Case Study: Engaging Young Adults at Bars and Clubs (segmentation, partners, digital strategies, & event experiences)

Background:  “Peer crowds”, which are macro-level connections between groups which transcend geographic barriers, are known to influence clothing style and activity preferences. They are also shown to influence behaviors, including risky, unhealthy behaviors. Fully integrating the values and interests of peer crowds into online and offline campaign strategies can be an effective way to communicate a health message.

Program background:  Previous research has shown young adults who identify with the electronic dance music (EDM) peer crowd have particularly high rates of smoking and have proven resistant to traditional anti-smoking campaigns. HAVOC is a lifestyle branded anti-smoking campaign that targets young adults ages 18-26 who identify with the EDM peer crowd. The goal of the HAVOC campaign is to make living tobacco-free more appealing by aligning the target audience’s cultural values with a tobacco-free lifestyle through event-based and digital efforts.

Evaluation Methods and Results: This abstract focuses on HAVOC campaign activities in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The brand used a combination of tactics including social media, street teams, and live events to drive behavior change. Tactics are chosen strategically and by taking the habits, preferences, and behaviors of the peer crowd into consideration. HAVOC employed Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to encourage engagement with the campaign by regularly posting a mix of tobacco prevention messaging, event information and updates, lifestyle-specific content designed to resonate with the target audience, interactive online activities such as contests or polls, and user-generated content. Paid digital media strategies used lifestyle characteristics to precisely target campaign messages to the audience. In 2014, HAVOC ran 20 events with approximately 4,200 attendees, of which 20% participated in an event-based messaging activity focused on tobacco. HAVOC staff collected 1,060 contact information cards during this period, to aid in further outreach. The 2014 paid digital strategy reached 365,911 unique users which took 38,852 actions on Facebook.

Conclusions:  HAVOC integrated into its target audiences and came to be recognized as an authentic representation of the community. Attendance at campaign events met campaign goals, and social media use was seen as driving event attendance and generating long-term engagement with the target audience.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Campaigns can consider employing strategies that use tactics to reach young adult audiences where they are, namely social media and events.  The HAVOC campaign provides an example of an integrated approach to a behavior change campaign, and the methods this campaign used to authentically engage with its audience and “meet them where they are at” could be replicated by other behavior change campaigns.