Noral Group-News-Blog

What Social Marketers, Sigmund Freud & Icebergs Have In Common

May 18th, 2010

If you’ve ever attended a focus group session and listened to people try to explain why they make the decisions they do, you may have had this same thought run through your mind: Boy, if Dr. Freud were only in this room with me, he’d have a field day. That’s because people say the darnedest things.

When asked to explain why they litter, they say it’s because they’re lazy, or they’re not conscious of doing it, or better yet, their taxes pay for someone to pick it up. Or when parents explain why they haven’t talked to their teenage child about the importance of delaying sexual activity — even after stating they want the very best for the child — the conversation gets, dare we say, even crazier: “They already know how I feel.” “They’re not ready.” Or “I know what they’re up to, 24/7.”

Really? And these are responsible caring adults!

Sometimes, there just seems to be a disconnect between people’s actual behaviors and their explanations. One is too often left thinking and asking, That can’t be all! Is that really the reason? But then so many human behaviors are motivated by a deeply rooted, complex web of experiences and needs, not all of them obvious.

Freud had said it, himself: “The mind is like an iceberg; it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.”

And that’s where the subconscious comes in. As social marketers, it’s really useful to know what’s going on with the other 6/7ths of the “iceberg” to steer it in the right direction. We have to get beyond the rational explanations that are top of mind and easy for people to verbalize.

So social marketing efforts benefit by taking the patient to the psychologist’s couch. Whenever possible, Noral integrates a psychological approach that applies theories of motivation, persuasion, and conflict resolution to dig deep under the surface of behavior. It makes sense when you think about what we are seeking to accomplish. Psychology is the premiere discipline devoted to the study of human behavior and behavioral interventions. By incorporating the same techniques often used in clinical counseling, we can further probe the unconscious, emotional needs that underlie behavior. It’s like peeling an onion, so to speak (or, in Freud’s case, doing some deep sea diving) to arrive at the critical psychic benefit of behavior change for our audience.

Yes, maybe it does sound a bit… well, weird. Trust us when we tell you that many of the major corporate marketing programs use the same consumer psychology. There’s a lot to learn from what lies beneath the surface. And when you’re trying to save lives and create a better place to live, we think it’s definitely worth the probe.

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Posted in Focus Groups, Research, Social Marketing | No Comments »

It’s the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. . and a Day to Promote Promising Evidenced-Based Programs

May 5th, 2010

Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy — a day geared to helping teens understand the importance of avoiding pregnancy and other serious consequences of sex.

It’s also a day for the rest of us to recommit to the need to address the issue. Thanks to efforts like the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and this National Day, there have been steady declines over the years. But, sadly, rates are reportedly on the rise again.

The solution is not so simple as “just saying no.” Risky behaviors teens choose (including unprotected sex that may lead to STD’s as well as pregnancy) are often overlapping and multidimensional. Programs that work to reduce pregnancy do not just focus on education about sexual health but delve into the myriad issues facing teens today, like substance abuse, violence, family support. It’s important that we start implementing efforts that mirror these success stories.

In the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a new Office of Adolescent Health was recently funded to do just this. Their first job is implementing and administering a new discretionary grant program to support evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention approaches. This funding will be used to make competitive contracts and grants to public and private entities to fund medically accurate and age-appropriate programs that reduce teen pregnancy. The grant program addresses rising teen pregnancy rates by supporting both: (1) the replication of evidence-based models and (2) the development and testing of demonstration programs around additional models and innovative strategies.

We commend HHS for this new initiative to fund programs based on theory and evidenced-based approaches. Such a national effort will most likely bring forth declines again not only in adolescent pregnancy but other negative teen outcomes.

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Posted in Social Marketing | 1 Comment »

On Judging the Effectiveness of the Effies

April 13th, 2010

Most in advertising are familiar with the Effie’s. It’s a brand that stands above all others. Because it is an awards programs that assesses how well brands are built. How successfully marketing and advertising objectives are met. How effectively results are achieved.

Noral is proud to be a member of the N.Y. Chapter of the American Marketing Association in large part because of our tremendous respect for this brand and its leadership under Mary Lee Keane. This year I was pleased to be asked to participate in the final round of judging the submissions.

Here are just a few observations.

1) It’s no easy job being a judge. The overall impression was the incredible strength of each submission. Consider that anyone writing a case believes they have a strong story to tell and that those are then carefully culled, and then winnowed down, for a final round of judging the best of the best. There is so much to be gained in reading these cases. It’s also a pleasure to see just how smart marketing and advertising can be.

2) The recession has had an impact on all of us. And it was evident in every case. Though it’s not really fair to say every Strategic Challenge was the same, but there was definitely a unifying theme: everyone was jogging to stay in place, to hold on during the tough economic times of the past year.

