Danae Manika

An environmental social marketing intervention among employees: assessing attitude and behaviour change

Abstract The paper examines the impact of individual and organisational factors on two simultaneous environmental social marketing interventions (SmartPrint and heating/cooling) and types of behaviours (recycling, printing and heating/cooling), among employees of a British City Council. Using a quantitative methodology, in the form of a situated experiment, self-reported attitudes, perceptions of organisational support, self-reported behaviours and actual behaviours were measured before and after the interventions. The interventions generated significant changes in employees’ overall environmental behaviour, heating/cooling behaviour and in some perceptions of organisational support (support and incentives/rewards). Findings are used to detail recommendations for future campaigns aiming to improve organisations’ environmental performance and to drive enduring employee behavioural change.

Causes and consequences of trust in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising

Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (DTCA) is believed to empower consumers, but national surveys indicate declining trust in DTCA. Given the unique characteristics of this category, it is unclear what the likely consequences are of reduced trust in these ads. Furthermore, previous research is inadequate to discern the basis of trust in DTCA. To address this issue, a model of the antecedent and consequent factors connected to trust in DTCA was developed based on prior empirical findings and relevant theory. This paper presents survey findings testing the model. Results show trust is predicted by perceptions of mediated health information sources, advertising in general, pharmaceutical companies, and the perceived value and informativeness of prescription drug ads. Regarding outcomes, results were mixed for the relationship of trust with attention, attitudes, and behavioural intent. Overall, findings suggest trust plays a complex role in shaping consumer reactions to prescription drug ads.

Factors Associated with the Persuasiveness of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on HPV Vaccination Among Young Women

This quantitative study explored young womens response to direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (DTCA) for a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. In particular, the study examined (a) the association of factors stemming from consumer research with actual and intended behavioral responses to DTCA for HPV and (b) key elements drawn from commonly used health-related theories to determine the strongest associations with behavioral intentions regarding the HPV vaccine. Survey findings showed that vaccinated women indicated that DTCA played a role in their decision to get vaccinated against HPV more so than those who were not vaccinated. Trust in DTCA for an HPV vaccine brand was significantly related to intentions to seek more information about the vaccine. Also, perceived barriers had the only significant association with behavioral intentions when taking into account perceived threat and response efficacy. These results provide practical implications for key industry decision makers and health communication professionals on the design of effective theory-based health communication message content for an HPV vaccine brand with consequent social implications.

Consumers Young and Old: Segmenting the Target Markets for Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (DTCA) studies have typically focused on older adults or a general population of adults. However, college students are viable targets for DTCA and are receiving more research attention in this area. In this article, we compare college students with two adult age segments. Our findings indicate all age groups had relatively high awareness of DTCA and similar attitudes and behavioral responses to the ads. However, there were significant differences in media use and health characteristics as well as the factors predicting DTCA ad trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Implications and future research suggestions are discussed.

Health marketing communications: An integrated conceptual framework of key determinants of health behaviour across the stages of change

Despite the development of many health behaviour theories across various topics, the inconsistency in empirical support for their propositions and the on-going criticism about their limitations highlight the need for an adjusted and integrated approach. These theories have never been ‘abandoned’ or altered significantly to address their limitations, since their conceptualisations. The aim of this paper was to make a conceptual contribution by integrating distinct health behaviour theories (i.e. Health Belief Model, Extended Parallel Process Model, Transtheoretical Model), with a popular information-processing and attitude change theory from the marketing communications arena (namely, the Elaboration Likelihood Model). The specific objectives of this paper were: (1) to address limitations of prevailing health behaviour theories, by identifying key determinants of health behaviour across the most commonly used health behaviour theories; (2) to identify source, consumer, channel, and message characteristics, in addition to executional/situational factors and attitudinal variables, which may influence health behaviour; and lastly, (3) to explain under which conditions (i.e. stage of change) these determinants and factors are likely to impact health behaviour change and maintenance. In doing so, four assumptions and several propositions are developed. Future research directions and practical implications for creating health marketing communication messages are also discussed.

The influence of prior knowledge structures on website attitudes and behavioral intentions

The Persuasion Knowledge Model identifies three knowledge structures (i.e., topic knowledge, persuasion knowledge and agent knowledge) that an individual has prior to exposure to a persuasive attempt. This study extends these knowledge structures by distinguishing between objective and subjective topic knowledge conceptualizations. Specifically, this study examines empirically how an individuals different knowledge structures, held prior to exposure to a web-based intervention, influence subsequent website attitudes and behavioral intentions. The UKs National Health Service (NHS) Live Well website relevant to weight control is used as the web-based intervention in this study. Results suggest that agent (i.e., NHS) knowledge is the most important predictor of website attitudes, while both agent and persuasion knowledge are associated with behavioral intentions to take weight control actions. The results also reveal that the distinction between objective and subjective weight control knowledge is essential given their differential effects on agent and persuasion knowledge. Goal frames, as indicated by the choice between the healthy eating and lose weight Live Well intervention web pages, are found to moderate the identified Knowledge-Attitude-Behavior links. Theoretical contributions, implications for practice and public policy and future research directions are discussed. Prior knowledge structures influence website attitudes and behavioral intentions.Objective and subjective knowledge have different effects on agent and persuasion knowledge.Agent knowledge is the most important predictor of website attitudes.Agent and persuasion knowledge predict behavioral intentions.Goal frames moderate the Knowledge-Attitude-Behavior links.

