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Part Three: Do’s and Don’ts of Motivation and Persuasion

A variety of methods can be used to improve the audience’s reception of motivation and persuasion messages. First, serious health issues cannot be treated too lightly, but at the same time the consequence of not taking an action should not be exaggerated. Credibility can be lost if people are shown dying from a fairly minor or obscure illness but also the message must make a realistic connection between a problem and its consequence. What mismatches between the feel and content do you see in these messages (choose 2)?:

Now try these two:

Analyze the potential effectiveness of one of these smoking control ads;

Part Six: Edutainment 

“Edutainment” is defined either as education done in an entertaining style or entertainment with an educational message built in. A prime example of the former is the Soul City TV/Radio series that emphasizes sexual health, produced in South Africa, and the American PBS program “Sesame Street” that targets preschoolers. Examples of edutainment that comprise primarily entertainment but also include important health or social messages are popular songs about social issues (e.g. Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”), and movies that focus on the power of the tobacco industry, either from a dramatic or comedic tone.

Part Two: Messages that convey motivation and persuasion

Whether the objective is to announce, advise, activate or advocate, the message’s motivational and persuasive contents emphasize change in individual attitudes and group norms with respect to a certain health issue while making the health issue (behavior, social issues and challenges, etc.) foremost in the target audience’s mind. Specific examples of applying activation objectives often derive from fear appeal messages: attempting to arouse fear in the audience by demonstrating to individuals the scary aspects of engaging in a certain behavior and not doing something to mitigate the damage that that behavior can cause. Fear appeal messages usually involve a scary or threatening image or feel to create the desired reaction and promote subsequent behavior change.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo and Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Processing Model provide excellent theoretical bases to frame messages that derive from motivation and persuasion objectives, especially those that appeal to fear. A problem with fear-based messages however is that they may cause maladaptive responses when an individual either does not find the image sufficiently threatening or conversely avoids the message (for example, when its images are overly gruesome). For example, The Partnership For A Drug-Free America’s campaign “this is your brain on drugs” has been criticized for engendering more curiosity than fear among teens in the target audience. Also, if the message is sufficiently threatening, the individual may lack the ‘efficacy’ or confidence to take actions that would eliminate the threat. Feelings of helplessness may actually cause the individual to avoid the message altogether. Therefore, fear messages must be used with caution.

However, other emotions can also be invoked which will help individuals remember a specific message and recall the facts and perhaps the reinforcement associated with the behavior change related to those evoke emotions. Humor, sympathy, excitement and other emotions can also create an association that may help an individual remember the importance of the behavior change. For example, contrast the “feel” of the some of the below messages, all of which have the same general purpose.

And these: http://www.bestmswprograms.com/10-brilliantly-creative-condom-ads/

Research Activity #2:

COMPARE THE FOLLOWING TWO SPOTS WITH RESPECT TO FEAR AND RESPONSE EFFICACY-RELATED CONTENT

https://jasonbiviano.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/health-effects-of-smoking1.jpg

https://twitter.com/nyc_dot/status/314067899079872514

Emotions can be evoked not only by the specific nature of the message but also by images, sounds, and other elements that have both an emotional and physical impact on an individual. For example, concordant and discordant musical notes and colors may contribute to a message oriented toward fear and anxiety on one hand or harmony and sympathy on the other. Individual colors may convey different feelings (Example 1; Example 2) though this may vary from culture to culture.  As musical chords mix different notes to create distinct feelings for different compositions, combinations of colors also vary as a function of the light or heat of a message (see here for more info about this).

In terms of sight and sound, which of the following 3 pieces do you think would create the strongest reaction in an audience?

Research Activity #3

LISTEN TO A VARIETY OF THESE SOUNDS. WITH REFERENCE TO 5 OF THE SOUNDS, GIVE A ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION EACH OF 5 DISTINCT FEELINGS THEY CONVEY AND COMBINED WITH 5 MESSAGES THAT SOUND AND FEEL COULD BE PAIRED WITH.

