Drinking and Driving
Target audiences
The paper focuses the Georgia Southern University students who are in the age bracket of between 18 years and 25 years as the major audience for the campaign.
Objectives and Target Goals
The campaign has three objectives and goals. The objectives have three categories which include the behavioral objectives, knowledge objectives and belief objectives. First, the behavioral objective of the research is to promote the use if designated drivers for those who get drunk and need someone to help drive them to their respective destinations. Second, the knowledge objective of the research is to provide insight on how the risks of drinking and driving manifest. Third, the belief objective is to make the target audience believe that there is no point of them having a hurry to get to their destinations. If they are too drunk to drive, they can rest in the bar until they become sober enough to drive.
Besides, the social marketing campaign had three target goals. The campaign’s first goal was to provide enough free designated drivers in the local bars to help those who cannot afford to find designated drivers. The second goal is to produce enough posters and video clips for circulating to the local bars to make the target audience aware of the risks of drinking and driving. Third, the campaign had a goal of encouraging the bars to provide enough resting points and rooms for people to get enough rest. Specifically, this was important in the cases when they are too drunk to drive to their destinations.
Barriers, Benefits, Motivators, and Competitions
The barriers facing the success of designated drivers is the stubbornness of the drunk passengers. Rothe & Carroll states that the passengers disturb the driver to the point of making the driver drive under stress (2009). Most of the individuals who adopted the use of designated drivers did so because of they were avoiding police arrests because of drunk driving. Additionally, the got their motivation to use the designated drivers from the incentives such as free soft drinks (Ditter, Elder & Shults et al., 2005). The local bars’ designated driver service faces competition from the target audience’s preference for their friends to drive them because of trust issues. This is not ideal since there fellow friend can also fail to drink responsibly.
Additionally, the campaign on how the dangers of drunk driving manifest has barriers, benefits, motivators and competitions. For instance, the barrier that faces the campaign is the inability of the target audience to comprehend the posters or the video clips when they get drunk due to their impaired cognitive ability (Adan, Benaiges & Forero, 2016). Although the campaign faces this barrier, the campaigns are beneficial to the students since the campaign gives the students an in-depth information about the risks of alcohol, information that might be rare for the student to obtain (Scribner, Theall & Mason et al., 2011). Moreover, the students get motivated to pay attention to the campaigns because the campaign encouraged the fear of variable such as the severity of the risks and the vulnerability that drinking causes (Cismaru, Lavack & Markewich, 2008). Although the campaigns are effective, they face competition from nude video clips that played in the bars. These clips act as distractions to the target audience.
Influential Others
The behavior of the peers of the target audience may help to influence the target audience to practice safe driving. The influence bases on the fact that peers often influence each other into doing things as a group (Møller & Haustein, 2014). Thus, the concern friends will make the irresponsible ones to behave responsibly.
References
Adan, A., Benaiges, I., & Forero, D. (2016). Heavy Episodic Drinking or Binge Drinking: A Booming Consumption Pattern. SciTech Connect, 1, 389-397. Retrieved from http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/
Cismaru, M., Lavack, A. M., & Markewich, E. (2008). Alcohol consumption among young consumers: A review and recommendations. Young Consumers, 9(4), 282-296. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/loi/yc
Ditter, S. M., Elder, R. W., Shults, R. A., Sleet, D. A., Compton, R., Nichols, J. L., & Task Force on Community Preventive Services. (2005). Effectiveness of designated driver programs for reducing alcohol-impaired driving: a systematic review. American journal of preventive medicine, 28(5), 280-287. Retrieved from http://www.ajpmonline.org/
Møller, M., & Haustein, S. (2014). Peer influence on speeding behaviour among male drivers aged 18 and 28. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 64, 92-99. Retrieved from https://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/
Rothe, P. J., & Carroll, L. J. (2009). Hazards faced by young designated drivers: In-car risks of driving drunken passengers. International journal of environmental research and public health, 6(6), 1760-1777. Retrieved from http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Scribner, R. A., Theall, K. P., Mason, K., Simonsen, N., Schneider, S. K., Towvim, L. G., & DeJong, W. (2011). Alcohol prevention on college campuses: The moderating effect of the alcohol environment on the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 72(2), 232-239. Retrieved from http://www.jsad.com/
