Part I. Developing an Outreach Campaign Plan
Step 2: Identify & analyze the target audience

Behavior Change Tools

As discussed earlier, social norms are the standards of attitude and behavior perceived as normal, acceptable, and expected among the members of a community. Also known as peer pressure, social norms can have long-lasting effects on personal and group behavior. People often decide what attitudes and actions are appropriate from observing those around them, even at a subconscious level.

Norm appeals
One way to get people to adopt new social norms is by using norm appeals through conformity. Norm appeals show people that other people just like them have adopted the behavior you are trying to promote. Using messages that convey the popularity or growing appeal of the behavior is a way to get people to change over to a new social norm. Norm appeals are ways of making group standards more apparent. They make it more likely that people will observe others doing the activity you are promoting and are a key element of social learning theory. For example, the size and color of the ubiquitous neighborhood recycling box, and the fact that it is put out at the curb, has helped people see that their neighbors are recycling, and therefore so should they. Lawn signs can also serve as appeals to community norms by encouraging residents to compost/grass-recycle. Similarly, peer support groups and neighbor-to-neighbor outreach can help participants witness each other making changes.

According to Fostering Sustainable Behavior by Doug McKenzie-Mohr and William Smith, campaigns should simultaneously inform and suggest acceptable behaviors. People tend to do the right thing when they observe others doing it first. An example in Fostering Sustainable Behavior describes a group of psychologists performing a study on norms and recycling in 1990. They placed flyers on every windshield in a library parking lot. When a person was seen throwing the flyer in a trash can, no one else littered. When the person threw the flyer on the ground, over one-third followed suit.

An Example of a Norm Appeal Campaign

Northern Illinois University relied on a norm appeal campaign to inform students that, contrary to what they believed, the majority of their peers are actually moderate and safe drinkers. Baseline data collection revealed that fewer than 50% of students reported themselves as binge drinkers. However, when asked how much they thought most other students drank, the prevalent perception was that about 70% of their peers engaged in such behavior. Using that data, the university focused on the actual, positive norm to replace the incorrect, perceived norm. They used creative marketing posters hung all over campus to convey the new norm. They also gave students a cash reward if they displayed posters in their rooms. After the campaign, the university found an 18.5% drop in the number of students who perceived binge drinking as the norm (from 69.7% to 51.2%) and a corresponding reduction in self-reported binge drinking of 8.8% (from 43.0% to 34.2%).