PART 1
Obesity has quickly become one of the biggest health threats within Australia, It is estimated that 14 million Australians are considered obese or overweight, that is 64% of the population (Measure Up, 2008). Small behavioural changes are the easiest to achieve using a social marketing campaign; people who may have only slightly let themselves go recently are easy targets for behaviour change. Understanding that everyone has their own reasons for their behaviour is the key to changing it (Strand, 2008). Catching people in a transitional point in their lives can make it much easier to effect change in behaviour.
For example a person who has had a rough few months at work, started eating poorly and stopped exercising will be more likely to notice and respond quickly to a social marketing campaign like measure up as they still have some link to their healthy behaviour. This makes it easier to effect change as these people still have a predisposition to act healthy, although not the target audience overall this group is easily effected by such a campaign and would help prevent them from falling deeper into negative behaviours leading to future health issues such as obesity. It is mostly about appealing to peoples values.

Those who have strong egoistic values are the easiest to facilitate change in behaviour, these people are motivated to remove harm and suffering from oneself and will be more likely to behave a certain way if the results serve their needs (Paul C. Stern, 2000). Targeting a message that outlines self-harm and gives suggestions on ways to remove said harm will be very successful as majority of people have some form of egoistic values. These values can be reached by providing a level of education within a social marketing campaign, education serves to communicate information and build skills that will allow people the chance to take this information on board and hopefully provide motivation and opportunities to improve one’s health. Ethically the message must paint a realistic picture of the barriers, do not exaggerate and show how this campaign has an offer that is new and improved.

Behaviour is a function of attitude and environment, people’s beliefs, values shape their behaviour and things like monetary costs, incentives and barriers help dictate these behaviours (Paul C. Stern, 2000). When a person’s behaviour strays so far outside what is considered ‘normal’ or healthy to the point of becoming considered obese, it can be very hard for a social marketing campaign to change this behaviour. Campaigns such as Measure Up will use behavioural change models in order to connect with the audience and effect positive change within society. These models vary depending on what area of behaviour is being targeted.

For example when considered a person who is obese and is firmly set in there ways, the barriers to such a change are immense. There are physical and psychological barriers as well as general attitude and knowledge. A campaign could implement the Elaboration likelihood model (Petty, 1984) this model outlines the audience factors such as low motivation verses high, processing and outcomes that will or will not effect change in someone’s behaviour. This can help a social marketing campaign to really highlight its target audience, and also separate them into smaller groups and possibly give more than one goal when dealing with this social issue. But acknowledging that not everyone is the same it becomes easier to help more people with a single campaign by including elements that appeal to those differences.

Changing a person’s behaviour is probably the hardest factor when dealing with social marketing, people don’t always like change or respond well when they feel they are being told to, and the best approach is trying to offer a trade. ‘If you do this you will gain this’, the issue of obesity however gets a little blurry when trying to offer this trade in value. People have a hard time seeing the value behind changing their whole lifestyle because someone else feels they have a problem.
The main focus should be to make people realise themselves that there is a problem, this will directly influence their behaviour going forward and hopefully will yield positive results for that individual and the campaign as a whole. When dealing with social issues like this it is important not to use any sort of deceptive tactics, invasion of privacy or breach and persons confidentiality. This can be a very personal issue and people like to keep certain parts of their lives private, also individuals who feel misinformed or deceived will most likely refrain from trying any similar action in the future and in terms of an obesity campaign this is the complete opposite to the overall goal. By being straight forward and honest with all messages, statistics and images used you will avoid any negative backlash as it will be seen as a campaign that has undergone ethical considerations throughout its implementation.

