Week 15: Key Learnings

I can't believe the semester is nearly over! I have definitely learned a lot in this course throughout this semester, and unlike many other courses I believe that this information will actually stick with me in the future!
I appreciate all of the hands-on activities as those really helped me to understand the concepts we talked about in class. I feel that I have learned useful public health communication skills plus tools that will make me a more critical and aware consumer. I do find myself paying attention to and analyzing the numerous messages I am exposed to in the world. Our group project has been lots of work but very interesting and a great experience -- I enjoyed the fact that we got to put our newly learned skills to use to produce something tangible, and hopefully useful for our 'client.' I anticipate using many of the skills we learned in class in my public health future, especially formative research and audience segmentation, since there is always an audience to reach and formative research can help inform nearly any project/campaign/intervention. Thanks for such a useful class!

Week 14: Now What?...

In this week's class it was interesting to talk about the our futures after grad school, and is nice to hear that we will be marketable and have the potential to find public health related jobs in many fields.
This course has definitely taught me numerous skills about conducting formative research, creating health communication campaigns, and about health communication in general. Hopefully all the skills and information I've learned will be put to good use when I land that fabulous job after graduation! Although we did get to touch on it during the last class, I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time discussing program/campaign evaluation. In my current student position at the Institute for Public Health that is what I get to do all the time and I have come to realize how important evaluation is to programs. Evaluation is vital for convincing funders that your program is wonderful and effective and should continue to be funded, thus helping the public plus ensuring us jobs for at least that much longer :)

Week 13: Entertainment Education

As we talked about in class this week, entertainment and pop culture are potentially powerful tools for us to use to get health messages out to the general public. These are especially great avenues for reaching those people with low involvement in our health issue. However, health ed through pop culture may not work for everyone (including those with high issue involvement. Therefore as health educators we also need to utilize other education strategies to influence those who don't give much credibility to the Simpsons or Sex in the City.
However, as Dr. Engelberg mentioned, most people are going to have low involvement in our issues. So maybe entertainment education is the right path to go down. Ideally it would be nice if we could use all the different avenues we have available to consistently relay the same messages through these different channels. For example, if Sex in the City characters were consistently shown using condoms, while news shows talked to health experts who stressed the importance of always using condoms, while radio skits also talked about when and how to use condoms, etc. all different audience segments would be getting the same health message through various ways and hopefully they would pay attention to the source that is most compelling to them.

Week 12: You Mean There's an Updated Version of the Web???

Wow do I feel old! I had no idea we are already on version 2 of the web! Web 2.0 is out there being consumed by the youngsters and those much more 'with it' than me, and I'm still sticking to the internet for email, searches, and only recently blogging, social bookmarking, and using photo galleries. I've really got to get with it if I'm going to take advantage of the great tools available through every-changing technology. Maybe I should sit down with a 'youth' of today and have them give me a lesson in social networking, interactive gaming, and all the ways the internet is facilitating communication today.
It is great to see democracy at work through projects such as Wikipedia (click here for an interesting video about this democratically maintained tool), since sometimes it feels as though we don't see democracy played out in other areas of our lives. With all the information that is instantaneously available to us via the web, it can be a bit overwhelming. But I am interested in at least trying to catch up and learn what all Web 2.0 has to offer...though no doubt that by the time I've somewhat gotten a handle on it, we'll be on to version 4.2, just like with all other technology!

Week 11: Media Advocacy

The video we watched in class this week by Jean Kilbourne (Killing Us Softly) was very intriguing, and I'm looking forward to watching the parts that we did not get a chance to see in class. I think her message regarding the excessive objectification of women in media and advertising is an important one that more people need to hear. Watching this video reminded me of another film that I watched in a women's studies class earlier this semester about the effects of how gender is constructed and portrayed in our society. This film featured a women who I believe is on record as having the most plastic surgeries. She had this idea of what constituted the 'perfect' woman and just went down her list getting those things surgically done. Although she claims not to have been influenced by popular media, it sounds like Kilbourne would not agree with that. As mentioned in the Kilbourne video, even if we think we are not paying attention to the ads and portrayls of women in the media, they are all around us and constantly affecting our thinking.
Ideally I would love it if we could turn this around, and get rid of all the negative portrayals of women and the idea of non-existent 'perfect' woman. Unfortunately that is a bit of a daunting task. More realistic ways of taking action would be to share this video with others, speak up when seeing demeaning ads, and think carefully about all this when using sex, looks and money in message promotion. Having said that though, that last bit gets tricky since we know that sex, looks and money sell. So I guess it falls back on the individual to find a balance between motivation people for the 'wrong' reason and effectively promotion a message. Lots to consider!

