Updates to my proposal

So though I got off to a start, I did have some aspects to still think about, so here is some more brainstorming.

Business Objective:
Fundamental Entity: Gardasil, the hpv vaccine, and some brand to be determined just for a campaign targeted to boys (or parents, I need to decide)
Core Competence: Having the only hpv vaccine available in the US, branding
Goal & Time Frame: To have comparable vaccination rates in boys (once it becomes available) as seen in girls, so say for a 5 year period to have 80% of what it was for women. I am choosing vaccination rates instead of rates of hpv incidence because there is no test for hpv detection in men, other than for warts, so it would not be possible to know if boys were carriers of the other two types of hpv that cause cervical cancer that the vaccine protects against

Strategic Quadrant:
Category Definition: Health, vaccination
Customer Definition: Here I'm not totally sure. It will be boys aged 9-26, but I wonder if their parents are the customers until they reach 18?
Marketing Objective: Have comparable rates (80%) of vaccination uptake in boys as was shown in girls of Gardasil (How is the marketing objective different than my goal?)
Source of volume: United States public, boys aged 9-26, their parents if that is who moderates vaccinations, doctors?
4Bs:
Bodies: boys aged 9-26 directly, indirectly parents & doctors
Beliefs: Understanding the benefits of vaccination, knowing what the vaccine protects against (future cervical cancer, 90% of the type that cause genital warts), attitude change to want the vaccination
Behaviors: getting vaccinated, and measuring for both initial shot & how whether or not they get all three (if it's possible to compare this to girls, if not then just initial shot)
Benefits: Lower overall instances of genital warts and cervical cancer, which will not be measured throughout the campaign, but will become evident in years to come from CDC/national data

Creating Demand

I think it can be done.

Last week I was doing an event for Sexperteam, a peer education group I am apart of that operates under the guidance of UHS. (Check out the twitter & Facebook Fan Page).

I am a peer educator and was at the Union doing a barrier methods demonstration for mostly freshmen and sophomore students.

At the end we always get questions, and one young man came up to me and asked about how hpv is spread, if there is a test, etc. I think the most common questions we get are about the things that people don't recognize (female condoms and dental dams) and want demonstrations of, and then hpv.

And I think that men do care, it's just hard to ask, or know where to ask. I'm glad they do ask.

In any case, I showed another sex-educator the new cervical cancer ads that aren't "one less" and she was also appalled, because these are the type of ads that scare people into inaction.

I want to create something different.

I doubt this.

I think I hate the competing campaign.

Now that I've watched the same two thirty-second clips over and over at every commercial break for two shows online, this:

Seems like a fear tactic to encourage inactivity. Scary isn't great. And there website is far less appealing visually, while not having nearly as much information. Boo. Did they mean to do good?

Competition?

So, as soon as choosing Gardasil, I go home to cook while watching tv online and bam:

A campaign I didn't know about! By another big pharma company, not Merck, but GlaxoSmithKline.

They have their own campaign, with three new ads geared towards teen/young women.

Their own website: http://www.helppreventcervicalcancer.com

It goes over vaccination, pap tests, & lifestyle changes.

The ad above is creative, but the other two are pretty bleak and depressive, not the same empowerment campaign as Gardasil, but scary might work for a one-time action, but not for prolonged action.

To learn about vaccination the site redirects to the CDC, so it doesn't seem like they have their own vaccine. I wonder what their motivation is. To inform, really social marketing since where is the profit? To stay competitive since cervical cancer is a big issue thanks to the "one less" campaign. To confuse people away from "one less" with a different cervical cancer campaign?

It's not like I should actually be upset, since I do not work for Gardasil despite my newfound loyalty, but it is something else to keep an eye on and review.

My Proposal

So I decided to go ahead with the idea of creating a marketing plan for Gardasil targeting boys/young men.

I met with the lone member of my "peer team," which was very helpful, and we brainstormed the first step.

Notes from the brainstorm:

-find out merke

-core competency of being the only competitor in the US, research the other global vaccine

-research what the age range for men will be (same as women, 9-26?)

-only advantageous directly for warts in men, so market for greater good since they make sure not to say warts in the female campaign

-deconstruct female campaign & who it targets & how

-relate to men & if it will target their parents or them, and what angle to take: protecting children? protecting our future?

-the brand was "one less," create a new brand for men, or expand on the woman's campaign?

There is certainly a lot to think about now, assuming that it gets approved. It is in the gray I think, because getting boys/men vaccinated would certainly be for the public good from a public health perspective, by decreasing the incidence of hpv. Specifically, it would still contribute to a lower incidence of cervical cancer, which might be an angle I could use to target the parents of young boys, and wanting to protect the future of all children, but also it is a good harm reduction technique in terms of contracting other STIs. Having other STIs puts persons at higher risk of getting HIV, so reducing incidence of hpv would be beneficial in many ways.

Organizational Objective:

First I have to decide if I am going to be marketing for Gardasil and thus Merck & Co., Inc. or if I want to be a health department. Gardasil already does the "one less" campaign, which is already branded and known, so it might be better to stick with it. It might make for some brand confusion though, since "one less" really refers to one less woman with cervical cancer, and I wonder if that should still be the slogan for men.

If I am Merck, I have R&D, and money, and incentive to get people vaccinated for profits, but luckily it is also a public good. I need to do more research about Merck to establish what their fundamental entity is, though for Gardasil it is being the only hpv vaccine available in the US, and is already branded under "one less."

