Succesfully Involving Teenagers in Health Campaigns through Social Media.
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Abstract
Dutch youth have extensive knowledge on and a very positive attitude towards safe sex. Over 75% has the intention to maintain condom use with a new partner until both have been tested for an sti.This is an especially high percentage considering the high usage of birthcontrol pills by young women. Therefor the biggest challenge in the Netherlands is not knowledge or attitude but actual behaviour.
Dutch male youths have a rational intention towards condom use and carry one with them. However, when they get sexually aroused they often have a preference for not practising safe sex (use a condom). They do not mention the fact that they have a condom at hand. Dutch female youths are more determined on using a condom but are reluctant to carry one with them out of fear of suspicion of having a loose moral. Not having a condom themselves when one is needed makes it extra difficult for them to bring up the subject of condom use. So, even when a condom is present and both partners are prepared to use one, young men prefer sex with a condom if his partner insists on it over not having sex, it often goes wrong in the implementation of the positive intention.
In the latest Safe Sex Campaign our goal was to influence behaviour directly. First we provided emotional arguments; talking about desires and boundaries with your sexual partner is seen as part of being a good lover. Our message was that talking about safe sex is also a part of that conversation. Research by van der Putte (Uva, 2011) showed a relationship between discussing safe sex (or even: discussing a safe sex campaign) and actual condom use. We used the first two phases of this campaign to communicatie this, already present, social norm among our target audience.
In interviews with young couples we discovered that the best moment to bring up the subject of condoms is right before you take of your pants. So we communicated a cue; at this moment you should act this was to adher to the social norm, making use of R. Cialdini's theory of heuristics. For this strategy to work,we needed to be as lively as possible so our target audience could project themselves into the situation we showed them. To make this possible we decided to ask the audience to describe these situations. Where would the sex have place? With whom? how would the subject of condooms be brought up? And where would the condom be kept. We made use of a social media strategy to ask as many youths as we could. We co-operated with several smaller community sites and the vlogging community. We were completely open and honoust about our intentions and promised no rewards for participation. The only promises we made were that we would take them seriously and that we would use their input in the commercials that would air in the third and final phase of the campaign. Our advertorials reached an audience of over 3 million readers, our videos were watched over 2 million times. We received over 21000 handwritten responses and over 60.000 votes on our polls. We also found that during our campaign the interactivity with and and between our target audience rose instead of declined.
This co-creation led to three tv commercials showing 6 possible scenarios and three radio commercials consisting of quotes from the input of the target audience.These commercials reached over 91% of our target audience.
Not only was the campaign very well received (the becnhmark for government campaigns is 6,8 and this campaign was graded 7,3) it was also very effective. The message of the resulting commercials was very clear, reaching a message transfer of 98%. The number of youths who reported bringing up the subject of condoms before they took of their pants rose from 56% before the start of the campaign to 74% after the campaign ended, three months later.
During this latest safe sex campaign we learned a lot of techniques and validatedmany theories about being succesful in social media and using it for co-creation purposes. These learnings can be used for safe sex promotion, but for other health prevention programmes as well.
Dutch male youths have a rational intention towards condom use and carry one with them. However, when they get sexually aroused they often have a preference for not practising safe sex (use a condom). They do not mention the fact that they have a condom at hand. Dutch female youths are more determined on using a condom but are reluctant to carry one with them out of fear of suspicion of having a loose moral. Not having a condom themselves when one is needed makes it extra difficult for them to bring up the subject of condom use. So, even when a condom is present and both partners are prepared to use one, young men prefer sex with a condom if his partner insists on it over not having sex, it often goes wrong in the implementation of the positive intention.
In the latest Safe Sex Campaign our goal was to influence behaviour directly. First we provided emotional arguments; talking about desires and boundaries with your sexual partner is seen as part of being a good lover. Our message was that talking about safe sex is also a part of that conversation. Research by van der Putte (Uva, 2011) showed a relationship between discussing safe sex (or even: discussing a safe sex campaign) and actual condom use. We used the first two phases of this campaign to communicatie this, already present, social norm among our target audience.
In interviews with young couples we discovered that the best moment to bring up the subject of condoms is right before you take of your pants. So we communicated a cue; at this moment you should act this was to adher to the social norm, making use of R. Cialdini's theory of heuristics. For this strategy to work,we needed to be as lively as possible so our target audience could project themselves into the situation we showed them. To make this possible we decided to ask the audience to describe these situations. Where would the sex have place? With whom? how would the subject of condooms be brought up? And where would the condom be kept. We made use of a social media strategy to ask as many youths as we could. We co-operated with several smaller community sites and the vlogging community. We were completely open and honoust about our intentions and promised no rewards for participation. The only promises we made were that we would take them seriously and that we would use their input in the commercials that would air in the third and final phase of the campaign. Our advertorials reached an audience of over 3 million readers, our videos were watched over 2 million times. We received over 21000 handwritten responses and over 60.000 votes on our polls. We also found that during our campaign the interactivity with and and between our target audience rose instead of declined.
This co-creation led to three tv commercials showing 6 possible scenarios and three radio commercials consisting of quotes from the input of the target audience.These commercials reached over 91% of our target audience.
Not only was the campaign very well received (the becnhmark for government campaigns is 6,8 and this campaign was graded 7,3) it was also very effective. The message of the resulting commercials was very clear, reaching a message transfer of 98%. The number of youths who reported bringing up the subject of condoms before they took of their pants rose from 56% before the start of the campaign to 74% after the campaign ended, three months later.
During this latest safe sex campaign we learned a lot of techniques and validatedmany theories about being succesful in social media and using it for co-creation purposes. These learnings can be used for safe sex promotion, but for other health prevention programmes as well.
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