Researchers agree that Values are the heart of the brand for nonprofits. This term appears to be used somewhat interchangeably with Vision and Beliefs. There is also agreement that trust absolutely must play a strong part of any nonprofit brand due to the value proposition.

Brand Personality has been mentioned only marginally in research and its strategic application as a positioning tool could be further explored. The brand personality has slightly different attributes to commercial brand personalities, and is considered very important. The personality of the brand (the way in which it expresses its vision and values) can be a powerful identifier for particular target markets. The need to clearly articulate the values and vision is extremely important. Nonprofits are having some mixed success at doing this, not taking advantage of “the veritable goldmine” (Quelch, 2007).

Nonprofits need to be able to conduct branding on a lower budget and avoid being perceived as spending money on trivial or inconsequential matters. A model needs to be developed to enable practitioners, who may not have the skills of a commercial practitioner, to build a brand that is contextually meaningful within a nonprofit environment. Saxton posits such a model, which has been largely overlooked. It might possibly be seen as overly simplistic by more commercially discliplined researchers. (1994). The sector would benefit from skilled practitioners, working in tandem with nonprofit experts, to develop a model that suits the nonprofit sector.

Funding and organisational issues pose challenges as well albeit not uniquely to nonprofits.  Structures should be established that best help the organization achieve its objectives as efficiently and harmoniously as possible, and that structure need not replicate a corporate one.

From their point of difference, nonprofits have enormous potential to maximise their brand equity. Communicating the values and vision are both its greatest stumbling block and its greatest opportunity. They need to reconfigure some elements of branding (the articulation of the symbolic aspects of visions and values) in a very different way to the commercial sector. However, in terms of acquiring publicly donated money, they also need to define their customer more adequately. They should also use the leadership of the commercial sector to model ways of targeting, segmenting and positioning to support and reinforce this relationship.

Managerial Implications

Overview

The Salvation Army, affectionately known as ‘the Salvos’, is an international organisation which exists to offer people full life in Christ and to help those in need. It was founded in 1865 by a former Methodist minister in London and came to Australia in the late 1800s.

It has diverse operations including:

retail outlets in which it sells second-hand clothes, books, shoes, toys and furniture;

disaster relief

aged care facilities and programs;

counselling services including drugs, alcohol, financial and gambling;

family tracing services for missing people;

churches and ministries;

moral support to frontline infantry soldiers during battle;

court and prison support;

rural support.

Each year the Salvos has a major door-knock appeal to raise funds. It also conducts direct mail, has information tray mats at McDonalds, and enjoys free-of-charge media advertising, as well as television, radio, press, signage, bus sides, magazine and cinema.

(Superbrands.com.au website). It is Values and Beliefs-based rather than Vision-based. As there is no set final objective, so not pre-set to decline as a brand.

Salvation Army achieves brand cohesion through a unifying ‘umbrella’: succinct, compelling international mission statement, set of beliefs, local “internal mission statements”. The “symbolic” attributes of its brand go hand-in-hand with attention to the “functional” brand attributes including the iconic ‘red shield’ logo, crest, uniform and flag and military motifs.

A Brand Story

Most people are unaware of its breadth of activities. A broader showcasing of the breath and history might benefit the organisation by differentiating it from competitors in the same category. A Brand Story as a simple way of passing on the message and history of the brand should be developed.

Brand and Culture Management

In order to operate within the culture of the nonprofit, the involvement of staff is critical. By combining the responsibility for Staff Culture with Brand, the brand could be then understood by all staff, and applied appropriately at every level. This central team would manage the functional aspects of the brand including advertising, events, store layouts and signage and standards. They would also manage staff recognition and internal communications.

Key regional ‘Brand Guardians’ across the operations should be coached as to how the apply the brand – visually and behaviourally – in their areas. They should also be trained in the basics of writing media releases using templates supplied by the central team, in order that local media are engaged and the story keeps being told from multiple voices. The upshot is that national advertising and the grass-roots level supporting each other and speaking with the same voice.

Volunteers need to feel that they are valued and valuable. As such, Salvation Army might consider an internal recognition program. This would help staff feel involved and acknowledged as the unsung heroes that they are, as well as serve to model to other volunteers ‘best practice’ ways of applying the brand.

