Social Norms Marketing comes to Jasper

To curb ongoing issues relating to young adults in Jasper such as downtown mischief and vandalism, the Jasper Community Team (JCT) is creating a social norms marketing campaign that aims to restate the reality of life in Jasper by adjusting some misperceptions to create a healthier, safer community.

Social norms marketing is a relatively new field of social marketing that aims to adjust people’s perceptions and attitudes on particular topics by marketing the reality of the issue and thus realigning their perceptions with reality.

Andrea Watson, a director of the Jasper Community Team responsible for supervising the project, said that social norms marketing is “based on the central concept of social norms theory, which means that much of people’s behaviours are influenced by their perceptions of what they deem to be normal. Often it can be problematic because misperceptions can lead to behaviours or attitudes which they consider to be normal, that may not be.”

She gives the example of smoking amongst youth in schools, “you want to find out how many kids are smoking and what [they] think the percentage of their peers are smoking. You do the surveys and collect your data and it shows that 25 per cent of youth are smoking. Then, say 65 per cent thinks that their peers smoke, when the reality is that only 25 per cent are smoking. That’s a 40 per cent gap between the perception versus the reality.”

A social norms marketing campaign then tries to change perceptions by using strategic marketing tactics that aim to “realign perceptions with reality,” said Watson.

Clearly excited by the innovative concept, which has been in marketing circles since about 2001, Watson said that the topic of a social marketing campaign came about when the JCT tried to find new ways to address community troubles such as Patricia Street vandalism.

The success of similar campaigns in Banff and Canmore, which targeted alcohol, binge drinking and date rape has spurred on her drive to see a similar campaign here in Jasper.

“It’s been talked about at the team level and it was one of the things that was raised in terms of how do we address the Patricia Street violence problem and a social marketing campaign addresses [these concerns]. So we’re going to look at that piece but some other pieces with young adults as well so that is kind of where it stems from,” said Watson.

To ensure the success of the campaign, the JCT is currently hiring a new social norms marketing coordinator who will be responsible for researching, analysing results, implementing and evaluating the campaign. 

The position is being funded partly by HIV West Yellowhead, which is donating the office space and supplies needed to carry out the role, and a range of other organizations to which Watson has applied for funding, some of which she’s still waiting on for an answer.

While the coordinator will be part of the collaborative project that involves a range of organizations and agencies that work directly with the JCT and the campaigns target audience, which is young adults in Jasper, the five main contributors that will work closely on the campaign are Watson, Bob Covey, from the JCT, Ryan Verge, Young Adult Outreach Worker with Community Outreach Services the Employment Centre Manager.

Although the campaign will not have a huge budget like a similar one in Banff and Canmore which had $75,000 to play with, Watson said she believes it is possible to have the same successes and attitude change without the financial strain. 

“The reason why I think we can do it [on a smaller budget] is because we have so many community partners, JCT as a whole is a team project so involving those organizations and agencies that are working with young adults, [such as] community outreach services, the employment centre, the human resource managers at some of the hotels, the bar and pub managers and staff,” she said. 

According to Watson, the key to a successful campaign will be to continously work with all aspects of the community, including the aforementioned human resources managers, pub and restaurant managers as well as local media. 

“It has to be a very collaborative environment for this kind of research to work and to have the [desired] effect. Myself, Bob, Ryan [and] the employment centre are going to be working really hard to help out the research coordinator, so the amount of time that’s going to be put in on our behalves would probably reflect what $75,000 would look like.”

The target audience will also be directly involved in all aspects of the campaign, said Watson. “One of the cool things about this project is that they are going to be part of creating and disseminating the surveys, creating the actual campaign, the posters and radio advertisements.”

The aim of the JCT is to have its new employee begin researching the campaign on April 1 with the hope of collecting between 300 and 400 surveys from young Jasperites with all the data collected and analyzed by the end of June in time for the campaign to commence in the first week of July.

Although the campaign will run for just two months, Watson is hopeful that this will be an on-going project over the next few years for the JCT, funding permitting, because it is “really important to the community.” Normally, an attitude change is visible in about three years. 

“[With] true social norms marketing you need to have a three-year [campagin], it’s a really long process, but because of funding we’re making it a short process with hopes of continuing it on after by seeking some additional funds,” said Watson.