2011-2012 Pittsfield High School Student Social Norms Campaign
The first student social norms marketing campaign messages will appear in student planners
PPP and SADD Collaboration Produces Positive Messages
The Pittsfield Prevention Partnership and the Student Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) Chapters at Pittsfield and Taconic High Schools worked together over the past school year to implement a new social norms marketing campaign aimed at decreasing underage drinking. The students worked to design a survey that gathered information about student attitudes regarding alcohol. They surveyed a sample of students from each grade at each high school, then analyzed the data to come up with the most powerful positive messages. Research has shown that if you saturate your audience (in this case students at both schools) with positive messages about drinking norms, the misconception that all the kids are drinking all the time will decrease over time, as will the actual alcohol use rates. Below are the messages that were focus group tested by students at Pittsfield High School (PHS) and will be published in their school planners. A Taconic focus group will also be held over the summer, and messages with Taconic’s own data will be developed for dissemination in the school starting in September 2011. We will also be working with the SADD students to discover new and creative ways to disseminate the messages, including the use of social media.