Trust & Communication

Like all nonprofits, Salvation Army needs clear and measurable key performance indicators. As well as publicly promoting these, it may be beneficial to state targets in more meaningful ways than dollar amounts. For example: instead of saying “the target is to raise “$250,000,” it could be “to clothe 50,000 kids in struggling families” or “get 1,000 drug-addicted youth into care.” This will help increase the sense of participation and involvement by donors and may attract those outside the target due to relevance.

Post-Appeal outcomes should be published thanking all donors and sharing the accomplishments achieved together. This would help overcome any post-donation dissonance. If the donation is generous, this should be in the form of a (proforma) personal letter sent at a regional level.

As the social exchange needs to be reinforced, the sense of accomplishment may help maintain loyalty. It will also close the loop in many cases where donors are aware of an issue, give money, and never find out a concrete outcomes of how many lives the money helped save, how many tents were built after the earthquake, and so on.

Communicating achievements is important for both the prerequisite notion of trust as well as the role of reinforcement it plays in the social exchange.

Transparency factors in the simplest terms eg proportions of donated money that go to XYZ, should be published where they are readily available, such as online, not just buried within Annual Reports. Media attention through releases and stories at a local as well as national level should be generated upon completion of activities or achievement of goals.

Targeting, Segmenting & Positioning

Research, if it has not been done already, would be beneficial to identify the key donor group(s), existing and future.

Armed with this information, more personal relevance to this target could be included in fundraising and disaster relief advertising. For example, if research found that the key donor group was average income Australians with school-aged children, it might find it beneficial to get away from focusing on the dire plight of homeless teenagers and vagrant 50 year-old alcoholics if this is not of direct relevance to the donor target. Instead, it should focus on more everyday scenarios through which donors can make more of a connection.

As the society changes, the positioning of the message also needs to change. Aside from the tagline “Thank God for the Salvos”, there is another common saying “God helps those who help themselves”. Post GFC, marketing communications might benefit from a focus shift away from the down-and-out toward beneficiaries more closely resembling the donor (ie getting a hand up, rather than a hand-out).

Involvement & Adding Value

Salvation Army might want to consider ‘productising’ the social exchange in order to attract new donors. Many charities offer a selection of merchandise commensurate with the donation (eg pens, badges, pins and ribbons). These charities include Red Nose Day, Jeans for Genes, Daffodil Day, and many others.

One problem with this merchandise is that it is often ‘gimmicky’ and environmentally unappealing. Salvation Army might consider merchandise that reflects its history and practical nature of its brand, such as can-openers, hammers, rulers, school exercise books – the things that people actually need. These should be placed where conveniently reached by the target (for example Bunnings or Coles) as well as its stores and website.

By enlisting donors to become involved in the fundraising themselves, they provide a further element to the social exchange, the branded activity being a public expression of the donor’s values. This could also be highly effective in a business-targeted context where a whole team of staff may participate in an initiative, such as Movember, or a charity fun run, from which the organisation as well as the participants get some reflected glory. It also achieves a more grassroots community development, which could spread through the right event or experience, similarly to the Music Fairs previously held.

Salvation Army might should consider participative events so that donors recruit friends, colleagues and family for their donations in order to undertake an experience. In keeping with its history and ethos, this might be a Kokoda Track challenge – both rewarding for the donor/fundraiser, as public relations and publicity for the Salvos. Salvation Army would then benefit from following these people up with positive congratulatory messages, as well as invitations to become more fully engaged with its activities. Such an experience would deepen the brand bond with these participants.

References

De Chernatony, L & Dall’Olmo Riley, F (1998) “Defining a Brand” Beyond the Literature with Experts Interpretations” Journal of Marketing Management, Vol 14, No.4/5, pp157-179.

Hankinson, P (2000) “Brand Orientation in Chairy Organisations: Qualitative Research into key charity sectors”, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, Vol 5 No. 3 p207-219.

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website

HYPERLINK “http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4686.html” http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4686.html

Accessed 21 April 2010)

Kotler, Keller & Burton (2009) Marketing Management, published by Pearson Education Australia.

