Tailoring but not targeting: a critical analysis of “the Meth Project” aimed at Hispanic youth

Abstract

• This paper examines the Meth Project, a social marketing campaign that enlists violence and fear to persuade Anglo and Hispanic youth in the USA to avoid methamphetamines. Violent and graphic media spots, although perhaps initially effective for facilitating message acceptance, may be counterproductive for long-term campaign objectives. We draw on Witte's Extended Parallel Process Model to conceptualize how fear, risk, and behavior drive health-related behaviors. Merely translating the Anglo spots into Spanish is an insufficient strategy to reach Hispanic youth because it targets rather than tailors its message. Significant findings of content analyses show that public service announcements in Spanish, unexpectedly, underscore recovering users' concern for violating norms with schools, employers, and law enforcement (secondary groups), whereas the Anglo spots show users more upset for disappointing family, friends, and loved ones (primary groups). Culturally appropriate Latino spots should tailor their messages to the values of familism, collectivism, simpatía, personalismo, and respeto, which have implications for reaching Hispanic audiences in other social marketing contexts.

Positive Shock: A Consumer Ethical Judgement Perspective

“…Our findings illustrate that CEPS encourages consumer participation in viscerally shocking experiential campaigns, if congruent with the hedonic consumption experience being marketed. Therefore, CEPS is a distinct emotional response to those aroused by social marketing (Scarpaci and Burke 2016;Tannenbaum et al 2015;Cronin and Hopkinson 2017), as it seeks to encourage rather than prevent consumer participation, and is clear in its commercial and hedonic orientation. Another CEPS dimension is its ephemerality, leading to positive ethical judgement.…”

“…Excessive threat can "alienate consumers" (Urwin and Venter 2014, p. 203), resulting in undesirable beliefs about experiential campaigns. These beliefs may work to the detriment of the brand (Hsieh et al 2012;Moore 2015), or the social marketing campaign (Scarpaci and Burke 2016). Positively valenced adverts are often posed as eliciting stronger, longer-lasting attitudes (Eckler and Bolls 2011).…”

Public service announcements: A literature review and way forward

“…Some research in the PSA space advocates the use of fear appeals (Bleakley et al, 2015;Manno et al, 2018;Nan, 2017). However, other research, such as that of Scarpaci and Burke (2016), found that fear appeals backfire. Bleakley et al (2015) used adolescents as subjects in PSAs for reducing sugar sweetened beverages like Coke.…”

Shear behaviour and design of diagonally stiffened stainless steel plate girders

“…Excessive threat can "alienate consumers" (Urwin and Venter, 2014, p. 203), resulting in undesirable beliefs about experiential campaigns. These beliefs may work to the detriment of the brand (Hsieh et al, 2012;Moore, 2015), or the social marketing campaign (Scarpaci and Burke, 2016). Positively valenced adverts are often posed as eliciting stronger, longerlasting attitudes (Eckler and Bolls, 2011).…”