Maurice Murphy

Is Social Marketing Just Smoke and Mirrors? Adolescent Female Smoking

It is estimated that tobacco use is responsible for more than 500,000 deaths every year across the EU (Ryan, 2000). In adolescence, higher rates of smoking are reported among girls than boys in an increasing number of European countries (Currie et al. 2004). Estimates by the World Health Organisation calculate that the number of women who smoke is set to almost triple on a global scale by the year 2025. This trend has also been confirmed in Europe. While men’s smoking is slowly on the decline, smoking rates among women increased in 11 of the 25 EU member states between 1985 and 2003 (European Network for Smoking Prevention, 2007). The Irish Office of Tobacco Control’s research has confirmed that initiation into smoking is largely a childhood phenomenon. More than 75% of all smokers in Ireland started to smoke before they reached the age of 18 (HBSC Ireland, 2006). The tobacco industry needs 50 Irish children to start smoking every day in order to maintain the size of its current Irish customer base (Office of Tobacco Control, 2007). The Irish National Health and Lifestyle survey 2002 states that almost half of Irish children have tried a cigarette. By the age of 15 to 17 years, one third of all boys and girls are smoking between three and six cigarettes a day. By the age of 15 years, more girls smoke than boys and by the age of 16 years, 80% of all smokers have become addicted. Smoking plays an important role in the social and physical environment of young people. Often young smokers, although aware of the health risks, minimise these risks for themselves, underestimate the risk of becoming addicted and do not relate their personal smoking to adult smoking behaviours (Lambert et al. 2002). The use of fear appeals is perhaps the most common tactic for social marketing, with threats of physical harm including injury and death used more frequently than social threats. The prevailing anti-tobacco appeal attempts to scare the target group into attitude and behaviour changes through the use of physical or social threat messages. According to the theory, people can be motivated to engage in desirable health behaviours not only to avoid health risks (physical threats) but also to avoid social or interpersonal risks (Dijkstra, et al. 1998). In a smoking context, studies have shown that an overall decline in smoking behaviour was noticed by adolescents who viewed an anti-smoking advertisement as opposed to adolescents who did not view an anti-smoking advertisement (Smith and Stutts, 2003).

Is the Glass Still Half Full? Can Social Marketing Threat Appeals Still have a Role in Reducing Binge Drinking Among Female College Students?

Ireland has one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the EU, consuming 10.6 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2003, and increasing to 13.4 litres in 2006. This rise in consumption has led to increases in alcohol-related harm and disease, and has resulted in more than 1,775 deaths according to the Health Research Board (Mongan, et al. 2007). In general, increases in overall consumption are accompanied by a greater incidence of health and social problems. In addition to the high volume of alcohol consumed by people in Ireland, drinking occasions appear to be strongly related to heavy episodic or “binge” drinking patterns. Binge drinking is defined as drinking five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more drinks in a row for women, at least once in the previous two weeks (Dantzer, et al. 2006). The prevalence of alcohol use and associated problems is higher in college populations than in the general public (Evans and Dunn, 1995). In fact, binge drinking has been identified as the number one substance abuse problem in university life (Syre, et al. 1997). A recent international study of drinking among university students in 21 countries found that Ireland had the highest proportions of male and female heavy or binge drinkers (Dantzer, et al. 2006). Women are at an increased risk from alcohol use because they need less alcohol per kilogram of body weight than men to attain the same peak blood alcohol level and level of impairment (Rohsenow, 1998). In their recent report, The Health Research Board (2007) in Ireland state that “if current trends continue, we will see significantly higher numbers of middle-aged women experiencing alcohol-related morbidity or greater premature mortality”.

Social Marketing: The Lifeblood of Blood Donation?

In today’s society, blood donation is dependent on the goodwill of people to voluntarily donate blood without financial reward. There is a continuous need for new blood donors, because the demand for donor blood is increasing, whereas the supply of blood is declining. Three thousand blood donations are needed in the Republic of Ireland every week. Maintaining an adequate supply is the biggest challenge. Only 3.6% of the eligible population in the Republic of Ireland donate blood. This leaves an enormous potential blood donor base, which if tapped into and maintained could lead to an adequate reserve of donations to meet the transfusion needs of Ireland (Harrington et al. 2007). Research results from the Council of Europe (Van der Poel et al. 2007) found that the average number of donors in relation to the general population in Europe is 25 per 1,000 inhabitants. Ireland is slightly above this with 29.7 donors per 1,000 inhabitants. Repeat donors are the key individuals to maintaining a safe and sufficient blood supply (Schreiber et al. 2003), which is paramount as one in four individuals will require a blood transfusion at some stage in their lives (IBTS, 2007). Glynn et al. (2002) have identified several motivators for blood donation including altruism, awareness of the need for blood in the community, a sense of social obligation or duty, personal social pressure, the need to replace blood used by a friend or relative, and increased self esteem. Various reasons have been cited for avoiding blood donation. Fears about the collection process are the most prevalent (Gillespie and Hillyer, 2002). These include fear of needles, general apprehension, negative feelings about the sight of blood, concern about pain or bruising and anxiety that mistakes could be made during donation. Fear of adverse physiological reactions such as weakness or fatigue, dizziness, nausea, or fainting complicate the blood collection process, and are a significant disincentive for repeat donation (France et al. 2005). Kolins and Herron, (2003) propose that the way forward to achieve growth in blood donor numbers lies with a market-type approach with targeted marketing campaigns to profiled young people.

Does Social Marketing Have a Role in Skin Cancer Education and Prevention

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland and worldwide. Skin cancer rates have been steadily rising in recent times. In Ireland, one in every eight men and one in every ten women will develop skin cancer by the age of 74 years. Two thirds of Irish people have a higher risk of developing skin cancer because of their fair skin type. This paper focuses on the use of social marketing to educate people on the dangers of skin cancer with the eventual aim of making recommendations to aid in its prevention. In-depth interviews were conducted with ten leading personnel from skin cancer and social marketing fields. All interviewees reached similar conclusions suggesting that one clear understandable message on the Vitamin D controversy is vital, as well as the importance of not only parental role models for children but role models in general to alter faulty sun protective behaviours. All interviewees agreed on the dangers of mixed messaging within skin cancer and other health promotion campaigns where there is a serious danger of campaign literature being completely disregarded due to inconsistent messaging. This necessitates the creation of cross functional campaigns where government agencies work in conjunction with each other to promote consistent health messages to the public. Segmentation was also identified as a key contributor to successfully reaching each audience effectively; messages must be tailored for each specific audience. The study further argues the importance of working with the Irish government to enact legislation banning sunbeds.

Case 11: Increasing Organ Donation: The Case for Social Marketing

There were over 600 patients on the organ waiting list in Ireland in November 2010. Ireland also witnessed a dramatic decline in the number of donors from 90 donors in 2009 to 58 donors in 2010. This case focuses on investigating the current state of organ donation in the Republic of Ireland, with the eventual goal of recommending alterations to improve the system. The need to put organ donation on a legislative framework was highlighted as well as the need for social marketing to target both the medical community and society at large to establish a moral obligation/duty to donate.