Implementing a Successful Social Marketing Campaign One of Many Strategies Presented at CADCA Forum

Peg Sallade (DanversCARES Prevention Coalition), Laura Hillier (Northeast Center for Healthy Communities) and Dave Thomson (Thomson Communications) will present a workshop "Social Marketing Soup to Nuts: The Story Behind the Campaign” at CADCA's 21st annual National Leadership Forum.

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. DanversCares will present a case study designed to help coalitions apply a model social marketing program to reduce youth access to alcohol at home, where about 80 percent of the youth they surveyed in their Massachusetts town said they obtained alcohol.

What worked for the ongoing project was social media such as Facebook, as well as traditional forms of communicating a message to their target audience—teens and their parents—such as outreach to community newspapers, advertising on street banners, and marketing on school-related and other local email distribution lists.

The workshop will take the participant from the assessment process where the target population was identified, to engaging the community and evaluating outcomes. The simple, but effective campaign message, “Whose kid is it? Have you asked?” was developed through coalition focus groups where parents stressed the need to be able to talk openly and often with their teenagers about alcohol. Then, an implied, sub-message was disseminated to help change the behavior, Sallade says, “monitor alcohol in your home.”

“Parents were concerned about keeping open communication,” Sallade, who is Coordinator of the DanversCARES Prevention Coalition says. “With their kids, words like “lock it up” could create distrust.”

Through the social marketing campaign, Sallade and her colleagues helped parents communicate more about alcohol with their kids and community relations were built between the coalition and local businesses.

One of the best headlines Sallade says the coalition received in local media coverage was ‘DanversCares works to educate businesses about the state law.”

“Businesses liked the fact we weren’t blaming the industry,” Sallade says. As a result, we have built community relations that we can connect with in the future.”

Sallade says she hopes the workshop will help other coalitions achieve success with a social marketing campaign. Besides behavior change, DanversCares is now engaging their community in liquor policy discussion.

Read more about the project at www.danverscares.org.

“Social Marketing Soup to Nuts: The Story Behind the Campaign” is one of more than 100 workshops taking place at CADCA’s 21st Annual National Leadership Forum. The Forum will take place at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, right on the banks of the Potomac River and just minutes outside Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7-11, 2011. This year's theme, “Coalitions Moving Forward: Mapping the Future,” builds on the fact that there is a new landscape to navigate with many changes happening, but we as a field can create that roadmap for our future. Register now! Early-bird registration ends Friday.

To learn more about this and other workshops at the CADCA Forum, plus awards nominations, exhibit registration, Community Prevention Day, Capitol Hill appointments, and other details, please visit CADCA’s Forum website.