Social marketing is the design, implementation and evaluation of programs seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause or practice among a target group.

Center For Advanced Studies in Social Marketing and Nutrition provides further information about social marketing principles and how the can be applied to nutrition.

The Ad Council provides examples of how social marketing concepts have been applied to various campaigns.

Social marketing research uses many different methods to aid in decision making. These methods include consumer marketing databases, surveys, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and fieldwork. These methods can be used alone or in combination with each other.

What is Survey Research? Survey research is a way to gather information about your customer. In this case, your customers are your fellow classmates. To effectively promote an increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables at your school you first need to survey the student population. For example, you may want to find out how often students are currently eating fruits and vegetables, the barriers they might have to eating fruits and vegetables, and their general perception of fruits and vegetables.

What are the Steps to Conduct a Survey?

1. Conceptualization of the research question

"What do I want to know?" Think about what you want to learn about your classmates.

2.  What will I use to conduct my survey?

Click here to access fruit and vegetable questionnaire on this website. If you decide to create your own questionnaire, keep in mind a few pointers:

1. Ask questions that have closed-end responses, yes-no or multiple choice;
2. Keep the questionnaire short and easy to read;
3. Ask questions in a neutral way that doesn’t suggest a response

 3. How will I administer my questionnaire?

Questionnaires can be administered in-person, by telephone, or through the mail. In-person questionnaires can be self-administered where the individual completes the questionnaire him/herself, or the researcher can read off each question to the individual and record his/her answers. In a school setting, it is often most efficient to have questionnaires be self-administered, but be sure that at least one researcher is present to collect the completed questionnaires. The most effective times to administer the questionnaire may be during homeroom or at lunch.

 4.  Who will be surveyed?

If it is too difficult to ask everyone to complete your survey questionnaire, select a sample from your school’s population. In order for this sample to provide accurate information, the sample must be representative of the entire population. For example, if you were to conduct a survey on the average number of fruits and vegetables eaten daily by your peers, but you asked only students enrolled in a nutrition class, your sample could be biased and therefore not representative of all of the students at your school.

Here are some possible ways to administer your questionnaire:

• Give out questionnaires to every student in school that day. This can be done as students enter the school building, in homeroom period, or as students enter the cafeteria.
• Give out questionnaires to every student belonging to a specific group. For example, questionnaires could be given to every 9^th grader. Make sure that the group membership does not bias the sample in some known way. For example, if you were to give a fruits and vegetable questionnaire to every person belonging to the tennis team, this would bias your sample because tennis players probably eat more fruits and vegetables than the high school population as a whole.
• Give out questionnaires to every 3^rd or 4^th student. This is best done when students are in a classroom or lunchroom to reduce the chance they will give the questionnaire to someone else.

 5.  How do I analyze the completed questionnaires?

If you use the Leading the Way to 5 A Day survey, researchers at PICS can tabulate the results automatically. If you create your own survey and students answer on scantron sheets, the questionnaires can also be tabulated in an automated way. Otherwise, you will need to hand-tabulate the responses by collecting all of the completed questionnaires and counting the numbers of each response choice for each question. After hand-tabulating, you will need to compute the percentages for each response.

 6. Reporting the findings

Report Format:

Introduction: Short description of the survey project and the research questions.

Methodology: Include a description of the questionnaire and a description of your sample and how your sample was selected.

Findings: Summary of the findings based on analysis of your completed questionnaires.

Recommendations: A campaign plan for how these findings will be used.

What is a Focus Group?

Focus groups are small group discussions around a topic of interest led by a facilitator. Focus groups consist of 5 to 12 participants, a facilitator to run the focus group session, and a note-taker if automated recording methods are not available. Focus groups are a good way to learn about how your fellow students will receive your campaign materials. Focus groups are most effective when used to find the answers to "how" and "why" questions.

What are the Steps to Conducting a Focus Group Project?

