Psychology 409,
Advertising for Social Change
By your Lida Atkinson
Instructions
for this activity are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/g25-oral1.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon
James
Jim
Crimmins andvChris Callahan (2003). Reducing
Road Rage: The Role of Target Insight in Advertising for Social Change.
Journal of Advertising Research, 0021-8499,
Concept1:
1.
Social change through advertising: Advertising is statistical significant
way to promote change within our society
a.
Problems
i.
Hitting the right target: The most important part of advertising is
making sure that the intended audience is the one that you reach with the
message
ii.
Uncooperative intermediaries: Not everyone has a vested interest in
improving all social ills
iii.
Managed by people unfamiliar with advertising: lawyers, scientists, law
enforcement
b.
Assets
i.
Big Business: Almost a 7 Billion dollar industry
ii.
Government funding
iii.
PSA’s
c.
Advertizing for social change’s record
i.
Mixed results: MADD, Smoky the Bear, “A mind is a terrible thing to
waste”, all examples of extremely successful social advertising
ii.
Lack of insight into target audience
iii.
Understanding the target’s need
2.
Road rage from an advertising perspective - DDB Life Style Study”The finger”
as a barometer, “Despite our fear and fascination with road rage, there is a
limited amount of research on the subject. We add to the existing research an
examination of those who exhibit a crude and common display of anger on the
road: giving "the finger" while driving
a.
Contributing factors to road rage”
i.
Traffic congestion – the author sees little evidence that congestion
precipitates road rage, he feels that if this hypothesis were true that the
instances of road rage would be higher in cities
ii.
Inconsiderate drivers – cutting off, tailgating, slow drivers, parking
lot argument
iii.
Insults – rude gestures
b.
Roots
i.
Gender – men respond more aggressively to insult, “Of the 10,037 traffic
incidents that resulted in violence reviewed by Mizell (1997), the gender of
the perpetrator was known in 9,509 of the cases. In 96 percent of these cases,
the perpetrators were male”
ii.
Age - The frequency of giving "the finger" for both genders is
highest in the 18 to 24 year-old range. It declines rapidly between 20 and 30
and then slowly there after
iii.
Education – Those with a college degrees are 55% less likely to give “the
finger”
iv.
Income – Given the education statistic, income would seem to be a logical
correlation, but there is no statistical differences in the propensity to give
“the finger” and income
v.
External pressure - feelings of pressure, powerlessness, and frustration
may be the most powerful indicator for road rage
vi.
Values – “Men and women who would like to be seen by others as
aggressive, adventurous, or outspoken respond more aggressively to insults and
more frequently give others "the finger" while driving”
c.
Changing behavior
i.
Most people want to be viewed as capable, intelligent and fun-loving
ii.
Realistically, people that engage in aggressive driving are regarded as “foolish
and pathetic”
iii.
Actions creates labels
3.
Solutions from the advertising perspective
a.
Target
i.
Young people – young men in particular
ii.
All geographic areas
iii.
Place importance on appearance
b.
Message
i.
Social disapproval
ii.
Radio and outdoor advertising
iii.
Provocative and frequent
Conclusions:
Addressing social problems from an
advertising perspective is not a new idea; it has been somewhat successful with
drugs, education, drunk driving and more. What is important is that we as
psychology students remember that there are many ways to approach a problem. We
talk about creating psychological tests that will allow us to identify someone
with the potential to become violent, or creating an educational program that
will inform the public of the danger, but we often forget that society has
dealt with societal problems for millennia. Shunning and shame are powerful
tools in a community’s arsenal. If we, as a group, decide that, the issue of
road rage demands action then creating an advertising campaign that shows the
social condemnation of road rage is a step in the right direction.
Links:
http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3008
Advertising Educational
Foundation provides educational content to enrich the understanding of advertising
and to expand and elevate the advertising discourse... on-campus... in our
society... and in the industry.
http://www.psaresearch.com/ An
online information library dedicated to public service advertising. It provides
a warehouse of articles, case studies and statistics. It also provides an
online café for professionals to meet and pass on news and information.