Quelch interview (2007) Policy Innovations website  HYPERLINK “http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/nonprofit_brands” http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/nonprofit_brands

Accessed 15 April 2010

Quelch, J & Laidler-Kylander, N 2004 “Mining Gold in Not-for-Profit Brands” Harvard Business Review, Vol 82, No.4 pp 24-25

Salvation Army website

HYPERLINK “http://www.salvationarmy.org.au” www.salvationarmy.org.au,

Accessed 14 April 2010

Saxton, J (1994) “A Strong Charity Brand Comes from strong beliefs and values”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol 2, No 4, pages 211-220

Schiffman et al (2008) “Consumer Behaviour” 4^th Edition, Pearson Education Australia

Sternberg, P (1998) “The Third Way: The Repositioning of the Voluntary Sector”, Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, Vol 3, No. 3, pp 209-217.

Stride, H & Lee, S (2007) “No logo? No Way. Branding in the Non-Profit Sector” Journal of Marketing Management, Vol 23, no. 1-2, pp107-122

Superbrands Website

HYPERLINK “http://www.superbrands.com.au/BrandDetails.aspx?id=25″ http://www.superbrands.com.au/BrandDetails.aspx?id=25

Accessed 7 April 2010

“The Nonprofit Sector in Australia: A Fact Sheet” 4^th Edition, National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009) Non-Profit Organisations 2006-07.

Venable, Rose, Bush, Gilbert, (2005) “The Role of Brand Personality in Charitable Giving: An Assessment and Validation” in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol 33, No.3, pages 295-312

“Issues and difficulties arising when branding nonprofits”

The most relevant example of the effects of the West on indigeneity, from an Australian point of view, is Aboriginal music.

If music is an expression of culture (Nettl, 1983) we cannot assume that music will not change, considering that cultures are emergent, not static. The idea of attaching notions of ‘purity’ and ‘authenticity’, which Mitchell (1996) describes as “idealist forms of colonial nostalgia”, to indigenous culture and indigenous music fails to consider that no region is now unaffected by the mass media and Westernisation.

‘Culture’ is not an innate human condition, but an artificial human construct. Globalism, often presented as adverse to indigeneity, has in some ways been inevitable, consequently affecting ideologies, identities, and priorities.

Change, therefore, be it through modernisation or syncretism, should not necessarily be confused with westernisation, or cultural contamination. Change may be essential for the culture to survive.

The bulk of the non-Western music that is available to us is a hybrid of original and Western styles. This is often explained in terms of making the music more accessible for western listeners; like bite-sized samples designed to entice listeners to the exotic smorgasbord beyond.

The level of incorporation of western styles can indicate a broader process of cultural evolution, using these somewhat rudimentary categories of response of westernisation, syncretism and modernisation.

Westernisation usually occurs when a culture/music wishes to enter the western cultural system. Generally, it is the indigenous music that appropriates western styles that are central traits and incompatible with their own.

There are loads of Indian examples. The surge of interest in Bollywood in the west hasn’t resulted in 7-hour long musical films emerging. But it has results in the tra-la-la of the distinctive Indian sounds overlaid on drum beats, dance and lounge music that is as distinctly western as anything.

Modernisation occurs when the indigenous music incorporates non-central but compatible western traits. This means that the idiosyncratic nature of the music remains unchanged. Zimbabwean beats and Zairean beats, for example, are still recognisably distinct.

Modernisation allows the indigenous music to become contemporaneous and widen the audience and awareness of particular issues.

Syncretism results when compatible traits between two musics form a harmonious blend that do not need to subvert each other for allegiance.

An example is Dead Can Dance who combine Irish and African traits, and the emergence of Australian based groups who combine the traits of Irish and Aboriginal music, which share a high degree of compatibility in their traditional forms.

The Rough Guide to World Music (1994) likens the mushrooming of Aboriginal groups in Australia to the punk explosion in Britain in the late 70s and that the “sudden growth of modern Aboriginal music has been a consciousness-raising accompaniment to this political movement”, that is, the call for land rights and an end to discrimination.

Traditionally, Aboriginal music has been a cultural and creative force, and an integral part of the Dreamtime stories. The oldest intact culture is a totemic one and believes that totemic beings sang the world into existence.

“Each Aboriginal clan takes one of these totemic beings as ancestors…” who would sing out the name of everything that crossed their paths.