An environmental social marketing intervention in cultural heritage tourism: a realist evaluation

ABSTRACT Following Pawson and Tilleys principles of realist evaluation and the context–mechanism–outcome (CMO) framework, this paper conducts a process evaluation of an environmental social marketing intervention in a heritage tourism organisation. Social marketing and employee environmental interventions have received relatively scant attention in tourism. Additionally, prior literature mostly focused on the evaluation of intervention outcomes (i.e. how far the intervention produces precise targeted outcomes) and ignores the importance of process evaluation (i.e. identifying what works, for whom, under which circumstances and how, plus issues of intervention maintenance). This paper fills this literature gap using realist evaluation theory and academic perspectives, as well as via the reflections of practitioners involved in intervention design and delivery. Findings suggest that a good understanding of the tourism and organisational context (regarding the dimensions of structure, culture, agency and relations) and the use of tailored, action-focused mechanisms (for each context dimension) are critical to achieving transformational outcomes in environmental interventions in cultural heritage organisations. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the CMO is a useful framework for assessing environmental social marketing interventions in tourism (both for heritage and other tourism organisations). Implications for tourism practice and further research directions are also discussed.

The Moderating Role of Age in Responses to Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising

Age is an important factor that can influence processing of and response to health messages. Many studies examining evaluations of and responses to direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (DTCA) have incorporated age as a predictor variable, moderating variable, or sample criterion. However, findings have been inconsistent. This study attempts to add clarity to this body of research by assessing age differences in the antecedent factors of various DTCA outcomes. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis revealed several significant differences in variable relationships between older (50+) and younger (<50) adults. Overall, older adults exhibited greater complexity in their consideration of DTCA than younger adults in terms of the sheer number of significant relationships within the model. In particular, trust in mediated health information sources and trust in ones physician appeared to be more relevant predictors for older adults. Trust in DTCA was also distinguished as having an inverse relationship with behavioral intentions among older adults while showing a straightforward positive association with attention among younger adults. Further analysis indicated that health status accounted for some but not all of the age differences. It is suggested that younger adults are more open to seeking additional information following DTCA exposure, whereas older adults remain ambivalent.

Consumers’ identities and compartmentalisation tendencies in alcohol consumption

ABSTRACT This longitudinal study explored how consumers justify their alcohol consumption by compartmentalising or integrating their various drinking identities (i.e. description of one’s drinking behaviours and extent to which these are part of person’s overall identity). Thirty-one participants were interviewed twice. The findings revealed that identities are continuously altered/created according to context and social interactions. Consumers’ movement between social fields generated different perceptions of what constitutes ‘healthy’ drinking, leading to displays of different identities. After interviewees compared their alcohol consumption perceptions with results from an online 14-day alcohol tracker, some consumers reported a ‘newly perceived’ drinking identity and displayed integration tendencies. Others denied their consumption results and continued to exhibit compartmentalised identities, justified by various social selves, roles and responsibilities. Social marketing and policy recommendations are discussed.

Investigating the Impact of Individual Attitudinal and Organizational Variables on Green Behaviors and Commuting at the Workplace

This paper responds to recent calls for further research on both individual attitudinal and organizational variables on employees’ green behaviors and sheds light on the influence and associations of these variables with four green employee behaviors: recycling, energy saving, printing reduction behaviors and commuting-related behavior, simultaneously. An initial theoretical model that identifies both individual (general environmentally friendly attitudes, the importance of organization’s environmentally friendly reputation) and organizational (perceived incentives from organization, perceived support from organization, perceived environmental behavior of organization) variables that can increase different types of green behaviors is put forward. Quantitative data from 1204 employees were drawn from seven different British organizations (the first study of its type to do this) by Global Action Plan, a leading UK environmental charity. The data were collected via internet surveys, prior to employees’ exposure to interventions, in order to assist in the design of the interventions. The questionnaires employed to collect the data were not originally designed with these specific analyses in mind, which imposes some limitations. However, by using field data, this study has reduced some of the limitations of datasets collected primarily for academic research such as the lack realism and generalizability, and artificiality. SEM results suggest that creating separate interventions for each type of environmental behavior, as well as for each sector, and type (private vs. public) of organization, and each organization, might be needed. The variables accounted for 10 % of the variance in recycling behavior; 15 % in energy saving behavior; 5 % in printing behavior; and 8 % in commuting behavior. In addition to these variables, commuting behaviors are influenced by many factors: distance of work from home, weather conditions, financial constraints etc., many of which are out of the organizations’ control. Organizations aiming to increase commuting behaviors should first ensure that adequate infrastructure exists (i.e., frequent and accessible public transport from and to work) for individuals to be motivated to engage in such activities, without those activities affecting work/outputs in a negative way. Surprisingly, the research also found that the more favorable the perceptions of an organization’s environmental behavior, the lower the employees’ environmentally friendly commuting behaviors are. This might be because an employee’s commuting behavior is not seen as a contributor to the organization’s overall environmental behavior and that commuting behaviors can be seen as related more to the self, than to the organization. Further research is required to explore the reasons behind these results related to commuting behaviors.