A study out of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, set to be published in the Journal of Marketing Research later this year, found that public-service ads intended to reduce binge drinking may actually lead to more of it.
I’m not surprised. Remember those “Just Say No” public service announcements, back in the 80s? What I recall most is how teens (myself included) flipped the message around to “Just Say Yes” or “Just Say Screw You,” even if we were posturing in front of our friends. Of course we had to flip everything around that adults told us to do–that’s a teenager’s job. Plus; what 17-year-old wanted to model herself after Nancy Reagan? Not moi.
Seems the ad councils haven’t figured out that phenomenon of oppositional thinking–i.e. if the powers that be say “X,” we’ll do “Y”–because they’re still creating those cautionary ads. The Northwestern study was based on interviews with 1,200 undergraduate students shown ads modeled after anti-alcohol ads that ran in Canada.
Today’s anti-drinking and drug ads may be more au courant and clever–one ad features a hipster bent over the toilet after a night of partying (see below right)–but they’re not working. Why not? Two words: Guilt and shame.
According to Jeremy Mullman in Advertising Age : ”It has long been assumed, of course, that guilt and shame were ideal ways of warning of the dangers associated with binge drinking and other harmful behaviors, because they are helpful in spotlighting the associated personal consequences. But this study found the opposite to be true: Viewers already feeling some level of guilt or shame instinctively resist messages that rely on those emotions, and in some cases are more likely to participate in the behavior they’re being warned about.
The reason, said Kellogg marketing professor Nidhi Agrawal, is that people who are already feeling guilt or shame resort to something called “defensive processing” when confronted with more of either, and tend to disassociate themselves with whatever they are being shown in order to lessen those emotions.
And it doesn’t have to be drinking that a viewer is feeling ashamed about in order to render the ads ineffective or damaging. “If you’re talking to a student about cheating on an exam, and one of these ads comes up, you can bet they are headed straight to the bar,” said Ms. Agrawal, who conducted the study along with her Indiana University colleague, Adam Duhacheck.”
It’s the cycle of shame and blame. You feel bad about something, so you drink (eat, smoke, substitute whatever bad behavior here). Then you get drunk, you get sick, and you beat yourself up about your lack of self control, etc. And what do you do to rid yourself of those hateful feelings? You drink.
So what’s the right approach? Nidhi Agrawal, who helped conduct the study, had two suggestions: 1) Place the ad in “more positive surroundings–such as in a sitcom or a positive magazine article” rather than in a “tense or negative context.” 2) Focus on how to avoid situations that lead to binge drinking rather than on the consequences of the behavior, “because attempting to shame people out of binge drinking doesn’t work.” She also said that “It’s important that the messages be toned down and as positive as possible.”
Richard Todd Aguayo of razorsharp creative put it best in a comment in Ad Age: “‘People don’t care to know until they know that you care.’ Wise words once spoken to me, and I have found them to be true. You can speak words of wisdom to someone, but unless they feel you understand where they’re coming from, they’ll just tune you out. But once you establish a nonjudgmental, empathetic dialogue, folks will be more apt to listen. I also find this to be true in most marketing situations…
That dialogue, that connection based on mutual experience and (more importantly) understanding is what opens the mind and the checkbook. And in the case of these PSA’s, opens the heart and by extension the conscious, to the possibility of a change in attitude and behavior.”
So perhaps the creators of these public service announcements could take a cue from AA, for example, where people who have walked the walk empathize and listen, rather than judge and advise. No one wants to hear Nancy Reagan, who as far as we know never suffered from an addiction, talking down to them from a podium, and no one wants to be taunted with worst-case scenario images that only make them feel worse.
An ad that might have spoken to me, as a college student: Ten Things You Can Do Instead of Drinking: 1) Take a bath, 2) Drink seltzer and cranberry , etc. Just positive ideas and alternatives, rather than lectures that spin the mind to rebellion.
Photo Source (Just Say No)
Photo Source (anti-drinking ads)