Hence, culturally, an ancestral song “is both a map and a direction-finder” as the melodic contours of the song “describes the nature of the land over which the song passes… an expert song man, by listening to the order of succession, would count how many times his hero crossed a river or scaled a ridge, and be able to calculate where and how far along a songline he was” (Chatwin, in Rough Guide).

This function of Aboriginal music has a lot in common with African rhythms, which are codes, to be understood between towns (ABC,1997). Yet Aboriginal culture, like all cultures, is emergent, and today there are not as many people that believe in the Dreamtime stories, “so much of that way of life is disappearing” (Drury,1980).

Today, rather, the music has adapted to become a tool in the fight to communicate the Aboriginal story, to end discrimination and to gain land rights. Nor can the traditional music be separated from the contemporary, both speak of the experience of the Aboriginal people and, most importantly, convey the essence of Aboriginal culture: the spiritual connection to the land.

Perhaps the most notable and poular example of this was the 1991 hit ‘Treaty’ by Yothu Yindi. The album it was lifted from, Tribal Voice, marked the most prominent Aboriginal cross-over into the mainstream. I

t also indicated an aesthetic change from what most people considered to be Aboriginal music. Aboriginal music is very strong rhythmically and has a traditional emphasis on natural body sounds such as clapping, stomping, and the instantly recognisable deep sound of the didjeridu.

Today, much of Aboriginal music has been modernised, to incorporate traits that are western but compatible, which has meant filling the austere spaces between the ‘natural’ sounds with western instrumentation; predominantly guitars, drums and keyboards. However, the vocal style of the traditional sound has remained, as has the didjeridu and the clapsticks and the chanting. Also, traditional and sacred songs are re-arranged.

Mandaway Yunipingu explained how he devises a song: “I usually centre my melodies around a traditional song. I might then add a reggae beat or whatever, but the whole concept and idea is derived from my understanding of Aboriginal song” (Rough Guide, 1994).

The incorporation of reggae is an interesting feature. Western music was not the first influence on Aboriginal music. In the late 70s, Bob Marley, after touring in 1979, heavily influenced many Aboriginal groups with his songs about freedom and his interesting rhythmic intricacies for western listeners. This follows Nettl’s (1983) idea of musical “energy”, whereby additions to a musical repertory must be balanced by loss.

However, the modernisation has spawned a variety of styles that allow for he identification of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal listeners to the diverse range of Aboriginal contemporary experience.

For example, Tiddas are an a cappella group reflecting urban life, Kev Carmody, Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach adopt acoustic (folk) sounds of guitar and vocals and sing about the assimilation policy and the kidnapping they each endured. Beneficially, these musicians have heightened the profile of contemporary Aboriginal issues, with concerts politically active, and have even facilitated the interest in Aboriginal art.

Yothu Yindi’s successful tours of the United States fascinated American audiences with the culture, and provided information about the continued oppression. Such cultural advances have no doubt helped entice the New York Art Gallery’s exhibitions of Aboriginal art and Sotheby’s (New York) auction of bark art. Extra-musically, the increase in international attention has created demand within audiences in Australia, and groups have small, but faithful, followings.

So far, however, there has been little interest by the big labels, with the exception of Coloured Stone who are on the BMG label. This means that these Aboriginal groups must develop their styles and their audeinces through urban and specialist networks, ABC and Radio National, and at festivals.

The CAAMA also owns a recording label which specialises in Aboriginal music from remote desert areas.

Whether the commercial networks relative disinterest in providing airplay has to do with the sounds being too exotic or too western is open to debate. Each group, for unique purposes, through differing aims and objectives, has negotiated their cultural and hence musical change.

“Australians spend half a billion dollars every year on bottled water that we could get for free from a tap, but we complain when petrol goes up a few cents a litre,” said Jon Dee, Founder of Planet Ark and Do Something at a public meeting held in Bundanoon Memorial Hall on July 8^th.

“We’ve been conned and they’re laughing all the way to the bank.”

Residents of the Southern Highlands village, known for its national park, pristine water and cycling paths, voted almost unanimously to back moves which will see Bundanoon as the first bottled water-free town in Australia.

The initiative, known as Bundy on Tap, would see businesses no longer selling bottled water and fresh, clean drinking water available in shops, on the street, at school and at events. A reusable bottle will be manufactured which can be refilled, as opposed to the single-use plastic bottles manufactured by most water companies.