1. Conceptualization of the research question

"What do I want to find out?" Think about what you want to learn from these focus group sessions and develop 5 or 6 questions that you will ask the participants. Try to ask open-ended questions that can not be answered with a yes or no response.

 2.  Who should be asked to participate?

• Participants should be chosen based on a shared set of characteristics that are of interest to the researcher.

For example, suppose you are interested in finding out how much money is spent on school lunch food by high school students in the United States. This knowledge could be gained from talking with high school cafeteria workers, high school administrators, parents of high school students, and high school students.

However, you may be interested not only in how much money is spent, but whether price of food items affects the choices made. Therefore, it is probably best to talk to the high school students. But, remember that not all high school students spend money on school lunch food. Students may always bring their own lunch or students may eat lunch off of school grounds. Therefore, you would want to talk to only those students who purchase school lunch food items or you may want to hold a session for the subgroup of students who don’t buy school lunch food items to find out why.

However, you will not be able to include every single high school student in your focus group. Instead, you may want to focus on a sample of the students at your school. Because you will only be including a small number of students in your focus group to gauge the opinion of the larger group to which they belong (students who bring their own lunch), it is important to include students from each subgroup that may be relevant. Subgroups that may be relevant for this example include gender and class year. Therefore, you could have a maximum of 16 focus group sessions, 2 for each of the 8 subgroups.

If you think that gender and class year don’t influence food item purchases, but wanted to make sure to have a representative group of participants, you could have a minimum of 2 focus group sessions. These 2 sessions wouldn’t be divided by subgroups, but would include both males and females in each of the 4 class years.

For this scenario, if you planned to conduct 2 focus groups sessions of 8 students in each session, you would want to include 4 males and 4 females in each session with 2 students from each class year. Every 4^th or 5^th name could be selected from class lists and invited to participate. Try to provide a meal or snack donated by a local business to thank classmates for their time.

 3.  Logistics of the project

• How many focus group sessions will be conducted?

• Where and When will these sessions take place?

• How long will sessions last? (usually 1 to 1.5 hours long)

• Who will facilitate the sessions?

• How will sessions be recorded? (ideally videotape or audiotape; if these are not available, have a note-taker present)

• Will incentives be provided for participants? (typical incentives include cash, gift certificates, raffle chances, free gifts, food)

 4.  Development of a facilitator’s guide

• Focus group questions can be categorized into five types (Krueger 1994):

1. Opening question - The opening question refers to the introductions or the "ice-breaker." This question is designed to quickly introduce all of the participants to each other and mark the beginning of the session.
2. Introductory questions- Introductory questions are intended to introduce the focus group topic to the group and begin the discussion.
3. Transition questions- Transition questions are used to redirect the session and also to provide a larger perspective for the issue.
4. Key questions- Key questions are the major questions that you want to find out about. While 5 or 6 questions should have been developed, the group may only end up discussing 2 or 3 during the session.
5. Ending questions- Ending questions are the final questions that bring the session to a close and allow participants to ask any final questions or bring up any points that did not come up during the session.

• Tips for Question Development

  -Devise questions to stimulate lively group interaction rather than monotonous responses.

  -Avoid yes-no questions.

  -Move from simple to more complex questions.

  -Move from neutral questions to more sensitive questions.

  -Move from less-controversial to more controversial questions.

  -Pre-test your protocol.

  -Refine your protocol after each session.

  

• SAMPLE FACILITATOR’S GUIDE

I.  Introduction of Facilitator

I would like to thank everyone for coming today to this focus group session. I am (NAME OF FACILITATOR), a student here at (NAME OF HIGH SCHOOL), and I will be the moderator for this session. (NAME OF NOTE-TAKER) will be taking notes of the discussion.

You have each been selected for this focus group session because you are a student here at (NAME OF HIGH SCHOOL). For our project, we are studying how to best promote the 5 A Day campaign, to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables to 5 servings a day. The information gathered in these sessions will be used for our campaign. Our goal for this session is to get everyone’s opinion about some of the campaign ideas that we have created so far.