Research Activity 3: Sounds examples and messages

1.Dark Strings 128 has a scary and suspenseful tone : we would use in the messages that use Fear  2.Piano 117 with a futuristic piano: could be almost inspiring and motivating a behavior 3.On page 7: D Drone is really low and deep, makes me uncomfortable—thriller movie feeling 4.Page 10: dramatic Tribal Drum, reminds me of a military ad, could be used showing someone accomplishing, or working hard on something, ending with the desired outcome 5.Page 8: Piano Emotional Drama: Someone remembering a loved one who’s passed away, ie cancer, accident

Capstone: Save the Salton Sea

The rapid deterioration of California’s largest inland body of water has implications for the health and well being of our neighbors, ourselves and other species that inhabit the region and the hemisphere. Although this problem has been recognized for more than two decades, it has continued to grow.

So…

What health communication messages would you suggest for taking this issue on?

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

How would you brand your effort?

Health Communication Messages: The Salton Sea started out as an environmental issue, but is quickly becoming a public health issue due to the rapid drying of the lake releasing toxic chemicals in the air. The Salton Sea currently has no outlet to which the water can be released and with the lack of water being restored to maintain proper levels (and mitigate toxic air pollutants), the neighboring population dense regions are at risk, thus we have a public health concern. Messaging will include health risks because individuals are more inclined to take action knowing the negative consequences (perceived severity/perceived susceptibility). Messaging will also include a proposed solution, for the meantime it seems like resorting water will counteract salinity. If individuals are provided with a solution rather than just hearing about a problem, they may be more inclined to support as they see progress.  

Audience Segmentation: The target audience would be individuals in the Imperial Valley and San Diego County responsible for supplying water, potentially the Imperial Irrigation District who serves as the intermediary between the federal government and deliverers water based on agreements and City of San Diego. The reasoning for targeting the organization responsible for allocating water is to gain support for water restoration for the Salton Sea, given that is the best solution for targeting the health issue. Segmentation would be based on geographic region and level of authority.  

 Branding: I would frame the issue to present a benefits gained perspective, if we’re asking these companies to reconsider how they’re allocating their water and want them to allocate it to the Salton Sea, then framing in a philanthropic effort may be effective.  

“Don’t be salty, share your water, and support the cause!”

#dontbesalty campaign

Part Six: Edutainment 

“Edutainment” is defined either as education done in an entertaining style or entertainment with an educational message built in. A prime example of the former is the Soul City TV/Radio series that emphasizes sexual health, produced in South Africa, and the American PBS program “Sesame Street” that targets preschoolers. Examples of edutainment that comprise primarily entertainment but also include important health or social messages are popular songs about social issues (e.g. Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”), and movies that focus on the power of the tobacco industry, either from a dramatic or comedic tone.

Capstone: Save the Salton Sea

The rapid deterioration of California’s largest inland body of water has implications for the health and well being of our neighbors, ourselves and other species that inhabit the region and the hemisphere. Although this problem has been recognized for more than two decades, it has continued to grow.

So…

What health communication messages would you suggest for taking this issue on?

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

How would you brand your effort?

“U can save the Salton Sea”. This campaign aims to create awareness, empowerment and a call to action. By saying  “U can save the Salton Sea” we are no longer presenting the problem as something that only the government should care, but we indicate that it is also “your” problem and “you” can be part of the solution. Indifference from most California residents, as well as our legislators, has been the main barrier to pursue a concrete solution.  The campaign message also focuses on the positive side, the idea that there is a solution, instead of merely presenting the problem.

The purpose of the “U can save the Salton Sea” campaign is to mobilize Californians to contact their state legislators and demand them to develop a realistic proposal to save the Salton Sea and assign a budget for that.

The target audience will be all California residents, with three segments: 1) Southern California residents, 2) Residents from the rest of the state, 3) California legislators.