Bundy on Tap is the brainchild of local businessman, Huw Kingston, organiser of mountain bike race Highland Fling and proprietor of Ye Old Bicycle Shoppe café.

Huw, Jon Dee and local business representative, Peter Stewart, spoke to attendees about the environmental damage, health impact and marketing lunacy of the still, single use bottled water industry.

While local business is behind the idea, measures are still being explored for ways to ensure their sustainability.

“We will lose money immediately, but we hope that it will bring a few more people and they’ll buy a few more newspaper,” said Peter.

With support from the community, a working group was formed and Jon Dee became an enthusiastic participant six weeks ago.

“The catalyst for the plan has been the ongoing battle against NORLEX, a company that has been trying unsuccessfully for more than 12 years, to bore Bundanoon’s aquifer for the bottled water industry,” said Huw.

“Although this campaign is not an attack on NORLEX, it has meant that Bundanoon is very aware of water issues.”

It takes 1,000 years to decompose a plastic bottle with 70 per cent currently ending up in landfill or oceans. Conservative estimates state that more than 15 million litres of oil is used each year in the manufacture and distribution of bottled water in Australia alone. Others believe this figure is much higher.

At the meeting, health impacts were also raised. The conspicuous absence of fluoride in the 1,000+ brands of bottled water sold is raising the concern of some dentists, especially for children.

Jon Dee says that the belief that bottled water is somehow cleaner or better for health is a fallacious perception.

“They’ve been taste tests all around the world and no-one can tell the difference. The spin that goes into it, we’ve bought it hook, line and sinker. The fact is there are huge amounts of money to be made selling water, more than soft drinks or sugary drinks.”

After a morning that started at 5am with ABC interviews, the team of three had conducted some 70 interviews with global reach, including CNN, NHK Japan, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, and the Times of London. Appearances were also scheduled for Channel 7’s Sunrise and Nine’s Today Show this morning.

The morning’s media blitz was followed at lunch time with an announcement by Premier Nathan Rees that he would be banning all bottled water from government departments.

“If we had have paid for this PR, the bill would be in the millions,” said Jon. “We haven’t even sent a media release yet. The media is behind us.”

Culligan Water and Street Furniture Australia, who have already installed public water stations in Manly, have promised to donate three water stations to Bundanoon, one of which is earmarked for the primary school, if the town goes bottled water-free. The combined value of the water stations is $18,000.

The crowded, standing room only meeting included residents, businesses, councillors including Pru Goward, journalists and camera crews, needed little encouragement to vgote yes for the initiative.

Jon Dee who helped Coles Bay in Tasmania be the first of many towns in Australia to go plastic bag-free, said “fifty councils are now in touch with us to do the same. They all want someone to do it first. Bundanoon will provide a role model for everyone in Australia.”

No one thinks big of you (NOTBOY) breaks the mould.

The RTA website eloquently describes the pinkie heuristic as meaning, “slow down and stop acting recklessly”. To be more candid, most people recognise it as a symbol identifying the compensatory actions of a man with a small penis.

Academically speaking, it uses the Theory of Planned Behaviour to focus on a key disjuncture between protagonists’ beliefs about the consequences of their anti-social road behaviour and the normative beliefs held by significant referents.

It then uses shame to motivate compliance to the social norm. Studies of the use of fear, guilt and shame appeals have found that “shame is particularly effective in advertising directed at young people” (2010). They also find that of the three, it is shame which “leads to conformance to social norms”.

Deconstructing the campaign

The 45-second television advertisement, which is the primary medium, uses three parallel stories of young men in their cars performing anti-social behaviour in front of three different sets of referents.

The power of the pinkie symbol is in part its ability to tap into a collectively well-understood concept. That message is able to be communicated throughout the campaign without words, leaving audio space for a music track to instil the emotional / psychological elements to the message.

The use of the pinkie symbol is also powerful because of its uniqueness. It is not a gesture involving thumbs up or thumbs down, it doesn’t use the ubiquitous symbol made by forming the index finger and thumb into a ring, nor a wiggling index finger, ring ringer, or middle finger, any of which could result in audience confusion. Those other symbols are used to communicate various messages depending on their context.

