Innovative social marketing and communications strategies to promote healthy relationships

As part of this four-year initiative, Start Strong is applying innovative prevention strategies to advance approaches to prevent teen dating violence and abuse. One of the most cutting-edge components of the initiative is utilizing communications and social marketing strategies to challenge unhealthy peer norms and promote positive dating behaviors among young adolescents to stop the violence before it starts. Increasingly public health prevention programs are employing social marketing as a critical tool for achieving specific behavioral changes. The Start Strong model emphasizes social marketing and also recognizes that teens are leading the way with social media. In Start Strong, teens play an important role in teaching healthy relationship skills to younger teens by utilizing creativity and technology to meet them where they are – online and off. This presentation will focus on the social media and communications strategies emerging from the Start Strong sites, including: 1) opportunities for teen influencers in social marketing and communications efforts; 2) unique entry-points through music, videos, reality television shows, movies, and celebrity lifestyles; 3) cutting-edge social media and technology as communications channels for youth; and 4) successes and challenges to this approach. The presentation will elaborate on the innovative ways in which community-based prevention programs are empowering students to utilize social marketing strategies to become change agents and shift the conversation from teen dating violence to healthy relationships.