In this type of group setting, it is important for everyone to get involved and express their opinions openly. We are interested in hearing your honest reactions and opinions to the materials we will be presenting. There may be differences of opinion, but there are no right or wrong answers. We will be taking notes on the session; however, no names will be used in connection with the responses. All of your responses will remain confidential.

II.  Opening Question

Okay, why don't we start by going around and introducing ourselves to the group.  You may also want to include any experience you have had with focus groups or consumer research panels and any intial thoughts about a fruits and vegetables campaign.

III.  Introductory Questions

(Bring out the proposed 5 A Day posters, sample fruits and vegetables, or other campaign materials)

1. What are your initial reactions to [present campaign materials]?
2. Do you think it would lead students to eat more fruits and vegetables?

IV.  Key Questions

1. What campaign forms do you think are most effective in stressing the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables?
2. What elements do you think are most effective towards changing the way students eat?

V.  Transition Questions

1. Do you think this campaign would equally impact both male and female students?
2. Do you think this campaign would have the same effect at a different high school?

VI.  Ending Questions

1. It sounds like everyone agrees that Poster C would be most effective at leading students to eat more fruits and vegetables. Does anyone have any final comments or thoughts?
2. Does anyone have any final suggestions for the location of the poster?

VII.  Closing the Session

Well, we are just about out of time. I thank you all for coming and for your participation. You may pick up your gift certificate in appreciation for your participation at the door. Also, we will be providing copies of the written summary of the session and mailing them out to you all next week. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Thank you again. Goodbye.

 5.  Conducting the focus group sessions

You will want to structure the session to guide the group to stay on task.

• First, develop your own introduction. You will want to introduce yourself and the purpose of the focus group session. Welcome the participants and give an overview of how the session will be structured. At this time, you should also inform the participants of the ground rules for the session.

• Ground Rules:

-Everyone’s participation is valued.

-No one should dominate the session.

-Personal attacks are not allowed.

-Stay focused on the question and the overall topic.

• Present each question to the group:

-Opening question.

-Introductory questions.

-Key questions.

-Transition questions.

-Ending questions.

• "Facilitate" the session:

-Encourage quieter members to participate.

-Redirect the group when they drift off topic.

-Ask probing questions to have participants elaborate on their responses.

-Summarize the group’s opinion, and also ask for differing opinions.

• Close the session:

-Bring session to a close.

-Let participants know if they will receive a copy of the written summary of the meeting.

-Give out any incentives.

-Thank participants for coming.

 6.  Analysis of the focus group data

If tape-recording or video-taping were used to record the session, these will need to be transcribed.  These should be done in a format that does not identify the participants by name.  Participants can be identified by number to indicate the flow of the discussion.

Example:

P2: I don’t think so at all.

P5: Why not? It’s obviously the best one.

P4: I agree with (P2), the graphics don’t come out right.

P5: Look at it next to the other poster, though.

P2: No, it still looks fuzzy.

Analysis:

Analysis will depend on the research questions. One way to analyze comments is to read over the transcripts once all the sessions have been completed. In this first read-through, general ideas should be found, as well as types of statements. Similar types of statements can be identified as examples of a "concept." After creating a list of all of the concepts, the transcripts can then be coded based on these concepts. This involves blocking out statements or portions of the discussion that fit these concepts and labeling them as such. Once all of the transcripts have been coded in this way, examples of the concepts can be pulled together and counted to provide an estimate of how important each concept is in relation to the other concepts. For example, coding transcripts in this way following a focus group about promoting a 5 A Day campaign at your school would tell you whether increasing the variety of fruits and vegetables in the lunchroom is more important than improving the appeal of the fruits and vegetables that already exist.

Examples of potential concepts-

Positive educational messages, nutrition information, appealing graphics, placement of posters, cost of fruits and vegetables, availability of fruits and vegetables, suggestions for improving the posters, dislike of the content.

