Tips for a Successful Social Norms Media Campaign

There are several important factors that can make or break a campus social norms media campaign. Here are some tips that have proven critical to the success of the UA’s social norms campaign:

• Reach out to the entire target population, not just a sub-population that is in need for change. The goal is to change public conversation among everyone in order to influence the context in which decisions about behavior are made. The campaign should “turn up the volume” on the positive behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and values held by the majority of the target population. As a result, those individuals who are feeling pressured to engage in the problem behavior because they believe it is the norm, are now made well aware that their behavior, attitudes and beliefs are out of sync with others. An alcohol abuse prevention campaign for college students could feature information on students’ decisions about drinking in relation to commonly held values such as school success, caring about friends and family, and meeting work and other responsibilities.
• Always market test your campaign materials. Campaigns that assume knowledge about target group preferences will inevitably make critical errors. Market testing should be conducted with students who have no direct involvement in the development of the campaign. Peer educators, who can be very helpful in providing insight into community practices, are often too close to the project to be able to provide unbiased critiques of campaign materials; and they often share the values and goals of project staff over that of their peers.
• A social norms campaign should feedback information about a variety of behaviors, attitudes and practices. For example, an alcohol abuse prevention campaign that only features the norm for consumption is likely to be ineffective. Students also need to hear about students’ attitudes toward drinking and the safer drinking practices they uphold, especially as they relate to school achievement and other responsibilities. A successful social norms campaign provides students with a clear and thorough message that the “norm” (including attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, policy enforcement and acceptance, and practices) is less permissive than they originally believed it to be.
• Social norms media campaigns do not necessarily transfer well from one setting to another. Each college/university campus is unique. Therefore, each social norms campaign should have its own content, style, voice and vocabulary that will work best for its target population.
• The target population must believe that those who sponsor the campaign are legitimately interested in their well-being. For example, if students believe that the campaign is just part of a larger public relations effort by the university either to reduce legal liability or downplay a problem and reduce parental anxiety, then the campaign will not be perceived as credible by students.
• Campaign exposure is crucial, but use caution. Frequent exposure to norms messages is critical in order for misperceptions (and eventually, behavior) to change, but campaigns can also overexpose the population to these messages. For example, if students begin to repeat an alcohol message as if it is a slogan, there is a good chance that the message has lost its freshness and its credibility. Currently, there are no hard, fast rules about how much exposure is enough or too much. To ensure success of your campaign, be sure to gather ongoing feedback about how the campaign is being experienced and talked about by the target population.
• Do not contradict your social norms messages. If the campus is receiving other, non-normative information at the same time as your social norms campaign, the potency of your campaign will be diminished. For example, competing fear-based campaigns, over-hyped enforcement of underage drinking laws and reactive campus alcohol policies, and administrative pronouncements on the evils of binge drinking will all undermine and discredit a social norms campaign.
• Campaign exposure should include those non-peers who also influence students’ decisions. Faculty, administrators, coaches, advisors, teaching assistants, residence life staff, clinicians, parents and others all play a role in influencing the decisions that students make regarding alcohol. In that these others are often “carriers of the misperception”, they should also be exposed to the norms so that they may play a role in strengthening your campaign.
• A successful social norms campaign should create a cascade effect. Accuracy of student perceptions about the norms of campus alcohol use should increase as students are increasingly exposed to the campaign. A successful campaign will encourage abstinent and light to moderate drinkers to feel more comfortable with their decisions about socializing without or with minimal alcohol, and will cause heavy and problem drinkers to become concerned that their drinking behaviors and attitudes are not shared.

Common Mistakes That Cause a Social Norms Media Campaign to Fail

• Campaign messages focus on negative consequences of heavy drinking
• Campaign messages use the term “binge drinking” which has a different meaning to students than to practitioners and researchers
• Campaign messages tell students what to do
• Staff need for creativity (rather than thorough research and market testing with the target population) drives media and message development and implementation
• Message is inconsistent with campus alcohol policies and rules
• Message is not sufficiently tested on the target audience
• Message does not…
  • correct a misperception
  • identify protective behaviors common to students
  • support the norm

Social norms campaigns are not about slogans or a ruling majority!

Social norms campaigns simply put the commonly held behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of a population into the spotlight, making them more visible than the atypical behaviors, attitudes and beliefs that are misperceived as being common to the population.