The campaign will be mainly advocacy and it will use traditional mass media, social media and interpersonal communication. Mass media messages in TV, radio and newspapers will reach all Californians. They will show the environmental and public health implications of letting the Salton Sea dye. At the end of the message, with the slogan “U can save the Salton Sea” it will encourage the audience to contact their legislators and ask them to pass legislation to save the lake. Social media channels will have the same combination of information and a call to action. For the Southern CA residents, especially those living near the Salton Sea region, besides the messages through mass media and social media, they will receive face-to-face communication. This will be delivered through informative booths at main local events as well as especially organized Town Hall Meetings, where experts will present  the problems that inaction towards the Salton Sea can bring, as well as the proposed solutions to resolve the problem. Through the Town Hall meetings campaign staff will invite interested residents to participate in scheduled visits to talk to their government representatives in Sacramento, to express their concerns and demand immediate action to this problem.

Part Six: Edutainment 

“Edutainment” is defined either as education done in an entertaining style or entertainment with an educational message built in. A prime example of the former is the Soul City TV/Radio series that emphasizes sexual health, produced in South Africa, and the American PBS program “Sesame Street” that targets preschoolers. Examples of edutainment that comprise primarily entertainment but also include important health or social messages are popular songs about social issues (e.g. Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”), and movies that focus on the power of the tobacco industry, either from a dramatic or comedic tone.

Part Five: Branding

Branding is the process of pairing an image slogan or other stimulus with a product or practice until the two have become synonymous in the mind of the audience. The concept of “branding” derives from the discipline of marketing, with many years many of successful (e.g. Coca-Cola, Marlborough, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Apple) as well as unsuccessful efforts.  Successes in branding “build relationships between consumers and products” or services that are being marketed.  Audiences eventually become familiar with a product and are reminded of it by seeing the image or hearing a slogan representing that product. One of the best examples of branding in health communication is represented by the long-standing condom promotion and HIV prevention program in Germany, “Macht’s mit: Gib AIDS keine Chance”.  Note that this was initially primarily delivered through billboards and posters; now they have a very impressive web presence as well. 

Examine this measles vaccine poster. Could/should this be better branded, and if so, how?

ISIS, ISIL or DASH?

Part Four: Social Marketing: A Different Slant on Message Objectives

Of major importance to the field of health communication is the Philip Kotler’s “social marketing” framework. Health communication has a mixed ancestry: while generally its roots are in psychology (social, perceptual and behavioral psychology) its other ancestor is in business and economics. Kotler took a business marketing model and applied it to community efforts for health and social change. Building on the work of others in the business world who developed the concept of the “marketing mix” Kotler describes ”4 Ps”: product price, place and promotion. This alliterative framework overlaps to some extent with that of McGuire but specifically details what aspects of the messages content should be included, especially in terms of:

The “Price” of a new behavior (not just as monetary but personal effort and other resources required…and perceived benefits of changing the behavior),

How best to describe ”Product” (e.g. the behavior change itself or the social or environmental change that one attempts to achieve),

The channels by which to send the message that should be used in terms of ”Place” (where a message can best reach someone in terms of a channel or program, and in what stage of life or time of year),

 And finally the overall Promotion (which is often referred to in social marketing as “media mix”: what best mix of print and broadcast etc. to used to initiate and sustain a campaign).

Some have added a fifth “P”, that of “Position”, indicating the specific comparison we can make between our product and that of another on the market (for example, the advantages of getting iron and protein from legumes and quinoa rather than red meat).

As an example, analyze the below anti drunk-driving piece from Kotler’s social marketing perspective:

Research Activity #4

EXAMINE TWO ADDITIONAL HEALTH COMMUNICATION PIECES BRIEFLY, FROM A MCGUIRE AND THEN A KOTLER PERSPECTIVE.  WHICH ONE PROVIDES A CLEARER AND MORE USEFUL EXPLANATORY MODEL, AND WHY?

The “product” of this commercial is to make a plan to avoid driving if you are going to drink. The “price” is to lose your life when you drink and drive. It could also be the inconvenience and worries you create to your “buddy” if you don’t come back home when you go out with your friends to drink. The “place” of the commercial is on TV, during programs targeting young men; it could also be placed on the Internet/ YouTube reaching a great audience. As for “promotion”, this TV ad could be mixed with some printed and outdoor advertisement (billboard), using the image of the guy with the dog, and the final message “Make a plan to make it home. Your friends are counting on you”. And the final P, “position” of this ad is very different from other anti-drunk driving messages, which usually use the fear factor. This commercial doesn’t say “don’t drink” (of course, it is from Budweiser); instead, it proposes a responsible alternative: go out with your friends and drink… but make a plan so you don’t have to drive.  

