Divide and conquer: the application of social marketing to adolescent sun protection

The sun protection practices of Australian adolescents are not only shown to be consistently inadequate, but even the low levels of positive behaviours are on the decline. This is despite adequate knowledge levels, and numerous previous educational and mass media campaigns/interventions. This research therefore aims to examine adolescent sun protection behaviour and attitudes in the context of a social marketing framework in order to begin theprocess of developing a strategic and comprehensive intervention/campaign. This research utilised two stages of research, the first, consisting of 14 focus groups with NSW adolescents, the second, consisting of a large scale survey with 2,450 NSW adolescents. While the focus groups resulted in a number of interesting themes to aid in understanding adolescent sun protection behaviours, they also developed a number of brand loyalty segments. These brand loyalty segments reveal that attitudes and behaviours amongst adolescents are not homogenous; instead, there are in fact specific groups with differing and unique perspectives, requiring tailored intervention strategies. When tested in the second stage of research, it was established that the brand loyalty segments developed by the author do in fact exist. Furthermore, two of these segments, the Forgetful Attempters and the Risk Reducers, display great potential for future targeting.