PART 2
The stop bullying campaign run by the Australian government is mainly focused on informing parents and children alike on what bullying is. Defining both physical and cyber bullying as well as giving showing the role people play such as parents, kids being bullied or others who are witness to bullying. They give examples of who is at risk and detailed methods of prevention and appropriate ways to respond to bullying as well as providing help in the form of counselling and suggested contacts in certain situations.
This campaign is designed to provide multiple groups with the knowledge of what bullying is and ways to prevent it. The belief is that nobody deserves to be bullied and that everyone is allowed to be an individual and should never suffer at the hands of others. The goals are to change behaviours amongst all groups in order to make people realise that there is no need to bully, and that labels do not define who you are. The campaign is attempting to change people’s behaviour by giving an inside look into what it is like to be bullied and all the options available to someone who is being bullied.
This campaign actually has multiple target markets, including but not limited to parents, educators, teens, children and the community as a whole. This is a very broad campaign that is focusing on an issue that does spread across all these groups and therefore is justified in targeting them all in an attempt to provide tailored information and education no matter what group someone falls into.
The product of this campaign is the benefit to society as a whole in changing behaviour, The ideas behind the campaign provide education to people in order to change attitude and beliefs toward the issue. This campaign obviously has a nonmonetary price attached, it is more about the Psychological price of getting involve in the prevention of bullying and reaching out to someone who is suffering, or whom you believe may be suffering privately, this campaign is aimed at changing social norms and making bullying in general an unacceptable behaviour. This is being achieved through increasing the nonmonetary benefits in your behaviour and decreasing the cost, suggesting simple questions someone can ask to recognise someone who is being affected by bullying and in turn help them.
The campaign uses videos and virtual tours to help promote its message, the use of short catch phrases such as ‘ Be more than a bystander’ are used to make the message simple and to the point. They also use short animated cartoon style ads as well as realistic situational ads to promote their messages and make the content more relatable to every group they are targeting. These campaigns are both internet based and community based the use of digital media as well as talks and seminars at primary and secondary schools.

I believe that as a whole this is a very well executed and effective social marketing campaign, they provide detailed information, support and suggestions to people who have been bullied. This is all designed at changing behaviours within society and making bullying unacceptable. I feel that an improvement or another level the campaign could go to is trying to make the victims aware of their own strength and self-belief, or self-efficacy. By boosting victims of bullying’s belief in their own abilities they would directly become an example of how to respond and rise above it. One idea would be to create a an ad or video that challenges victims to set certain tasks, something along the lines of acknowledge others who have been bullied as well and talk to them about it. Simple tasks that both help the overall issue but also show these people that they can succeed with a task and that they are strong, giving them a sense of accomplishment will not only increase self-confidence but will also help to lessen the effects of future incidents of bullying.

The act of bullying usually stems from the concept of power, an in balance in power that results in one person have dominance over another; whether it is real or perceived power makes no difference to the situation (Raven, 1959). The idea behind giving those with less power and boost in self-belief and confidence will help to shift this power balance back in their own favour and effectively change the landscape. These tasks or challenges will be designed to help people to recognise their own power and help them to use it effectively. The only hurdle will be to avoid people feeling pushed, as it will be received with a negative attitude, it must be delivered in a way so that the consumer will take it on board and decide for themselves to pursue the action. This could be achieved by making the video more of a subliminal message, giving the actions light without directly saying go and do this, an example would be just showing two kids who are being bullied and then show one of them comforting the other with positive results. This will show people a way to deal with bullying without directly telling them what to do.

Works Cited
Cynthia Webster, L. C. S. D. A. D. G., 2004. Social Marketing: Good Intentions. 1st ed. Sydney: Tilde University Press.
Measure Up, 2008. Measure Up, Australia: Australian Better Health Initiative.
Paul C. Stern, T. D. T. A. G. A. G. a. L. K., 2000. A Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Support for Social Movements: The Case of Environmentalism. Research in Human Ecology, 6(2nd), pp. 1-97.
Petty, J. T. R. E., 1984. THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL OF PERSUASION. Advances in Consumer Research Volume, Volume 11, pp. 673-675.
Raven, J. R. P. F. a. B., 1959. Bases of Power.
Strand, W. A. S. a. J., 2008. Social Marketing Behavior: A Practical Resource for Social Change Professionals. 2nd ed. Connecticut: AED.