Research Activity #4:

Sugar content in sodas 

Analysis from McGuire’s perspective: This ad provides advice about the health problems that drinking sugary drinks like soda can bring to a child: obesity, diabetes and heart diseases. It also creates awareness of the ridiculous amount of sugar that a cup of soda contains: the equivalent of 26 packs of sugar (although it doesn’t specify the size of the drink). While this particular piece doesn’t include more information, it is part of a larger campaign advocating for limiting the consumption of sugary drinks to combat childhood obesity.

Analysis from Kotler perspective: The “product” is the kids’ consumption of extra calories through sugary drinks. The “price” is the health problems that drinking sodas can produce, such as obesity, diabetes, heart diseases. The “place” is an ad on printed materials targeting parents. The “promotion” consist that this ad is part of a campaign advocating for limitation of consumption and more regulation of sodas. The “position” is that this ad is very specific and graphic about the content of sugar in sodas and the health problems that those extra calories could bring, instead of just talking about “junk food” in general, or blaming the children’s behavior for the obesity problem.

The Kotler model is more useful because it provides a better analysis of the piece from different angles, from a social marketing perspective.

Childhood Obesity Prevention comercial featuring Shrek. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-zEDbl04NY 

This is a commercial regarding Childhood Obesity Prevention featuring Disney characters from Shrek.

Analysis from McGuire’s perspective: this commercial “activates” by encouraging children to go out and play, at least an hour a day. It also advices to find more information regarding fun activities to do outside, by visiting the gohealthierUSA.gov website.

Analysis from Kotler perspective: Product is to be active, go out and play. Price is spending less time in front of the TV or videogames. The promotion is though TV space during kids programs and channels like Disney, Cartoon Network, etc. and YouTube. Promotion: this TV commercial is part of a large campaign to reduce childhood obesity lead by Michele Obama, which includes all mass media, social media and interpersonal channels. Position: the focus of the commercial is on the fun a child can experience when he/she goes outside and play. This is different from other ads that are more direct on the health benefits that regular exercise can produce.

Part Three: Do’s and Don’ts of Motivation and Persuasion

A variety of methods can be used to improve the audience’s reception of motivation and persuasion messages. First, serious health issues cannot be treated too lightly, but at the same time the consequence of not taking an action should not be exaggerated. Credibility can be lost if people are shown dying from a fairly minor or obscure illness but also the message must make a realistic connection between a problem and its consequence. What mismatches between the feel and content do you see in these messages (choose 2)?:

Now try these two:

Analyze the potential effectiveness of one of these smoking control ads;

1. The ad with the picture of a pig feeding a bunch of babies in the mud, aims to get funds to provide care for abandoned infants in Manila. It uses a disturbing photo suggesting that if you don’t donate, these babies will end up like little pigs. The message exploits the situation of the abandoned children, putting them in an inhumane position, creating more shock and repugnance than a desire to help the organization behind this ad. That is a total mismatch between feel and content.

2. The "Don't Treat Others the Way You Don't Want to Be Treated" ad tries to get attention of animal cruelty by portraying a sea lion killing a human baby. The image is very violent and repulsive. Although killing an animal could be violent and repulsive, most of the times the killing is done for survival or feeding purposes. While here the victim is an innocent baby and there is no purpose behind.  

Smoking control ads:

The image of the women’s lips with a black hole on the side, insinuating the place of a cigarette, could be effective because, although a cigarette will never leave a mark like this, it shows the bad effects of smoking in the physical appearance.   This could be more threatening and produce more fear to some women, and more to induce a behavior change than other long term and hard to see consequences such as lung cancer. You can’t see your lungs turning black, but you can see the effects of smoking in your face.