Ahhh Spring Break...

As a fun break from health communication, here's a taste of 'How I Spent My Spring Break'....

For 9 days my boyfriend and I were camping throughout southern Arizona and New Mexico, with our final destination being Carlsbad Caverns. The best thing about this trip was that it was SO RELAXING! We had a rough idea of where we wanted to go and when we wanted to get there, but no strict plans. We had no internet and my cell phone decided that it didn't want to have reception for most of the trip so we were in our own little techology-free bubble for 9 days. I came back super relaxed and ready to face the rest of the semester.

Some other highlights of the trip...

-going to bed early (soon after it was dark) & waking up early (soon after the sun came up) -- no alarm clocks!

-cooking our food every night









-Carlsbad Caverns were amazing!
Impressive formations throughout these huge caverns.
I highly recommend this destination



-White Sands National Monument - also very amazing...lots and lots of white sand dunes in the middle of the red New Mexico desert










-seeing wildlife...at one camp ground in one evening we saw 5 deer, a fox, bat, javalina (similar to a wild pig), raccoon, and a skunk (the skunk was not my favorite!)

-getting a break from everything and having a chance to enjoy the sights of the southwest

Week 10: Advertising & Public Relations

At a previous job with a non-profit organization, we frequently held events for the clients of our program. As a small program that was always in need of community donations, we recognized the need for media coverage of our events, so that our name could be more visible in the community. Unfortunately for a time, none of us actually knew how to write a press release or appropriately let the media know about our events. Several attempts were made to attract the media to our program, but without success. If only I'd heard the lecture by our most recent guest speaker during my time at that program! I'd know the appropriate steps to take to approach the media and would have had practice writing a press release.

Alas...I've since moved on from that organization and will have to settle for using that experience plus the new information I have about the difference between advertising, marketing, and public relations to inform any future work I do with organizations that would benefit from media exposure. Obviously these topics are complicated and do require some experience in order to be successful. It's not just a matter of writing a letter to a newspaper or television station and saying 'Our organization is great and we think you should feature a story about us!' How many times a day do they hear that? It's all about the emotion and the story told. You've got to really grab their attention and make them feel something. Otherwise, you're just another paper on the huge stack of minor stories that no one will hear about.

TED Talks Marketing

If you haven't discovered TED I highly recommend you check out the website - tons of inspiring and intriguing talks by fascinating and brilliant minds on nearly any subject imaginable. Here are two videos related to marketing from the TED website:

1. Touches on asking the right questions, focus groups, and segmentation...by Malcolm Gladwell



2. What gets people's attention & who to target...by Seth Godin

Week 9: Identity & Branding

This week in class we talked about identity & branding and in the class blog Amanda brought up an excellent point - that we are surrounded by brand names that have been successfully marketed to us, such that when we think of any item we immediately associate the brand name and often substitute the brand name for the item (i.e. Kleenex, Xerox, and more recently Google). Just as the term Xerox went from merely a brand to also a verb, so did Google. No one says 'search for something on the internet' anymore...everyone just 'googles' it! Way to go Google and Xerox and Kleenex, etc. for getting their products to the tops of our minds.

On a related note...click here for a link to an article about an alternative method of finding out what people really think of different brands.

On an unrelated note yet related to a topic covered earlier in the semester, this morning on NPR I heard a segment with the VP of Campaigns for PETA. He and the interviewer were discussing the different advertisement strategies PETA has used over the years and their discussion was clearly an example of how PETA has utilized the two pathways to persuasion in their marketing. According to the conversation, several years ago PETA was taking more of an 'information-based' approach to their marketing strategy (read: central pathway). Now they are relying more on celebrity endorsements and less information packed ads (read: peripheral pathway). Their reasoning for this is that by using celebs (such as Pamela Anderson) they are trying to capture the attention of the masses of people who are interested in celebrities, specifically mentioned were frat guys.
However one caller made me realize an interesting dilemma when trying to negotiate between these two pathways. The caller mentioned that she was a supporter of PETA but made her feel less inclined to support the organization when she saw Pam Anderson advocating for them. The caller felt that this particular celeb is not a respected enough or does not invoke a positive enough image of the organization for her liking; she added that Pamela as a rep of PETA actually does more harm than good, in her opinion. This brings me to the dilemma I realized....when an organization is creating marketing messages and deciding which processing pathway to utilize in order to reach their target audience (ideally decided through the use of formative research!) they run the risk of alienating or turning off other segments of their audience that may process the information in a different way. Exhibited by the female caller who was more apt to identify with the PETA ads that required high involvement in the message processing, and who was less responsive and reacted negatively to the ads that capitalized on low involvement processing. Makes these decisions made by the big-wigs (or health educators) seems like more of a balancing act...how much do you want to capture Audience A, and is it worth the potential risk of losing Audience B? This could be a very involved dilemma but I bet the best answer is...more formative research!!

