(Much of the following material was adapted from the Western CAPT's Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist Training.)

Marketing and Behavior

As mentioned in the section on Environmental Strategies, mass media is a factor in the shared environment that quickly and powerfully shapes social norms. These social norms, in turn, shape behavior (if media and marketing did not influence behavior, then companies wouldn't be spending so much on advertising!). The bottom line is that advertising works to influence people's behaviors - including the purchase of use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

Behaviors can be influenced by the media and marketing in both positive and negative ways. Positive ways might include health-related public service announcements that promote a desirable objective like reducing substance abuse or increasing family communication. Products that are associated with healthy life-styles, such as running shoes or low-fat foods, may support the values of health, and promote healthier lifestyles such as exercise and avoiding alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

The media and marketing can also influence behavior in negative ways, for example through the use of direct marketing of tobacco and alcohol products to particular target populations (e.g., youth, minorities, women). The alcohol and tobacco industries may also purchase product use in movies as a subtle strategy that helps to create the sense that smoking and drinking is normal.

Role of the Media

Media and marketing play very large roles in our lives because of the "dosage," or number of times we are exposed to messages that support the use of alcohol tobacco and other drugs - especially when that "dosage" is compared to the amount that competing messages against substance abuse reach us. This powerful role of marketing and media is often subtle and infused into our culture through movies and ATOD industry sponsorship of community and sporting events.

Media Advocacy

For many years, the role of the media in prevention has been to build general awareness of substance abuse and related problems, and to direct messages at individuals in an attempt to change their behavior regarding alcohol, tobacco and other drug use. Media advocacy, however, shifts the message from trying to change the behavior of individuals, to one that attempts collective change by influencing community norms and local, regional, state and national policies. The goals of media advocacy is not media coverage but policy change.

Media Literacy

The media is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of ways to enhance prevention efforts. Media literacy is the education of young people so that they will have the skills to critically analyze the alcohol and tobacco messages around them every day, in the magazines the read, billboards they see, and television and movies they watch. The idea is that through this critical analysis, youth will gain a clearer understanding of how the ATOD industry aims to manipulate their emotions by getting them to associate the use of alcohol and tobacco with feeling sexy, young, vivacious, masculine, feminine, or a social success. Once youth understand these messages, the theory is that they will be more immune to them.

Social Marketing

Social marketing is an approach that uses commercial advertising techniques to "sell" positive behavior. Through social marketing, concepts from commercial marketing are applied as a method of bringing about social change. Social marketing techniques can be used as part of a comprehensive prevention plan, as a means of influencing behavior change.