Child abuse prevention ad:

Part Two: Messages that convey motivation and persuasion

Whether the objective is to announce, advise, activate or advocate, the message’s motivational and persuasive contents emphasize change in individual attitudes and group norms with respect to a certain health issue while making the health issue (behavior, social issues and challenges, etc.) foremost in the target audience’s mind. Specific examples of applying activation objectives often derive from fear appeal messages: attempting to arouse fear in the audience by demonstrating to individuals the scary aspects of engaging in a certain behavior and not doing something to mitigate the damage that that behavior can cause. Fear appeal messages usually involve a scary or threatening image or feel to create the desired reaction and promote subsequent behavior change.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo and Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Processing Model provide excellent theoretical bases to frame messages that derive from motivation and persuasion objectives, especially those that appeal to fear. A problem with fear-based messages however is that they may cause maladaptive responses when an individual either does not find the image sufficiently threatening or conversely avoids the message (for example, when its images are overly gruesome). For example, The Partnership For A Drug-Free America’s campaign “this is your brain on drugs” has been criticized for engendering more curiosity than fear among teens in the target audience. Also, if the message is sufficiently threatening, the individual may lack the ‘efficacy’ or confidence to take actions that would eliminate the threat. Feelings of helplessness may actually cause the individual to avoid the message altogether. Therefore, fear messages must be used with caution.

However, other emotions can also be invoked which will help individuals remember a specific message and recall the facts and perhaps the reinforcement associated with the behavior change related to those evoke emotions. Humor, sympathy, excitement and other emotions can also create an association that may help an individual remember the importance of the behavior change. For example, contrast the “feel” of the some of the below messages, all of which have the same general purpose.

And these: http://www.bestmswprograms.com/10-brilliantly-creative-condom-ads/

Research Activity #2:

COMPARE THE FOLLOWING TWO SPOTS WITH RESPECT TO FEAR AND RESPONSE EFFICACY-RELATED CONTENT

https://jasonbiviano.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/health-effects-of-smoking1.jpg

https://twitter.com/nyc_dot/status/314067899079872514

Emotions can be evoked not only by the specific nature of the message but also by images, sounds, and other elements that have both an emotional and physical impact on an individual. For example, concordant and discordant musical notes and colors may contribute to a message oriented toward fear and anxiety on one hand or harmony and sympathy on the other. Individual colors may convey different feelings (Example 1; Example 2) though this may vary from culture to culture.  As musical chords mix different notes to create distinct feelings for different compositions, combinations of colors also vary as a function of the light or heat of a message (see here for more info about this).

In terms of sight and sound, which of the following 3 pieces do you think would create the strongest reaction in an audience?

Research Activity #3

LISTEN TO A VARIETY OF THESE SOUNDS. WITH REFERENCE TO 5 OF THE SOUNDS, GIVE A ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION EACH OF 5 DISTINCT FEELINGS THEY CONVEY AND COMBINED WITH 5 MESSAGES THAT SOUND AND FEEL COULD BE PAIRED WITH.

Although both spots use the fear factor as a way of persuasion, the second one (30 miles speed limit) includes text with numbers and percentages that are a little bit too complex to understand. This “thinking” process takes away the attention of the photo which, by the way, is not so scary.  In my opinion the effectiveness of this spot is more likely to be because of the factual information provided -that only 10 miles in speed can be the difference between life and death- , rather than the half-skull half-child picture.

The smoking ad is cleaner in terms of using minimum text so the attention is centered in the picture of the cigarette-made lungs; a good graphic way to say “every time you smoke a cigarette you are burning your lungs”. At the same time, these lungs are so unrealistic that I don’t think the audience will relate to them and stop smoking after seeing the ad.

ԔResearch activity #3

1.      Cymbal crash sound conveys victory and could be use in a spot about weight loss

2.      Rusty old distorted electronic guitar riff in G conveys rebellion and it will be great in a spot targeting young adults

3.      Futuristic grand piano conveys empathy and could be use in spot requesting donations for the refugees

4.      Dark scary low string synth chord on D# conveys anger and could be used in a don’t drink and drive spot

Part One

This module, our first, is structured around McGuire’s Communication-Persuasion Model for health communication. Modules and the broader sections to which they belong parallel McGuire’s “inputs” and “outputs”.   This module emphasizes McGuire’s central input, the Message.