Week 8: Right or Wrong...

This week we talked about 'wrong reasons' for health behaviors in class. And in the end it seems to me that nearly reason for initiating a positive health behavior should be applauded (assuming it doesn't do harm to anyone)...if in the end an individual or group is working to improve their health, even if they don't realize or acknowledge it, that's great! In order to be effective health promoters we need to be in touch with our audience and be open to capitalizing on their actual needs, wants and motivations, even if to those in the health world these fall into the category of the 'wrong reasons' for practicing a health behavior. And just because we are in this field doesn't mean that we can't be motivated by some of these reasons too...the other night I was debating with myself about whether to go to the gym and really having a hard time finding the motivation to do so.
Even though I am in the public health field and know all of the health benefits of regular exercise, in the end what actually got me to make it inside the gym was thinking about the cruise I'll be going on in a few months and how I will be wearing a bathing point at some point. Superficial I know, but that is where I was at that night. If I as an educated health promoter can't even get myself to exercise for the 'right' reasons, how can I expect to motivate anyone else to?

Segmentation in the Media

Random example of a commercial highlighting segmentation:

Week 7: Health Literacy

Talking about health literacy in this week's class made me remember some of the experiences I had as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. I worked with several women's groups there and ended up designing a health course for the women I worked with, so that they could learn more about health topics that they identified as important to them. One challenge to teaching this group of mostly middle-aged women was that the majority of them were not literate, in either of the languages spoken in Paraguay. There were definitely ways to work through this challenge...I had to be creative with how I chose to get the health information across to them without using written words...instead lots of visuals including posters, pictures, etc. Although this experience was not in a U.S. setting, reflecting on it made me remember that there are other ways to communicate health messages without relying on written messages. It may not be the cheapest and/or easiest way (in the educator's mind), but as the video we watched in class pointed out, health literacy is an issue in the U.S. and is an important issue that needs attention. While it needs our attention as health promoters, to have an ever more wide spread influence we also need to have buy in from the policy makers who create all the confusing forms and documentation that alienates those who cannot read them.

Week 6: Understanding Your Audience

Recently my fellow PH663 group members and I were diligently working on our project for this class, recruiting undergrads from the on-campus food court for our focus groups, when we found ourselves suddenly being recruited. We weren't being recruited to answer formative research questions - but instead to sign several petitions to get measures on the upcoming ballot. Unfortunately our interaction with the recruiter that approached us was less than positive for me, and despite the negative impression he left with me, I am deciding to turn this encounter into a learning experience of how NOT to approach an audience. Without using specifics, hopefully I can still get important points across.
Last week in class we talked about the so-called 'hard to reach' audience and some alternative ways to conceptualize this audience . Using these ways as a guide, we can see how NOT adhering to them can alienate an audience instead of creating a positive relationships with them.

1. Different not deficient -- It turns out myself and others in my group had different opinions on the measures on the signature recruiter's list. In my mind I though that shouldn't matter since he assured us that we weren't actually voting for or against any of them, just signing the petition to get them on the next ballot so then people could vote on them. When he discovered our different opinions, he became a bit rude, to put it nicely. Lesson learned: insulting and stereotyping people who have different opinions from you, instead of accepting those difference is not the best way to get people to listen to you.

2. Society vs. individual -- Here I do have to say that the signature recruiter was approaching us more as a group rather than individuals. Unfortunately his approach didn't have the positive spin that I understand to be intended with this method of reaching audiences. Instead of putting blame on us as individuals, he was putting the blame on the larger segments of society that we fit into...i.e. in his eyes we have the 'wrong' opinions that we have because we are women and intelligent. Lesson learned: it is important not to blame the individual for whatever situation they are in and to examine the societal influences leading to their situation. But it is equally important not to insult the society the individual is a part of. Such insults may not get you on the audience's good side.

