Nayla Henderson March 18th, 2021

Social Marketing Individual Essay

The Click It or Ticket is a campaign that encourages seat belt safety amongst drivers and

passengers. The Click It or Ticket campaign was first established by Governor of North Carolina

Jim Hunt in 1993. Before the campaign was put into place, the usage of seat belts was around 11

percent nationally throughout the 1980s. The goal of this campaign is to increase seat belt usage

nationally. In the first years of their campaign, they have managed to bring seat belt usage from

11 percent to 15 percent. Click It or Ticket has reduced fatalities over the years. Although the

campaign started in North Carolina it has adapted on a national level and it is now run by the

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. On the other hand, although North Carolina

was the first campaign, New York was the first state to pass mandatory seat belt regulations in

the early 80s. After New York passed their laws, by 1990 37 other states had followed in their

footsteps. Recently, the campaign has had the power to influence Governor Cuomo of New York

State signed legislation that requires all passengers in a vehicle of 16 and older to wear a seat

belt. Beforehand, passengers of the age of 16 and older were required to wear a seat belt in the

front of the passenger seat.

The Click It or Ticket campaign relates to the Chapter 1 concept of Social Marketing.

“Social marketing is a process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create,

communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit

society as well as the target audience.” The campaign has characteristics of a social marketing

campaign. The campaign focuses on modifying the behavior of their target market to go from not

wearing their seatbelts to wearing them. This may be hard for the target market to do so because

they were comfortable with not wearing a seatbelt. The thought of modifying that behavior
makes some uncomfortable. This may explain why it is so hard to shift their and others

perspective. The campaign focuses on using upstream social marketing to influence people

locally. The campaign first started state by state by influencing the influencers to promote the

message to the audience such as law enforcement. After using law enforcement, the campaign

started to evolve and use major influencers at that time to promote the message. They had Fear

Factor, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association promoting their message

by airing their commercials. Social marketing is difficult for this campaign because people feel

like there are few incentives in the short-term. One of the principles of success from Chapter 3

states, “Bring real benefits into the present.” In reality, the benefits of the usage of a seat belt is

saving a life which seems more long term than short-term. Also, it can help prevent severe

injuries if one was in a car accident. In Chapter 3 it also states, “Have a little fun with messages.”

“A survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies found that 83% of 800 United States citizens

surveyed had seen, read, or heard about the Click It or Ticket campaign.” The campaign is

difficult to not come across because of it’s catchiness. The campaign has had fun with their

message by making their campaign name catchy so people are bound to remember it. In Chapter

4, it focuses on the different types of marketing research needed for social markers. The research

dedicated to this campaign is primary research. Primary research comes first hand, they deal

mostly with quantitative research. The campaign focuses on what percentage of the nation

increases their seat belt usage. Lastly, in chapter 6 the book defines target market as “a set of

buyers sharing common needs or characteristics that the company decides to serve.” Click It or

Ticket has one target market which are teens and young adults. Teens and young adults

sometimes are seen as irresponsible when it comes to choosing ethical guidelines because they

are not properly educated on how wearing a seatbelt can instantly change your life. By looking at
the Stages of change, this campaign is currently on the action step. It is always pushing for every

state to create laws that will mandate seatbelt laws for all passengers in the vehicle. There Click

It or Ticket is a social marketing campaign that is destined to effect change on their targets

behavior.

Article:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/click-it-or-ticket-day-and-night

https://web.archive.org/web/20040605123409/http://buckleupamerica.org/news/news_services.p

hp?id=101

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-legislation-requiring-all-motor-vehicl

e-passengers-16-and-older-wear-seat