The message is the ‘what’ of communication. Communication messages tend to combine both logical and factual content with emotional or artistic expression. The content is the “light” of communication: It lays out specifically how individuals can improve their health or that of the community or at least avoid or reduce risk. Content can be presented in a variety of forms but has to be adjusted to the cultural and economic context of the audience.

The emotional, artistic and expressive aspects of a message comprise the “heat” of the health communication piece. Messages often employ humor, sympathy or empathy, anger, anxiety or even fear with respect to a specific health issue. Colors, sound and other touches may be added to contribute to a multisensory and more memorable audience experience with the message. A message is a stated or implicit statement that presents a key aspect of communications destination and strategy to the target audience or a segment of the target audience. Messages should derive from key campaign objectives; without such objectives, messages may seem unclear to a target audience.  These campaign objectives represent what the source or ‘sender’ of the message wishes to do: announce, advise, activate or advocate. (Note that messages can manifest more than one or even all of these objectives…but in doing so may risk clarity!).

Brief definitions of these actions are presented below. In practice, many health communication pieces combine two or more of these objectives:

Campaign Objective: Announce

Presentation that direct individuals as to where they can obtain services, buy a product, or (in the case of health fairs) get more information about a specific health issue. They can also direct the individual to watch or read other media which will provide them with additional information and motivation.

Examples:

https://www.prostateconditions.org/outreach-programs/prostate-cancer-screening Or…

http://www.rbcdesign.net/Examples%20of%20Design%20Work%20for%20RBC%20Design%20Studio/styled-4/medical-advertising-marketing-graphic-design.html

Campaign Objective: Advise

Factual statements regarding health behaviors, risk factors, medications, etc. Information objectives are fairly simple knowledge oriented factual statements informing the target audience about the positive aspects of certain behaviors or other actions or their negative impact. Advice takes the form of information that can help address the challenge of presenting new knowledge or can help clarify misperceptions that people may have. Finally, this information may serve as “booster shots”, reinforcing existing knowledge and reminding the target audience of certain issues.

Examples:

https://gettested.cdc.gov/reasons/default.aspx

Campaign Objective: Activate

Motivating or persuading the audience to attend to and act on the advice or other information presented.

Example:

http://osocio.org/message/aids-campaign-takes-a-different-look-at-social-diseases/

Campaign Objective: Advocate

Documentaries and articles, movies, public demonstrations or ads that embrace and promote a social or political point of view.

Examples:

This current one: http://blacklivesmatter.com/

And this one from nearly 50 years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/20510410925/in/photostream/

Campaign Objective: Combined Objectives

Pieces that attempt to achieve two or more of the above objectives.

Examples:

Research Activity #1

Activate: This magazine ad from Mercedes- Benz shows a crash dummy examining her breasts, with the text “Unfortunately we can’t test everything for you. Check your breast for breast cancer once a month. For your safety’s sake. Mercedes-Benz” The purpose of the ad is to motivate women to do a monthly self-breast exam, while at the same time raising the profile of the Mercedes brand. This is an unusual combination of a car company advertisement and breast health advice; but if that works for both, women and company, why not.

http://www.cancanhealth.org/education/breast-self-exam/

Advise: This segment of the “Can-Can” webpage is dedicated to explain step by step how to do a self-breast exam. What it’s interesting is the option to register to receive a free monthly email reminder to CHECK YOUR BOOBIES. That is a good behavior reinforcement.

http://www.wesupportu.org/#!mammograms/cy4z

Announce: The “We support u” ad announce where to go to receive free mammograms. It specifies the location, date, time, a phone number, and a website for more information. The ad is in English and Spanish.

http://www.the3day.org/site/PageServer

Advocate: the Susan G Komen 3-day walk has been on one of the most successful events to get people involved and contribute to the effort of fundraising to find a cure for breast cancer and awareness of the disease. It has transformed a very sad and scary topic, such as breast cancer, in a fun, joyful and full of hope opportunity. Instead of showing the devastation that the disease can cause, it motivates people to join others in the effort of doing more research and finding a cure. All of these while developing a powerful multimillion marketing campaign.

 http://m3mpr.com/sites/default/files/HealthAds_pap3.jpg