Social Marketing Report: Mexican Gangs

Introduction: I'm going to introduce myself. So I'm XXXXXX I have been approached by Mexican government in my capacity as a social marketing consultant. The Government representative wants me to help them to understand and ultimately reduce/prevent young peoples involvement in gangs. My task is to research and report on the current social situation in relation to gang culture/involvement and you should prepare a social marketing campaign which will tackle the main issue. So I'm going to use four main parts to do my task. Firstly I'm going to talking about the problem inside the country, after I'm talking about why it's to complicated to change behaviour, then I'm going to target my target and to finish I'm going to expose my campaign. Section 1: Literature Review For this report, I have chosen to study the Mexico. I think this country is a huge example concerning the gang culture/involvement. Indeed this problem isn't a past problem, but unfortunately it's also a current problem. Before to talking about the current problem, we need to expose the story of this gang problem. So the beginning was in Twentieth century with the USA forbidding the opium consumption. That permits the development of gangs in Mexico, main border country with USA, and main supplier of drugs and others illegal products. An increase of gangs after the Second World War was notified. Then, with the birth of lot of other gangs and the birth of a huge criminality. Especially with lot of died in the country, the things take another direction. Thus, the government with the new President elected in 2006 Felipe Calderon has decided to stop this gang culture, above all their power on the country. Now than we have talking about the story and reasons who have conducted at development of gangs in Mexico. We can talking about the current actuality and different problem inside the country. Thus, we can separate the problems for the country in several problems:

The major parts of gangs could be classified like "generational" gangs, indeed lots of families have belonged at those gangs, crossing generation. He is not unusual for a young person to be in gang where his father was, or his uncle.

In prison there is a development of gangs. With example the prison system from California, he is responsible of the development of gangs and has conducted at development of the mafia Mexicana.

The gangs problems affect especially the border cities such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo. Lots of younger and adults person consume drugs, above all heroins. Thus, the drugs are easily available in the little shops. Currently lot of people going in prison because they are drugs on them, and result, they finish themselves in the gang. The growth of "maquilas" (assembling plant) in the border cities has created an important urbanization of the other cities inside the country. Thus, lots of immigrants from Mexico are arrived quickly to get a job in this new industry. And often the parents who are left to get a job in those border cities leave their children grow up without monitoring. Result, the dropout rate in school it's

huge in these areas. Those younger are more vulnerable to be recruiting by the gangs. This situation allow for the criminality to prosper. Section 2: Barriers to attitude and behaviour change: Labelling theorists were the first prominent sociologists of deviance to accept that there could be a variety of discourses concerning crime and deviance and that no one theory could explain all of the phenomena. Indeed labelling theorist argued that in a world of multiple perspectives there can be no such thing as a 'natural crime', but what is defined as crime is the result of social processes, in which certain actions by certain people at certain times come to be labelled as criminal by others (Crime and Deviance, Interactionist Explanation by Tony Lawson and Tim Heaton). So, all theories show that to be a criminal is not natural. Indeed they exist several barriers to attitude and behaviour change among the population under consideration, such as we have seen above. There are lots of barriers to attitude and behaviour change among the population Mexican. Indeed those barriers restrain the people to change his attitude to stop forming part of gang. Firstly, we can begin with some statistics allowing understanding why the people prefer to join a gang. As reported by the website "www.vivamexico.info", the unemployment rate is 5%. The gangs being a way to win money easily.A huge difference between wages. Thus, 40% of the Mexican population lives with 2 USD$ per days. Allowing at corruption to be present, and allowing a insecurity feeling, thanks to underground economy. The level of poverty is 30%. So, the money earned with gang being an easily way to improve their life, it's a reason why it's difficult to change attitude towards gangs, for them. Above all that Mexico is may be in the top 10 of global economic power, he's also 54 th country concerning human development index (HDI). All those numbers to show you the existence of many disparity inside the country, allowing to develop the gang participation and don't allowing to change attitude towards those gangs. But the most important barriers for the people to don't change his attitude to gangs are the following: Almost all the security agencies are infiltrated by the gangs. To give you a concrete example, during the 90, Jesus Rebollo (an important person) who has struggled against drugs, was taken doing business with the gangs and received lot of money by the gang to protect them. Among agencies infiltrate by the gangs, there are the army, federal police (the Federal Investigation Agency was so corrupt that she has been stopped), Attorney's office, the Mexican areas of Interpol, and many national police. Because of this huge corruption and distrust of people about their policy institution, lot of crime aren't reported. Thus, according of Seligson survey in 2004, only 37% Mexicans believe that their judiciary system can't punish the criminals. The distrust to policy institution being the main reason. Another barrier allows showing the difficulty for the population under consideration to change attitude. Many Mexican younger aren't access to employment, and schooling possibilities. So after there is only one solution for them: join a gang.

