Effectiveness of Social Marketing for Helmet Use Promotion among Child Motorcycle Passengers - ประสิทธิผลของการประยุกต์การตลาดเชิงสังคม ในการส่งเสริมการสวมหมวกนิรภัยในเด็กทีซ้อนท้ายรถจักรยานยนต์

Abstract

         This objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of applying the social marketing principle to promote the use of child helmets. It was conducted as a research and development (R&D) program at Hua Samrong Sub-district, Plangyao District, Chachengsao Province. The methodology was divided into four steps. The step 1 covered both qualitative and quantitative assessments among three target groups including parents, elementary school students and officers. Step 2 was conducted by applying the social
marketing principle to define the process of implementation, action plan and evaluation. Step 3 was the implementation phase using the quasi experimental research and two-group pre-test - post-test design. Step 4 utilyzed the health belief model to evaluate and observe the behaviors regarding helmet use. The social marketing process began with the study of target group and development of a marketing plan. Parents were then encouraged to procure helmets for their children as the baseline level of helmet use was very low. The concept of the marketing mix was utilyzed which include Product, Price, Place, and Promotion (4P’s), taking into consiration the promotion of value of helmet use, locations to reach target groups, affordable helmet price, and provison of information to children and parents. It was found that, with the model, the used child helmet increased significantly from nearly zero to 62.63%. Assessing the parents revealed the significant increase in risk awareness, perception of and motivation on the benefit of helmet use, and access to information on the use of child helmet (p<0.05). As well, students were found to have significantly higher score of knowledge on accident prevention through helmet use, and increased motivation on the use of child helmet.
Key words: helmet, child safety, social marketing