Children opinionate, decide, persuade, buy.
The advertising and marketing industry have been using this knowledge
and targeting children as initiators and influencers for particular products
and then developing an appropriate communication strategy targeted at these
members to evoke the desired response.
‘Pester Power’ is a common tactic
which young children practice which includes crying, nagging and whining which
gets their parents to buy them things. As they grow older, pester power
gets further refined into nudging, coaxing, arguing, reasoning and even emotional
blackmail to achieve what they want. Furthermore as children involve
themselves more with a product which appeals to them, they begin commanding an
increased level of influence on family matters and decision making.
When it comes to product buying, I am
intrigued with the level of brand smartness of our children exhibit and their
evolved sense of decision making, brand values and their active viral circle of
influence courtesy their peers and social media networking. Perhaps as a social
communication experiment, it is worth it to know that, with children being the nucleus
of a family, can they extend their influence to impact decisions and practices
beyond products and materialism within their ecosystem. Is it possible to
harness this remarkable pester power which they possess for behavioural change?
Of their Parents. Of Adults. Of the Community. Can schools be the fulcrum to
drive change with high quality facilitation and support?
Take for example road safety. Undoubtedly, parents
and adults have proven to be extremely poor role models. Increasing road
crashes are a testimony to how we conduct ourselves on road. We unabashedly
flout rules, pay bribes, maim and kill people and become passive bystanders in
case there is a mishap on road. Above all, we are leaving behind a poor road
environment which our children will have to put up with and negotiate as they
grow. So our key question: Can children
be influencers and take centre stage, firstly to become responsible road users
themselves, and secondly, to nudge responsible road behaviour amongst the adults
around them?
Through the CineArt Steer to Safety Program, we wanted
to find out that with well designed road safety education will children be able to
create media messaging which will change mind-sets and attitudes towards the
way people engage with roads. We decided to test waters and see whether school
students are able to apply their road safety learning to improve their road
environment which they experience everyday. Will they be able to sensitize their
parents and adults and show them the mirror?
Students of participating schools created
their road safety projects which they would drive. Most students were concerned
with safe travel to their school. Students created street plays, puppet shows,
wall art and quizzes to attract the attention of adults. They took to the
streets where their school is located. Bold and confident these road safety
volunteers knew that they were on the right side of the law and enforced road
rules, their pester power way. They pointed, nudged, sensitized, informed and
pleaded. The results were dramatic. Parents were taken by surprise. Most were embarrassed
and were quick to admit their fault. They were defensive. Some felt truly
guilty. Many admitted they would never do it again. No excuse is justified when
deep down you know what you are doing is careless and bad in law. And most
parents did not know how to react when children stopped them on the road and
earnestly requested them by saying that they loved them and that is the reason
they should wear helmet, which is good for their safety and for well-being of
their child with them. Small wonder cops indeed!
Through their road safety projects which
were smart and snappy, students sensitized bus drivers and van drivers about
their vulnerability on road and driver responsibility with school children. Students
created attention grabbing artistic speed breakers, installed bilingual warning
signage about Blind Curves, worked out solutions for school peak time traffic congestion,
created innovative eco-friendly transportation projects and mobile apps aiding
safe roads around them. They collaborated and advocated the through radio shows
and public campaigns. Each of the 30 student driven projects contributed to the
safer school travel with a new learnings, especially for adult road users.
What we also observed was that parents were largely,
open and willing learners. In fact, they were proud that students were showing
them the way. As our program grows in scale and purpose we are witnessing that
the student community can be counted upon. They are the future citizen. Going
forward, it is going to be their road environment. They are the ones who aspire
for better living and smart cities. They need to engage with the road safety
issue so that they can solution it as town planners, engineers, architects,
designers , social scientists, administrators, managers and above all, as
commuters and road users.
I believe, just like generating brand
awareness for products, all principles of marketing practices can be used to
enable road safety learnings to get internalized by students at an early age.
This includes integrated road safety campaigns, message repetition, content sessions, creative arts and even incentives
and prizes to attract their attention and encourage them to become responsible
road users. With this orientation, these
young road safety champions will easily take on the role as change-makers for
the larger society. After all, as John Whitehead said “children are the living
messages for a time we will not see”. We need to prepare them with the right content
so that they can weave their own story, for increasing the collective consciousness
towards creating a positive road culture around them.
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