Thoughts from FIRESTORM 2007

I sit here thinking about the past week of craziness in San Diego, as firefighters continue to work tirelessly against the raging flames. I've never been more proud to be a San Diegan. The First Responders that came to the aid of our community are incredible. Sure, this week was filled with a lot of uncertainty for my family, but we are all safe and our homes are fine. That is something to be thankful for.Even the families who lost their homes say that they are thankful. They are thankful for their safety, for the prayers of others, for the assistance that the citizens of San Diego have given them. They lost their homes-- and much more-- but they still are still thankful. That's incredible.

It's during tragedies like this that I remember what's really important to me. On Tuesday, after I learned that I wasn't supposed to go into work or school, the first thing I thought was "Great. Let me go be with my family." So, my husband and I drove to North County-- left the less smokey air of downtown and went to possibly the most dense, ashy air that I saw all week...Just so I could be with my family. Were they threatened? Not really. Was I threatened? No...but it didn't matter. I still wanted to be with them during that time of worry and confusion.

I feel lucky to be so close to my family that I could just take a 45 minute drive to be with them. A lot of people aren't that lucky. But, during this Firestorm, the evacuees at Qualcomm, the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and numerous other evacuation centers, were so well taken care of that for some, it was as if the volunteers were their own family members.

In closing, I just want to say THANK YOU, one more time to the firefighters and first responders who sacrificed their lives for the people of San Diego. And, especially to all of those who were injured. You are true heroes.

The Big Deal: Message Formation

Message formation, according to our professor, is the fun part of the campaign. Fun or not...it's development will make or break your campaign. Today we discussed some tactics that campaign developers use to get the audience to pay attention to their messages. Which ones work for you?

FEAR: This tactic is used to scare people into changing their behavior and it usually works. Some famous campaigns using fear are the "This is your brain on drugs" campaign, the anti-smoking commercials featuring patients with throat cancer, emphysema, smoking through their tracheotomy, etc.

TESTIMONIALS: This tactic works for a lot of people because we are more willing to listen to a personal story then simple facts. Also, we usually let ourselves buy into something more, if we see that it has worked for other people, especially people that we can relate to. Think about all those weight loss commercials--Jenny Craig, Special K, Nutri System. They all use testimonials to grab our attention.

COMEDY: Comedy is another useful tactic. This tactic also works well to get a lot of people's attention. Think about the TRUTH campaign for anti-smoking behavior. Their tactic is sarcastic comedy, exposing how flagrant the tobacco companies lies were about the dangers of smoking. Another example comes from the new Kaiser Permanente commercials with the little boy who is recalling his "younger years" of making bad food and exercise choices. How can you ignore that message?!

There are tons of others tactics used to deliver a message...but these are, in my opinion, some of the most effective ways of getting people's attention who may otherwise ignore what you are trying to tell them to change about their behavior. High involvement individuals (those who already have a vested interest in changing their behavior) may not need fear, or comedy, or testimonials to grab their attention. But the low involvment individuals need cues or other means of getting their attention (aka "added value"), so the previosly explained tactics is an effective way of doing that.

Take a look at one of my favorite commercials in the blog directly below this one. Does it inspire you to take a preventive approach to life by eating well and exercising? For me, it does, but it's possible that this message works for me because I am highly involved in this topic to begin with.

THRIVE

Take a look at one of my favorite Kaiser Permanente commercials. I love these commercials because they are visually appealing but more importantly, they share a great message! You are always hearing about how medical professionals don't care about preventive health...well, I think Kaiser is trying to dispute that reputation here.

Happy Health Literacy Month!

I would like to start off Health Literacy Month by saying Thank You to everyone who has commented on my blog. Dr. Engleberg will be happy, too.

Now on to the issue: What is health literacy and why is it important? Let me start with a scenario. Have you ever had a doctor's visit where a doctor or nurse explained something to you and then they asked you if you understood everything. You told them you did...but then you ran home and jumped on the internet or called a friend to ask them to explain what the doctor told you? I sure have. This scenario happens numerous times a day. It could range from small things like what time to take medication to accidentally signing up for a hysterectomy.

Health literacy by definition is the degree to which individual's have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. It has been reported that 50% of the U.S. population does not have the literacy level to fully function in the current economy, let alone understand medical terminology that impacts their life. This is a huge issue!

In my opinion, there are two ways to combat this problem.
1. Medical professionals (and everyone relaying health information) needs to modify their language so that it is understandable to the majority of the population. The difference between telling someone their tumor is "not cancer" versus "benign" is a huge step in the right direction.

2. Health professionals need to make patients feel comfortable enough that they wouldn't feel inadequate or "dumb" if they ask a question or explain that they don't understand the inofrmation given to them.

There is a large movement in the U.S. that wants to combat this issue with "PLAN LANGUAGE." This means clear, concise, necessary health information that can be understood by the general population. You can find more information about the Plain Language movement at this website: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/populartopics/health_literacy/index.cfm


Just to recap the last few weeks of class...

I think the main take away message was the importance of knowing your target audience and being able to accurately segment them. This concept is possibly the most important idea for a health campaign because if you can't connect with who you are aiming your messages at, it doesn't really matter what you are saying.

Labels, Labels, Labels

This week we we introduced to a couple new audience segmentation tools. The first one is the Claritas Prizm system. This is used for determining geographics of a target population, but it's also fun to use to see who lives in your area. To find out what kinds of people live near you, click on the link, type in your zipcode, and see what comes up! http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20

According to this website, my zipcode in Mission Valley is filled with a bunch of young adults right out of college with careers and no children....yeah, I'll agree to that.

Another segmentation tool is the VALS system. http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/

This system puts people into different categories based on their answer to a short survey. Go ahead and take it. See what your label is. I was an Achiever/Innovator. I wasn't shocked by this label. The description of the Achiever said that this person puts family, religion, and career first. Yep, that's me.

These tools are good to use to assist in the segmentation of your target audience....in addition to being fun to just play with. As Dr. Engleberg said, for some reason Americans like to be labeled. I think this is a true statement but I'm not sure why this is. People are always trying to be "unique" while being "just like everyone else". Maybe that's why we like labels. We want to be part of a group identity, yet these labels also give us ideas about how to break from the mold. Regardless, I am an Achiever/Innovator...for today at least.

Lastly, I'm gonna give a little information about my group project. We are working with the organization, Shakti Rising. http://www.shaktirising.org/ From what I know so far, I think they are a fantastic organization that is full of women with servant's hearts who really want to make a difference in their lives, while helping others heal. Our task is to help them with their goal of finding dedicated volunteers to teach, help heal, and lead women to recovery from various traumatic experiences. Finding dedicated volunteers for this project will be quite a challenge, but I think my group and I are definately up to the challenge!