3. Communication as dialogue -- Ideally communication with an audience should be reciprocal, both sender and receiver driven. Unfortunately in this situation, with us as the audience, there were no receiver driven messages being delivered. Instead of Lesson learned: in order to get your audience to buy into whatever it is you are 'selling' you have to make sure to hear their side of the situation and pay attention to what the audience is telling you. Otherwise, by delivering one-sided dialogue, you may alienate the audience and easily turn them against your 'product.' In this case, this incident made me not ever want to sign any more of those petitions again, for fear that I will be attacked and insulted without cause.

I realize that this entry has a bit of a negative vibe...this run in with the signature recruiter is obviously conjuring up strong feelings for me, even several days later. Hopefully by next time, I will have some positive examples of communication in action!

Week 5: Segmentation

The other day I was driving around doing errands, pondering what to write for this blog and I started thinking about how someone might 'segment' me based solely on external characteristics, at that moment. Obviously this wouldn't be a complete picture of me as a person and involves stereotyping but let's see what happens...
So I'm wearing a sweatshirt from a recent concert I attended...Garth Brooks who is one of the biggest country artists ever, for those who don't know. Based on the fact that I was at a Garth concert and he typically attracts a pretty conservative crowd I might be segmented into a politically conservative group.
But now that completely contradicts the Obama '08 bumper sticker on my car -- he's not quite a conservative candidate.
And what am I listening to on the radio? hmmm...a radio station in Spanish. What group does that put me in?...Do I get classified as Hispanic/Latina? And isn't Hillary supposed to be attracting the Latino vote? But wait - I'm not Hispanic or Latina.
So then I head home to my residence in zip code 92037 aka 'La Jolla' (read with slightly snobby attitude). Adhering to the stereotypes of La Jolla residents, I should be in the 'affluent' group. Unfortunately for me this mountain of student loans that I have reminds me that I am living in quite the opposite condition.

So are any of these 'segments' I fall into correct? Am I just a walking contradiction? I'd like to think that no...I'm just me and sometimes such segmentation is not all encompassing. Many people must also contradict the groups that that are put into. This makes the moral of the story: segmentation is complex, just like other elements of health communication. And we as health communicators sure do have our work cut out for us!

Week 4: Formative Research Continues...

I received an email today with a 'daily quote':

One faces the future with one's past. — Pearl S. Buck

For some reason (maybe because I had this blog on my mind) I immediately saw a connection between those words of wisdom and the topic of formative research we've been discussing in class. We've been talking about how important it is to find out as much as you can about your potential audience, when working on a campaign. To me, Pearl Buck's quote brought home this importance of this audience research even more. Even if we gather a group of fairly 'similar' consumers together, each one will be 'facing the future' or approaching your product based on their individual past experiences, their previous knowledge, etc. That makes it even more important to find out as much as possible about the individuals, so as to play off their past as effectively as possible. But how does one do that and still strike a balance between the amount of time it takes to do formative research, the money & resources available, and striving for the best, most effective campaign possible? I guess that is where experience and practice come in. Over time and through trial and error, I assume that it becomes a bit easier to find balance while producing a sufficient product. Hopefully someday I'll get to that point!

Week 3: Formative Research

I've heard in other classes how important formative research is to designing any campaign, whether is is a health campaign or a commercial campaign. There are always consumers involved and as we learned this week, your message won't be as effective if it is not targeted towards the consumer's interests, beliefs, attitudes, etc.
However this process is obviously a lot of work. I remember participating in quite a bit of 'consumer research' when I was younger. My mom had signed my sister and I up with some group and we got many calls to participate in focus groups, screenings, surveys, etc. At the time I was too young to realize that it was all part of formative research and that I my interests and tastes were being analyzed. But as a child, I enjoyed it because we always were compensated...food, money, etc.

Several years ago, as an adult I signed myself up to be analyzed through a marketing group that was constantly coordinating different focus groups. Granted I was motivated by thei monetary incentives offered. Unfortunately I never qualified for any of the studies. This company definitely seemed to be recruiting specific audiences...ones who drank a specific beverage, or shopped at specific stores, or had kids of specific ages. Good for their clients, but bad for my wallet!

