shock and awe” only works to a degree.  Then they naturally move on to their defenses.

Okay, how about teenagers who haven’t started smoking yet?  Maybe their behavior is more motivated by this type of fear-based messaging?  Even here theory suggests otherwise.  Behavioral economics tells us that people generally prioritize short-term rewards (smoking) versus long-term gain.  In fact, there’s a term for it: hyperbolic discounting.  And the extent to which we regard future gain (a longer life) is inversely related to age.  The young are completely adept at discounting the future, especially one that seems remote.

HHS appears to have set the bar high with Healthy People 2020, touting the importance of evidenced-based and comprehensive social marketing efforts to change health behavior.  What happened with this initiative?  The FDA and HHS are promising the country major change in smoking behavior by “informing” and “raising awareness.”  But the problem doesn’t seem to lie with awareness.  We’ve had warning labels on cigarette packs since the 80’s.  Will pictorial “warnings” make the difference?  We think not.

REFERENCES:

1.   Carney, Jay. “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and FDA Commissioner Margaret.”WhiteHouse.gov/thepressoffice. The White House, 21 June 2011. Web. June 2011. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/21/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-secretary-health-and-human-ser>.

2. See page 963 under “Artificially High Attention.” Hastings, G., Stead, M., & Webb, J. (2004). Fear appeals in social marketing: Strategic and ethical reasons for concern. Psychology & Marketing, 21(11), 961-985.

3.  Levy, D., Chaloupka, F., Gitchell, J. (2004) The effects of tobacco control policies on smoking rates: A tobacco control scorecard. Journal of Public Health Management Practice, 10 (4), pg 338-353.

4.  Hastings, G., Stead, M., Webb, John. (2004). Fear appeals in social marketing: Strategic and ethical reasons for concern. Psychology and Marketing, 21 (11).

So we welcome May as Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.  And we welcome a time to reflect on what is working to influence the decline, so that we can do more of it.  In our eyes, one thing that’s working is the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregnancy.

Sponsoring the 10th National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on May 4th, the National Campaign leveraged the Day and Month to “get the word out” through well placed media and online efforts.  But as effective as they were, we also know that knowledge and awareness are not enough to affect behavior.  That’s why we want to focus our recognition on the National Campaign’s work in community outreach and their spectacular 200 plus community partners.

Social psychology models of behavior explain human behavior by looking at three factors: personal (awareness and attitudes), social (how people interrelate and the influence of others on one’s behavior) and environmental (over which individuals have little to no control).  As evidenced in a recent report from the U.K.’s Central Office of Information (COI), Campaigns that seek to influence behavior “by addressing personal factors alone” are “unlikely to work.”  People do not act in isolation, with or without awareness and knowledge.  Rather, they act under the powerful influences of “the people around them and the environment in which they live.”

That’s where community organizations have the opportunity to play such a powerful role.  Since all behavior change is individual and happens locally, community organizations are positioned to understand and help mitigate the negative influences.   And just as the community organizations mentor young teens, the National Campaigns mentors and supports the community organizations so that they can be more successful in their own “back yards.”

Awareness campaigns only set the stage for action.  Even on frightening topics like STDs, pregnancy rates, and high school drop out rates, awareness is not enough.  As the National Campaign has demonstrated, if national campaigns do not reach into a person’s “back yard” with the help of local community organizations to support healthy behavior, it is unlikely awareness will translate to behavior change.  And, so we celebrate community partners in a national awareness month for Teen Pregnancy Prevention!

You sports fans can think about “collective action” like “the wave.”  It starts with excitement in one section.  A couple of brave souls stand up and get things started.  Then the entire stadium and tens of thousands of people (a whopping 92,000, say, at FedEx) are literally getting out of their seats in a collective “wave” of humanity.  It’s impressive.  But then, the wave is spent.  We have to wait for that couple of brave souls to find the right moment to get people out of their seats again and demonstrating how they feel.  We, in essence, have to wait for another Earth Day moment.

Earth Day reminds us how complex and difficult sustainable behavior change is. That’s not to make light of the importance of persuading people to take the plunge and initially act on behalf of their convictions “for” the environment. It’s just a reminder that it is only half the equation at best. In other words, even if we do get folks to perform several small environmental acts, it’s still imperative to generate their sustaining engagement and behavior change for an undertaking so massive as improving the global environment.

Sustained behavior change requires strategic thinking, planning and targeted follow-through in helping people to understand how their continued individual effort will impact the planet, once the hurrah of Earth Day is past.  If the communal stimulus of Earth Day is gone, or the “wave” is over, acting on one’s own can be daunting. People need places to turn to where there are like-minded individuals to get information, form opinions, make decisions, and be part of a group that may collectively continue to ban together and contribute positive steps.  Best practice marketers make it easy and reinforcing for people to routinely band together and continue to engage as part of a vibrant community.

So while “it’s easy to be green” on Earth Day, can we make it Earth Day every day? That’s 365 Billion Acts of Green!  You can almost hear the trees sighing in relief.

For more best practices and information on how Noral helps environmental clients use social marketing to change behavior go to: www.noralgroup.com