Branding: an adolescent sun protection perspective

Australian adolescents are consistently found to exhibit low levels of adherence to sun protection guidelines, resulting in high levels of skin cancer incidence in later life. Given the importance of image, appearance, and peer approval factors in adolescent sun protection, this study sought to examine adolescents’ perceptions of the “sun protection brand,” its competing brands, and possible complementary brands. A series of 14 focus groups were conducted with adolescents in Years 9 and 10 (junior high school), and the results are examined in the context of potential branding-related marketing strategies to overcome some of the barriers to sun protection. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details This conference paper was originally published as Lynch, M, Jones, SC and Phillipson, L, Branding: an adolescent sun protection perspective, Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference, 2007,1662-1670. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/hbspapers/57 Branding: An Adolescent Sun Protection Perspective Melissa Lynch, Sandra C. Jones, Lyn Phillipson Centre for Health Initiatives, University of Wollongong Abstract Australian adolescents are consistently found to exhibit low levels of adherence to sun protection guidelines, resulting in high levels of skin cancer incidence in later life. Given the importance of image, appearance, and peer approval factors in adolescent sun protection, this study sought to examine adolescents’ perceptions of the “sun protection brand,” its competing brands, and possible complementary brands. A series of 14 focus groups were conducted with adolescents in Years 9 and 10 (junior high school), and the results are examined in the context of potential branding-related marketing strategies to overcome some of the barriers to sun protection.Australian adolescents are consistently found to exhibit low levels of adherence to sun protection guidelines, resulting in high levels of skin cancer incidence in later life. Given the importance of image, appearance, and peer approval factors in adolescent sun protection, this study sought to examine adolescents’ perceptions of the “sun protection brand,” its competing brands, and possible complementary brands. A series of 14 focus groups were conducted with adolescents in Years 9 and 10 (junior high school), and the results are examined in the context of potential branding-related marketing strategies to overcome some of the barriers to sun protection. Introduction A brand is a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (Kotler, Adam, Brown and Armstrong, 2003; p 631). Brands can offer intangible benefits that go beyond the functional benefits of a product (Schuiling and Moss, 2004), and thus differentiate it from functionally identical products in the eyes of the consumer. The dimensions of brand equity are willingness to pay a price premium; brand loyalty and satisfaction; perceived quality; leadership or popularity in comparison to other brands; perceived value; organizational associations; brand awareness; market share; and market price (Aaker, 1996). Adolescents and Branding An analysis of brand attitudes and expectations in the US found that brand equity is the key driver of customer loyalty and that youth aged 16 to 20 years have higher brand expectations than the population in general (Passikoff, 2005). While branding has traditionally been seen as the domain of commercial marketers, in recent years social marketers have begun to recognize the importance of branding, particularly when targeting children and adolescents. For example, in the very successful Florida Truth (anti-smoking) campaign, “branding was seen as a key strategy to meet the Legacy Foundation’s goal of reducing prevalence of smoking by removing its appeal and thereby changing the social norm...” (Evans, Wasserman, Bertolotti & Martino 2002, p. 18). There is considerable evidence that brands are one of the tools that people use to create and communicate self-concepts (Chaplin and Roedder John 2005), and that this is facilitated by the range of brands and differentiated brand images within product categories (e.g., Founier, 1998). As children’s self-concepts change during the transition from childhood to adolescence, the role of brands in communicating self-image and group membership becomes increasingly important (Chaplin and Roedder John 2005). For example, the use and salience of brands has been noted as a principal factor in the adoption of fashion product and trends;