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The Social Norms Marketing Research Project (SNMRP) was a national, multi-site study to test the effectiveness of a social norms marketing campaign, Just the Facts (JTF), in reducing high-risk drinking among college students. This research study, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the U.S. Department of Education, was conducted by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), in Newton, Massachusetts, in conjunction with the Golden Key International Honour Society (Golden Key) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Background
High-risk drinking and its related consequences remain a serious problem at institutions of higher education and a key concern of school administrators, yet few studies have examined the effectiveness of environmentally-based prevention strategies. The persistence of this problem, coupled with a lack of scientifically validated strategies, points to the need for rigorous research to evaluate new programs and policies, particularly those that are designed to reshape the physical, social, legal, and economic environments in which students make decisions about their alcohol use.

The Theoretical Model Behind Social Norms Marketing
Researchers have established that college students tend to grossly overestimate the number of their peers who engage in high-risk alcohol consumption. This misperception is believed to influence students to drink more heavily by changing their perceptions of normative expectations (social norms). The basic idea behind a social norms marketing campaign is to turn this dynamic around by using campus-based media to inform students about the true levels of alcohol consumption among their peers. Having accurate information is hypothesized to lead to changes in perceptions of drinking norms on campus, and these, in turn, may lead to fewer students engaging in high-risk drinking.

Just the Facts
This study was a true experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of Just the Facts (JTF), a social norms marketing campaign already developed and pilot-tested by campus-based chapters of Golden Key. This study tested the JTF campaign’s effectiveness in correcting students’ misperceptions regarding the number of their peers who engage in high-risk drinking, in decreasing rates of high-risk drinking among college students, and in affecting behavior through shifting normative expectations about drinking.

Several colleges and universities have already reported success with campaigns like JTF, with student survey data revealing both more accurate perceptions of alcohol consumption on campus and decreases in high-risk drinking. While these results are encouraging, the evaluations of these campaigns have been limited, consisting of before-after comparisons only, often without taking into account relevant contextual data or using adequate control groups. Nonetheless, they have served to identify a potentially valuable prevention strategy that may have a significant impact on campuses nationwide.

SNMRP Research Activities
The Social Norms Marketing Research Project was the most comprehensive study to date to evaluate this innovative approach to reducing campus alcohol use. This study used a true experimental design to determine whether Just the Facts (JTF) leads to significant improvements in (1) students’ accurate perceptions of drinking on campus, and (2) a reduction in high-risk alcohol consumption.

Thirty-two institutions of higher education participated in the SNMRP over a five-year period, half of which were randomly assigned to an experimental condition, and half to a control condition. The experimental schools implemented JTF for three years, and the control schools implemented a revised campaign in the final year. Throughout the study period, data was collected at each participating school to determine the effectiveness of JTF:

The Survey of College Alcohol Norms and Behavior was administered each spring by EDC with 300 randomly selected students from each campus. This survey allowed for comparison of alcohol-related attitudes, norms, perceptions of norms, and behavior over time among experimental and control schools.

Contextual data was collected by each school’s research assistant to track events, policies, promotions, and other activities that may increase or decrease students’ alcohol use, and impact the effectiveness of JTF. This included interviews with key informants familiar with alcohol-related programs, policies, events, and incidents on and around campus, and a content analysis of alcohol-related articles, advertisements, editorials, and other materials found in campus and local newspapers.

In addition to the above data, school coordinators tracked all campaign implementation activities and document all materials used for the JTF campaign.

Education Development Center, Inc.
EDC is an international, nonprofit education and public health research and development organization that was founded in 1958 and is based in Newton, Massachusetts. The SNMRP is located within the Health and Human Development division of EDC, which also houses the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.