Week 2 - Processing info the easy way

This week we talked about the central vs. peripheral path of persuasion and the idea that the consumer should be at the center of the design of a health campaign. I've been trying to pay more attention to the health messages around me this week to see who is at the center of those messages and which pathway was utilized. It seems that most of what I've encountered have been focused on the peripheral pathway. Unfortunately since I wasn't processing those messages systematically (through the central pathway), I can't remember many of them now. Guess those campaigns weren't too effective with me! However there are a couple of ads that did stick with me--even though I wish these ones hadn't. One commercial I heard several times on the radio was for a company called 'Doctors Say Yes.' Here is the gist of the ad: Several young sounding women talk about how they were able to get easy financing in order to pay for their cosmetic surgeries...one even had money left over to go shopping! The main female voice of the commercial claims they offer 'guaranteed financing...No one is turned down!' On a personal level, I think this is a horrible commercial that is sending a message I do not agree with--promoting going into debt to pay for plastic surgery. Please, someone else say they've heard this one...Hopefully I'm not the only one out there with this opinion. As an analytical health communication student, this commercial does get their message across, via the peripheral route. It certainly caught my attention, although not with the company's intended outcome. I am assuming that their target audience is young females who want to be independent, want to change some physical aspect of their body, and are not yet making the big bucks to pay for such surgeries on their own. If I was part of that demographic, maybe their claims would appeal to me...who wouldn't want more money to go shopping? The main purpose of the ad is definitely to grab listeners' attention and alert them to the fact that YOU CAN afford plastic surgery. No financing details or any specifics are mentioned during the commercial. But they do provide their website so interested parties can find out more. This commercial utilizes the peripheral path, with the use of cognitive shortcuts -- there are definitely no rational arguments or information that needs to be processed systematically here.

Another commercial that stuck with me, although not entirely health related, is that unforgettable 'Head On' commercial. To me, the commercial epitomizes the use of the heuristic/peripheral path.
All that is stated throughout the commercial is the name of the product and that it is available without a prescription. No mention of what it is for, possible side effects, etc. My guess is that the producer's strategy is to evoke curiosity through repetition and lack of information. Even newer versions of the commercial poke fun at how 'annoying' the ad it is, but still no additional information about the product is given...Ordinary people who don't like the commercial simply claim that the product is great.
Again this ad doesn't call for any work from the consumer to process the information provided, and it definitely assumes low motivation/involvement from the audience.
Hopefully these won't be the only type of ads I'll remember throughout the semester. I'll now be on a mission to find some less-annoying ads that require a higher level of processing!

Week 1 - Paying Attention to Communication

Our first assignment for this class turned out to be pretty interesting. We had to note the communication messages we encountered during a 24 hour period. I thought that since I ended up picking a day that didn't include much interaction with other people--I was being very studious that day!--I wouldn't have much to report on. But I still found about 50 instances of communication during those 24 hours - most of which was unsolicited. This activity made me realize that we are constantly bombarded with instances of communication, even when we don't think we are. Those unsolicited radio and tv commercials are especially prominent. Just in one short tv commercial break I counted 8 commercials! I knew there were always a ridiculous number of commercials during those breaks, and usually I just tune them out. Once I was forced to pay attention, I was shocked by how many messages I was subject to in one day. Even when 'tuning out' those messages, we're still exposed to the various products and scripts that are carefully constructed by advertisers. Whether or not we actively pay attention, some of their messages are still getting through.

This is all important to keep in mind as a future producer of health messages. What will work to grab people and have them actually pay attention to my important messages? How will consumers be able to separate out healthy, prevention messages from all the advertisements for the latest and greatest gadgets, unhealthy yet convenient eating establishments, political jargon, etc.? We health promoters sure do have our work cut out for us!

Success!

It seems as though I've successfully ventured into the world of blogging! This class requirement of keeping an online journal throughout the semester will no doubt be interesting, and I'm planning to add some fun in there too. I'm looking forward to learning more about blogging--it's a great way to communicate with people near and far--and I can feel like I'm just a tiny bit more internet savvy. And health communication seems like it will be an interesting subject. I hope to learn some new skills and improve on the rudimentary health communication 'skills' that I practiced through the Peace Corps. I have a feeling this class will involve more than just markers and butcher paper!

Let the adventure begin!