A Typology of Middle School Girls: Audience Segmentation Related to Physical Activity

Abstract

The Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG) combines social ecological and social marketing approaches to promote girls' participation in physical activity programs implemented at 18 middle schools throughout the United States. Key to the TAAG approach is targeting materials to a variety of audience segments. TAAG segments are individuals who share one or more common characteristic that is expected to correlate with physical activity. Thirteen focus groups with seventh and eighth grade girls were conducted to identify and characterize segments. Potential messages and channels of communication were discussed for each segment. Based on participant responses, six primary segments were identified: athletic, preppy, quiet, rebel, smart, and tough. The focus group information was used to develop targeted promotional tools to appeal to a diversity of girls. Using audience segmentation for targeting persuasive communication is potentially useful for intervention programs but may be sensitive; therefore, ethical issues must be critically examined. Keywordsformative assessment; methodology; social marketing; adolescents Active youth are more likely to continue to be active in adulthood (Telama, Yang, Laakso, & Viikari, 1997). However, girls' participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) drops dramatically, compared to that of boys, from the early elementary years through high school (Caspersen, Pereira, & Curran, 2000;Grunbaum et al., 2002;Kimm et al., 2000Kimm et al., , 2002Sallis, 2000;Trost, 2000;Trost et al., 2002). To counteract the decline in girls' participation in MVPA, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute initiated an intervention trial, Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG), with 36 middle schools across six field centers randomized to intervention or control conditions. The purpose of TAAG is to design and evaluate an intervention based on the social ecological model Young et al., 2006) to reduce the decline in physical activity in middle school girls by affecting the physical and social environment through (a) health education and physical education programming, (b) linking schools with community organizations to increase opportunities for physical activity, and (c) promotional efforts to enhance motivation. Because a school-and community-based intervention such as TAAG is implemented with a broad general population, investigators identified a need to make TAAG programming and marketing materials diverse and appealing to a wide variety of girls. Investigators selected social marketing strategies to identify key segments in the target population and learn about ways promotional messages could be shaped to meet varying needs and interests. This article presents an innovative strategy, implemented as part of TAAG formative research to identify audience segments related to MVPA among middle school girls and associated channels, sources, and messages to reach them.To enhance the effectiveness of intervention components, TAAG adopted an overall promotions strategy aime...

Physical Activity Attitudes, Preferences, and Practices in African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian Girls

“…Furthermore, this low agreement may indicate that areas of interest may not follow lines of ethnicity. Another article in this issue explores segmentation of middle school girls and, using different data sources, did not find consistent ethnic patterns (Staten et al, 2006). It is also recognized that factors other than the activity itself likely affect participating in physical activity programs (i.e., accessibility, social networks, cultural sensitivity of leaders and participants, etc.).…”

“…An overall description of these methods is found elsewhere in this issue (Gittelsohn et al, 2006). Other articles in this issue present results on physical activity attitudes and behaviors in adolescent girls (Staten, Birnbaum, Jobe, & Elder, 2006;Vu, Murrie, Gonzalez, & Jobe, 2006). This article reports physical activity attitudes, preferences, and practices among middle school girls by addressing the following questions:…”

Data to Action: Using Formative Research to Develop Intervention Programs to Increase Physical Activity in Adolescent Girls

“…The results of formative research are presented in detail in other work published in this supplement Moe et al, 2006;Saunders & Moody, 2006;Staten, Birnbaum, Jobe, & Elder, 2006;Vu et al, 2006). There were, however, some key findings that had overarching implications for intervention planning.…”

Attention for Lyme prevention

“…Dividing a heterogeneous audience into homogeneous audience segments and subsequently targeting health communication toward these audience segments is a more fruitful approach than distributing a one-size-fits-all message [149]. In the past, many audiences have been successfully segmented for health campaigns such as healthy eating campaigns [92] and promoting physical activity [158]. Segmentation is often based upon demographic, behavioral, and/or psychosocial data and involves the analysis of very large volumes of quantitative data [22].…”