It is best to code the transcripts in groups of two or more. This allows the group to come to a consensus about the correct coding of statements and limits the degree of bias involved.

 7.  Reporting the findings

Report Format:

• Introduction: Short description of the focus group project and the research questions.
• Methods: Listing of how many sessions were held and the number of participants in each. Description of how participants were selected.
• Observations: Summary of the findings based on analysis of the sessions.
• Recommendations: A plan for how these findings will be used.

What is Fieldwork?

Fieldwork refers to research that is conducted "in the field," that is, where the actual event of interest is taking place. Fieldwork research is best undertaken when topics are best understood in their natural setting. As an observer in the field, you (the researcher) will be participating in the environment simply by your presence. However, you may determine the extent of your participation from complete participant, participant as observer, observer as participant, or complete observer. The complete participant may be an actual participant in the setting he/she is studying. For example, a student eating lunch in the cafeteria may be studying what others are eating for lunch. In this case, the other participants will only recognize you as a fellow participant, not as a researcher. At the other end of the spectrum is the complete observer. For example, a researcher may walk from table to table in the lunchroom and observe what each student is eating for lunch. In this case, all of the participants would recognize you as a researcher, not a participant.

What are the Steps to Conduct Fieldwork?

1. Preparation for the field

   You will want to decide which participant role you will take. For the example of observing what students eat for lunch, the participant as observer role may be best. In this role, you will be a full participant, but other participants will know that you are also conducting research. Keep in mind that your act of studying the behavior will affect the behavior.

2. Sampling

   You will not be able to observe every person and every action in the field. Therefore, you will need to observe a sample of persons/actions. There are three common sampling methods (McCall and Simmons, 1969):

• Persons in several participation categories are observed. For example, male and female students in each class year can be observed.
• Develop a sample from referrals of persons you have already studied. This technique is often used when persons having certain characteristics typically would know other persons with the same characteristics. For example, students taking an AP Chemistry class would be able to refer researchers to other students in the class.
• Sampling instances that are different from the general pattern. For example, researchers studying what students eat for lunch may decide to observe a student who is eating only cookies for lunch, or observe a student who is having a beverage for lunch, but not any solid food.

    3.   Interviewing participants in the field

In fieldwork, it is usually better to have a general topic that you want to discuss with participants rather than set questions. You will want to initiate a conversation with a participant on your topic but not bias the participant’s response. Try to be interested in their response and probe for further explanation.

     4.  Recording observations

It is important to take notes during your observation, or as soon as possible afterwards. These notes should include your observations and statements given by the participants, After leaving the field, you should go and elaborate on your notes as soon as possible. This will allow you to fill in any blanks before you forget. Also, you should write down impressions and interpretations of what you observed.

5. Analysis of your observations

   As discussed in the previous section on "Focus Groups," analysis of these data should begin with an overall reading of all your notes from all of your time in the field. Next, you should read over your notes looking for similarities and dissimilarities in the events and interviews. These will lead you to the creation of concepts. After creating a list of all the concepts illustrated in your notes, you can rank these concepts based on frequency counts. By determining how often these concepts arose in individual interviews and across all of your interviews, you will be able to assess their significance.

6. Reporting your conclusions

You may report your interpretations and conclusions based on your fieldwork in a number of ways. Similar to a focus group report, your report should include a description of your study and research questions, a description of the environment in which you collected your data, the number of people you interviewed, your findings and the conclusions you drew based on your findings. Fieldwork is typically rich with excerpts of conversations with people you interviewed in the field.

Social Marketing Research Links

For further information on Marketing Research for Social Issues, visit the following webpages:

http://www.social-marketing.com/process.html

http://www.knowthis.com/research/marketingresearch.htm

For further information on Survey Research Methodology, visit the following webpages:

http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/TUTORIAL.htm

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~scharr/triage/index/research.htm

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~abelson

http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/whatsurvey.html