The wiggling pinkie cannot be confused with anything other than what is signified in the advertisement. Therefore, it serves as an effective symbolic shorthand  – particularly for the youth culture to whom it’s targeted – to a universally understood principle without actually having to be explicit and possibly offend viewers.

Even to a viewer who may not have seen the gesture before, the meaning can be derived from context and other visual clues, such as the tagline at the end. The ability of the viewer to ‘close the gap’ set up by the ad and make the connection themselves, makes consuming the advertisement rewarding for the viewer, and is a technique commonly observable in good advertising copywriting to increase audience engagement.

The opening shot is a lime-green sedan rolling along a non-descript industrial street. The driver and his male passenger are moving slowly and come to stop at a red traffic light at a logo-less, beige pub in front of which two attractive girls, about their age, are standing. They exchange flirtatious glances with the driver, indicating some level of sexual interest. The soundtrack is romantic mood piece by composer Hylton Mowday reminiscent of a bygone era, which reinforces the traditional boy-meets-girl(s) set up.

The driver smirks and squeezes the steering wheel and the lights change to green. You can see the opportunity on his face. This is his moment to demonstrate prowess. He rocks his head and body back and forward, lunging his tongue from his mouth and smoking his tyres, all symbolising sexual energy, and takes off in a cloud of smoke which wafts over the young women. Satisfied with his performance, he smile. The girls exchange disapproving glances, then half-smiles as they share the pinkie symbol.

A professional woman in high heels and a white shirt embarks on a pedestrian crossing, but must step back to allow a young male driver enforced right of way. His smirks, enjoying his sense of control and power, but avoids any eye-contact with her. Her response is not anger, but an exasperated look of tiresome irritation. She has clearly seen this many times before. The incident is witnessed by a senior female at a bus seat. Nor does she express any anger or irritation, but shares a distinctively blank look of disapproval. It’s nothing new to her – she has probably been seeing this for decades. It is she who shows the pinkie in response.

As referents, these two groups most likely do not constitute significant referents to the target. As Brennan and Binney (2010) find in their research about shame, fear and guilt appeals in social marketing, “only if I admired their opinions and if it was somebody I have a high regard for would I care” (spoken by Female, 75+).

However, the purpose of this scene is to universalise the normative belief about this kind of behaviour. The message is clear. It isn’t just a certain age group, everyone will see you as a loser.

In the third scene, four young men, around 17-18 years old judging by the P-plate on the blue sedan, are driving around a corner past the same pub in scene one. The bend is deliberately taken too sharply and the passengers in the backseat are lurched to the sides.

The driver who has the large doe-eyed appearance of an innocent and impressionable youth, manoeuvres the car in a series of smoky skids before the car stabilises normally. Thus, he has demonstrated his skill and control and smiles with satisfaction. Looking in the rearview mirror for his approving reward from the backseat, he catches a surrepititious pinkie gesture exchanged by his two passengers. The passenger who makes the gesture is good looking and muscular.

Seeing that there is no positive reinforcement, but rather the unwanted humiliation from his peers, the penny drops. For the first time, this driver sees that his actions have achieved the opposite of what he has clearly intended and expected. This reference group is more significant to him than the young girls or the older women who represent society generally. As one respondent claimed during the campaign research, “At this age, you are extremely aware of being teased… the thought of being ribbed by your mates is much more relevant than the thought of crashing your car…” (Male aged between 17-25).

And another male of same target age category: “I think this is genius… it’s the first time the RTA haven’t run a fear campaign… this is something that is relevant to our situation… we respond to emotion in that particular way… we don’t respond to fear tactics.”

Campaign Autopsy – How it Works in Theory

Who is to blame for this in the first place?

In all of these incidences, the target audience / male drivers demonstrate an expectation of the ability to impress others using the car to demonstrate their skill, control and manliness. Or, it could simply be a lack impulse inhibition.We can learn some interesting things about this target if we use a basic tri-component model to look at the construction of this attitude.

MEDIA & CULTURE: (cognitive aspects) of this belief could have been informed by things such as motor racing, video games, music videos, and films that appeal to this target audience – from yesterday’s Grease to today’s Fast and the Furious. Across these forms of entertainment, the messages are fairly consistent. The fastest conquers. The fastest stands on the podium. The fastest wins the girl and his heroism wins the admiration of his peers.