Core Competence: being the only provider of the hpv vaccine in the US, so skill at resource distribution, awareness building with "one less"

Strategic Asset: the hpv vaccine, patent

Benefit: reduction in incidence of cervical cancer, genital warts, more generally 4 strains of hpv

I have to decide if the campaign will be promotion or prevention focused, but it is the promotion of a vaccine that is a part of prevention. I think promotion. It is a call to action to get vaccinated, specifically for boys/young men to get the hpv vaccine.

Goal: behavior change, get vaccinated, but also awareness of when it becomes available to men & what it does so that it is a call to action

Time frame: more short than long, so there can be measurable goals, like in the 1st 5 years of availability to men to have at least some comparable portion of new vaccinations with the female vaccine for comparison, but I still need more clearly defined measures of success.

Social Marketing 4Bs:

Bodies: boys ages 9-26 (?), their parents/doctors?

Beliefs: for them to know it is available to men, attitude change to want to be vaccinated

Behaviors: getting vaccinated (at least the initial of three shots)

Benefits: Lower incidence of hpv (genital warts & cervical cancer), but this will have to me measured much later in life, so the measurable might just be # of new persons vaccinated

And that's where I'm at.

HPV Vaccine for Men?

As far as converting campaigns that are traditionally for women to have a male component, I could only think of one example:

Here Jack Black takes about the importance of mammograms, as part of a much larger breast cancer awareness campaign, that usually is more women for women focused.

If I were to choose to promote Gardasil for men, I could at least think about this ad. I think the information that I would want to focus on is:

• There is currently no test for hpv in men, and it is not regularly screened for as a component of STI testing
• Gardasil protects against two types of hpv that cause a majority of genital warts, and two types that cause a majority of cervical cancer
• It would still help protect men from genital warts, and though the type of hpv that causes cervical cancer in women goes symptomless in men, it will help protect their partners

one less: campaigns I love

Another health related social marketing campaign that I love is "one less" to promote the hpv vaccine for women.

I like that it takes an angle of female empowerment. Though the vaccine was initially controversial ("Will it make my child more sexually active?" (NO)), I think the campaign has a great message asking women to stick up for themselves, and if they are minors, mothers, young women, to talk to each other and a doctor about the vaccine.

The line blurs for me if this is definitely social marketing or not, since profits do go to Gardasil, the vaccine, but ultimately it is a vaccine, and one that is trickier than most one-time health behavior actions because it has to be taken three times, with different month lengths in between.

I love that I see stickers for hpv.com with facts in the bathrooms of the 8 ball, I love how wide spread the campaign is, and I love hpv.com because it really does provide a wealth of information.

The FDA fairly recently approved the vaccine for men, but it is not yet available at UHS, and I'm uncertain whether it's available for men at all yet. Another possible option is creating a campaign for future male use, as far as things I may focus on.

truth: campaigns I love

As far as large scale social marketing campaigns are concerned, especially in the field of health where most of my interested tend to lay, there are some campaigns that I love right now and have loved for some time.

truth

After the Master Settlement Agreement in 1998, where the four biggest US tobacco companies were forced to shell out $300 million/year for five years to the Public Education Fund, the American Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking advocacy group was established, thus creating truth.

2007 ad

2006 ad

2008 ad

Most recent 2009 Ads

Reasons why I adore this campaign:

• It worked, there is data, it worked.
• It's tongue in cheek.
• It appeals to a teen sense of rebellion against "the man" with "the man" being Big Tobacco full of deception and big big lies, only out for a profit. (As opposed to being rebellious by smoking.)
• The campaign segmented the population really targeting 12-17, to prevent new uptake of smoking and create negative attitudes towards big tobacco.
• Within this group they targeted to those that were open to smoking as opposed to smoking, and thus appealed to sensation seeking youth, who get bored easily as see rebelling against authority as cool (where they positioned as Big Tobacco as the authority figure as opposed to parents & teachers telling them to not smoke, as Big Tobacco did in there own anti-smoking campaigns for elementary age children that actually increased tobacco uptake and created more positive attitudes towards big tobacco).
• This campaign lets teens own their own decision, from a teen voice.
• Finally a health campaign used BRANDING, to make itself memorable and effective.
• Again, it worked!

A sad truth:

Once those five years passed, there was a lot less funding for the truth campaign, and even though it still exists, it's not nearly as prominent as it used to be.

Check out the website too. It's snarky and interactive, and full of information.

List of Possibilities

Throughout class I brainstormed what non-profits, organizations, or behaviors I might want to elicit through a social marketing campaign.

Current thoughts:
-Farmer's Market Promotion (specifically Ann Arbor, but also maybe the Detroit Eastern Market)
-DECC, Detroit Eastside Community Collaborative
-Jewish Family Services
-Ann Arbor Film Festival
-Michigan Theatre
-Washington DC's new promotion/giveaway of female condoms (notes: how is it being evaluated, and where are they being handed out? What are the short & long term goals? Will success be measured through perception of female condoms? Knowledge of how to use them? Changes in HIV infection rate? People taking them to begin with?)
-Thousand Kites
-Campaign for Justice
-PCAP, Prisoner Creative Arts Project (whose show is next weekend, so then what would I promote?)
-Planned Parenthood
-Yojoa International Medical Center, YIMC
-Seventh Generation Products (don't think it's actually a non-profit, not sure)
-Alternatives for Girls (in Detroit)

So that's a start, and things to think about. Also, UHS, which does not count as a non-profit, but could be helped in terms of health promotions/campaigns

Day 1 of Social Marketing: Create the Blog

So it turns out that underscores can't be used in the site address, but can be used in the title. Lesson learned.