Evaluation of a university’s smart partying social norms campaign including emoji-style messaging

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Given the media saturated world today’s college students occupy, novel messaging needs to be utilized to cut through the noise to influence their perceptions of a perennial issue facing their population – problematic drinking behaviors. Method: The current study developed and implemented a year-long, multi-channel campaign effort by using the well-worn social norms framework in combination with a messaging tool all students are aware of – emojis – to produce messages seen by about half of the student body. Results: Campaign exposure was related to increased perceptions of the prevalence of safe partying behaviors, as well as the number of students who reported being more aware of what gets put into their drinks while partying. A non-social norms message – one with a percentage less than 50% of the population – also was related to increased perceptions, indicating that buttressing numerous social norms messages with one that is not may lead to a halo effect. Conclusions: Future research should strive to isolate emojis’ efficacy within health campaign messaging to determine if they can be used as a useful strategy to engage with college students, or just a passing fad.