NEUROLOGICAL DIMENSIONS : (Affective / conative aspect) is the feeling of power, control and virility the young male feels when he gives his car a good work-out. There may also be an adrenaline rush as the behaviour is risky. This risk element is an interesting component that psychologists and neurologists have looked into extensively.

Researchers from psychological disciplines regard this age group as lacking fully matured executive functions of the brain (frontal lobes) and excessive dopamine production. For example, Evanden found that “novelty seeking is related to activity in the “dopaminergic ‘reward system’” (1999).

Wallis & Dell (2004) say, “Dopamine, the brain chemical involved in motivation and in reinforcing behavior, is particularly abundant and active in the teen years.” This pair conclude that, “the brain regions that put the brakes on risky, impulsive behavior are still under construction.”

That said, it is fair to say that: factual and rational tactics in ads are not likely to work for this target as the reasoning skills of adults are underdeveloped, and that the risk-taking behaviour in itself is a positive reinforcement.

Given that conundrum for the marketers – the absence of reason or risk as compelling factors – and the hotbed of sexual energy and unbridled hormones, using the shame appeal finds a real gap in the armour. If Maslow was correct in identifying a “self-esteem need” (Kotler, 2002), it takes a direct hit in this campaign.

In this campaign, these affective/conative aspects appear very important to the young men depicted and are encoded in the campaign’s art direction. In bleak, beige Carrington (Newcastle), a partly industrial streetscape, any sign of stimulating shops, signs, and colours have been removed. .

In the monochromatic colouring, blandness and boredom seep through. The same brown and blue pub is featured in two scenes, a tacit link to alcohol at the periphery. We can also see smokestacks and shipping crates in the background, emblematic of low socio-economic areas and limited opportunity. These guys do not have much to do. Of course, satisfaction, a sense of power, control, stimulation, attractiveness – these take priority in this landscape.

Effectiveness of the campaign

The RTA states that audience testing was undertaken “at three stages of the campaign including initial concepts, refinement of concepts and offline edit versions.”

The audience feedback was described as “overwhelmingly positive” without exception.

After nine weeks of screening in cinemas and televisions, TNS Social Research evaluated its impact and effectiveness and found: “seven out of ten respondents among the general population recalled elements of the campaign, compared to 67% of young males. They also described this finding as “higher than has been seen for any other recent RTA campaigns, indicating that the television commercial has successfully cut through into the consciousness of TV viewers”.

The research also found that 71% of general population and 70% of target male population believed the commercial would “have some effect in encouraging drivers in general to obey the speed limit”. (RTA Fact Sheet “Evaluating Speeding. No one thinks big of you.)

The campaign also won Clemenger BBDO the Grand Effie Award for outstanding marketing communications. The judges said The Grand EFFIE winner  “drove a real sea change in social attitudes to speeding.” Clemenger BBDO Sydney used an insightful strategy to develop the campaign. The judges said the campaign “saved lives and benefited the state by $264m” ( HYPERLINK “http://www.campaignbrief.com.au” www.campaignbrief.com.au). It is unclear from where this statistic was drawn.

Improvements to the Campaign

In their best practice recommendations for road safety campaign, Delany et al suggest three components are most useful. These are: using an emotional rather than rational appeal, the “use of a theoretical model and qualitative and quantitiative research to inform development of the campaign message” and “the use of public relations and any unintentional associated publicity”. They claim that this third factor “appears to be more important to the outcome of the campaign to the use of importance” but that the use of both “the use of both public relations and enforcement as supporting activities shows particularly large results” (May 2004).

As the campaign satisfies the first two best practices, it could be enhanced by adding a public relations domain using endorsers relevant to the target market.

For example, no radio is used in the campaign, probably because of its emphasis on visual clues and an implicit message. However, comment by a celebrity or relevant public Australian ‘everyman’ figure such as Dave Hughes, Kyle Sandilands, would both reinforce the message and provide some in-car immediacy. Furthermore, the outdoor executions all feature the same young woman as the referent. Perhaps the strongest referents in the campaign are the male peers. These are closer to the target audience and their approval the most sought after. An additional variation to outdoor using other males and the same message might reinforce the message more powerfully.