3) Digital marketing is mandatory. And this year, the cases may have gone a step even further. It was almost as if every campaign felt that it “had” to have a digital component or else risk their “effectiveness.” Some managed to do so strategically; others, just tactically.

4) Integrated marketing has evolved. Last year at the awards dinner, I marveled at the video presentations and how much harder it had become to quickly convey what made the campaign so amazing. It’s become harder to capture the winning campaign’s most dramatic element, no longer the big-production TV commercial or the impressive print ads, necessarily. It’s just a little harder to show the impact of word-of-mouth or social media campaigns …. except when you look at the results.

5) It’s fun to hear other people talk. Don’t we all get bored with listening to ourselves talk sometimes? It’s a pleasure to interact with key people in the business and hear their reactions and thoughts. In fact, I wish I could bring a few to my office for an occasional opinion or two.

The gold standard, the cream of the crop, the cat’s meow, or the bee’s knees. Whatever you call it, the bottom line is that the Effies are effective: effective in stimulating dialogue, highlighting what works, and refining a definition of marketing and advertising effectiveness against which we can all strive.

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Posted in Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Web | No Comments »

A Nudge to the U.S. Federal Government on Communications and Behavior Change

March 19th, 2010

Not wanting to sound pro-big government, but after reading the U.K. Central Office of Information (COI) “Communications and behavior change” I’m left marveling the benefits of such an integrating government body. The COI acts essentially as the U.K. government’s marketing department, supporting the communication needs of their government departments and agencies. It leaves the U.S. federal government Public Affairs and Communications operation looking widely untamed, disorganized and inefficient, by comparison.

The COI has done us all a favor, U.S. and U.K. alike, by reviewing the existing literature on behavior theory and change models with the hope of distilling some principles and practices that would guide future public sector communication efforts. After all, on both sides of the pond, “fixing” some of the countries’ most difficult and expensive problems requires people to change behavior. And both governments turn to communications to affect that behavior change.

Developing effective communication efforts to achieve this goal, however, is no easy task. In behavior theory, it is now generally accepted that people don’t always make “rational,” beneficial decisions. So we can’t just put forth the information important for sound decision making and assume they will accept and incorporate it into their lives. And that’s where the work of the COI comes in.

We might argue over aspects of the COI’s five-step process for behavior change communications planning. But the aim of the effort is unassailable: attempting to bring greater consistency, efficiency and effectiveness to the entirety of the government’s communications efforts is a good thing. Oh that it were possible in the U.S. as well. The closest we’ve come is the GAO report on PSA prevalence and activity within the federal agency, and even that was a one-off report, now dated.

Recognizing we’re a long way off from a U.S. version of a COI, perhaps a nudge to the COI is better placed: a nudge to continue this instructive work for the benefit of the wider communications community. And with such good guidance, we as communication planners can act a little more “rationally” in the decisions we make, ourselves, when developing public sector communication plans.

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Posted in Government, Marketing, Social Marketing | No Comments »

SHOOT FOR THE GOLD STANDARD: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ADVERTISING

February 26th, 2010

This month Adweek-Harris Interactive released its results from a survey assessing U.S. adult perceptions on the trustworthiness of advertising. The survey looked at advertising by five industry sectors: auto, drink, food, financial services, and pharmaceutical. Among these, drink advertising ranked as the most trusted; financial services, the least.

The implication is that if an industry’s ads are not viewed as trustworthy, an individual company’s advertising may be negatively impacted across the board. They will have a tougher task developing an effective message, with the credibility of their communication tainted by consumer perception of the category overall.

We couldn’t agree more. Credible advertising by companies and industries should, unquestionably, serve as the standard. Noral, however, would like to remind that the bar needs to be set even higher: We need advertising that is socially responsible.

Last year Noral conducted the National Media Survey and looked at the question of social responsibility for the same advertising sectors as Adweek-Harris Interactive. We, however, had posed our questions to Television Media Directors, or those people who understand and assess the needs of community, for the sake of programming and PSA’s. Who better to appreciate that advertising has a responsibility to be even more than just truthful and credible when it comes to their viewers?

Looking at the results, side-by-side, and bearing in mind the very different research approaches and time periods, the surveys are mutually reinforcing on a couple of points. The food category performed strongly on trustworthiness and social responsibility in both surveys. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the financial sector did poorly.

The many issues that the financial sector has had to assess this year suggests that the standards for their advertising should be added to the industry’s priority list.

And for all of us in the advertising industry, when we’re assessing our own advertising, let’s strive for the triumvirate: advertising that can be effective because it is also trustworthy and socially responsible.

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Posted in Finances, Food, Surveys | No Comments »