Additionally, whilst the campaign is titled Speeding. No-one thinks big of you, which is the strapline and presumably Clemenger’s brief, there is little by way of explicit references to speeding. The portrayals more accurately depict anti-social driving behaviour – such as skidding, burn-outs. Possibly, this confuses the message a little. This minor flaw provides an opportunity for male viewers uncomfortable with the cognitive dissonance to discredit the campaign based on this rational justification. Omission of the word ‘speeding’ might have been more useful. This has also been a criticism of many online viewers.

Whilst the campaign might not entirely debunk the set of cognitive beliefs that contribute to the perceived glory of anti-social driving (this would be beyond the scope of any single campaign), it does interrupt the conative and affective elements by supplanting them with shame. They’re wiggling their pinkies. They think I’m a loser.

Finally, the inclusion of a police campaign targeting anti-social driving, will see it be truly successful.

Conclusions

The NTBOY campaign is an extremely clever, original way of viewing the problem of speeding / anti-social driving and has proven more successful in changing attitudes than any other in the recent history of NSW road safety campaigns.

For its brief, the campaign seeks to improve the driving of 17 – 25 year old males. Eighty-five percent of drivers involved in fatal speeding crashes are men (RTA, 2010). P-platers, who typically fall into this age category, comprise 41 per cent of speeding infringements over 45 km per hour.

To fulfil its brief, the campaign shuns fear tactics and drills into the underlying attitudes and beliefs that lead to this sort of risky behaviour – before that behaviour graduates into serious accidents.

NSW Road Safety campaigns have been underpinned  by an almost endemic commitment to Fear and Shock Appeals. For decades these have shown to be successful, but only partly. The ‘Thinking Kills Driving Skills’ campaign marked a small departure from the Authority’s way of thinking toward a rational-basis argument. Given the timeframe and complexity of the analysis, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of that or any specific campaigns.

Combining the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the campaign demonstrates that the individual belief male drivers may have about their behaviour is not the normative belief. It then provides a strong motivation to conform via the shame appeal. The campaign is also successful in identifying likely situational factors. They are elegantly dramatised, but at the same time, highly realistic.

The use of the ‘pinkie’ gesture communicates this message like an in-joke at the offender’s expense. Its researchers have successfully penetrated the psyche of its target audience and found a weak point—public sexual humiliation.

It is too early to observe whether it will be effective in changing the driver behaviour of the target male audience (17-25 years). However, it bears the hallmarks of a successful campaign according to social marketing campaign best practice.

The greatest learning that can be derived from NOTBOY in the area of social marketing is the importance of researching what factors precipitate the behaviour. NOTBOY identifies these very well. Rather than resorting to shocking people into submission or using negative reinforcements that do not resonate with the target, carefully researched understanding will illuminate the best course of action.

It seems that there is no template for such social marketing, as every target is different and the rationale for behaviour differs. However, best practices identifies (as well as the studies by numerous researchers) show that emotional appeals work better than scientific / rational, and that follow-up endeavours such as police and additional public relations activities are the lynchpin between attitude change and behavioural change.

Summary

In New South Wales, 34% of speeding infringements over 30km/h are apportioned to just 7% of drivers – P-Platers.

After decades of Extended Parallel Process Model advertising using shock and fear tactics to change behaviour, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has recently taken a dramatic side-step. Rather than twisted metal, bloody accidents and post-traumatic stress, the RTA has a new message for 17 – 25 year-old male drivers. Be reckless and everyone will know you have a small penis.

So far, the results are impressive. Audience testing has shown the campaign to be better received than any in recent history with the heuristic ‘pinkie finger’ making message identifiable and clear across executions and media.

The campaign uses the Theory of Planned Behaviour, looking at what formulates the attitude that risky driving is rewarding, what the expectation is, and contrasting that to normative beliefs. It also employs a Shame appeal to modify the behaviour. With an additional physiological reward being thast the risk is a reinforcement in itself, shame cuts through to a deeper sensitivity than danger – sexual humiliation.

It has some short-comings in terms of follow-up executions and police presence, but these may be outside the scope of the marketers.

Get more info…

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Published online 26 November 2004 Accessed 3 May 2010