Section 3: Target Market: I think in this case "delinquent behaviour" the best reference to a model of behavioural change is the most famous model developed by Prochaska and Diclemente "Transtheoretical Model". They suggest that the target move through five stages as they go from ignorance or indifference toward some important behaviour to becoming committed to it (Marketing Social Change by Alan R. Andreasen). Precontemplation: Consciousness, social liberation. Targets really are not thinking about the behavior as being appropriate for them at this point in their lives. Contemplation: Dramatic relief, environmental and self-reevaluation. Targets are actually thinking about and evaluating recommended behaviours. Preparation: Self liberation. Targets have decided to act and are trying to put in place whatever is needed to carry out the behavior. Action: Counter conditioning, stimulus control, helping relationships. Targets are doing the behavior for the first time, or the first several times.

Maintenance: Self-efficacy-High. Targets are committed to the behavior and have no desire or intention to return to earlier behavior. (www.uri.edu)

Obviously, the appropriate type of intervention strategy for each target depended on the stage where the individual is at this moment. The social marketer's goal is to bring the target to the next step. Only through a series of steps will any target reach the social marketer's goal of permanent behaviour change. According to my previous research, i think that my target is yet in precontemplation step. But now the question is to know which target concerning by the problem is showed in part 1 and 2. I think the good target for this study is: adolescent and young adults between 12 and 30 years old, above all men. But especially the adolescent who are the first victims of gangs in Mexico. But also the families, because when there are a very younger people inside the gang, there are lots of risks that parents or others family member belong to the gang. The adolescents become perfect targets to be recruited by gang. Thus, they using the destitution and recruit these lost adolescent in the world around them. And after these adolescent find in this criminal activity: a certain social mobility, certain selfesteem and sources of incomes. Thus, lots of gangs are especially composed of adolescents (www.irenees.net). According to the Transtheoretical Model is good to changing twelve types of behaviour. Of course, all of them are relevant to social marketers. So there are follows types: Quitting smoking Quitting cocaine Controlling weight Reducing fat in the diet

Practicing safer sex Choosing condoms Reducing sun exposure Reducing radon exposure Increasing activity and exercise by sedentary individuals Increasing mammography screening Increasing physicians antismoking activities and, Reducing adolescent delinquent behavior.

In this list, we can see the presence of our target: the adolescent. That shows us that this theory is especially doing for the target found after my research. Now that we have found our target, we can pass at the next step. So now we are going to talk about the campaign allowing changing the behaviour of my target. Section 4: Proposed Social Marketing Campaign:

Before to start all marketing strategy, it's logical to define some objectives. To do that, we are going to use an Anglo-Saxon method called SMART. This method will allow us to know why we doing this campaign, how we could do this campaign and what this campaign going to bring for our target. The SMART going us allow to know where we going. Here is my objective by method SMART: Specific: My objective going to describe precisely the situation and the result that we should doing. For that, we need a precise objective. Now, we know that the Mexican Government doing lot of action with the army to stop the gangs. These actions traumatize the Mexican population because of gunfight in the street. I think we need firstly to aim a drop recruitment of adolescent people, a half drop during the first 3 month. Then, achieve to decrease the adolescent level inside the gangs. We aim a decrease of half during the first 6 month.

Measurable: In order to measure the progress state of my objectives, we have needed to measure these objectives by concrete information. In our case, we should look on the tuition rate, illiteracy rate, unemployment rate, criminality rate and the number of murders. Except the unemployment rate, all rates should be in drop.

Achievable: This objective seem enough ambitious. It's a huge challenge who going to ask us a lot of effort. But these efforts will be profitable for the Mexican population who suffer of gangs problems since to much time.

Realistic: I think the context of our campaign will be not a surrealist problem to succeed our objectives. Indeed if we taking the Montreal example. According to web site "www.journalmetro.com", the criminality rate because of gangs has

decreased of 26% in 2009. A good result that show us that with a good campaign we can realize these objectives. Temporal: Firstly, we need to succeed to decrease of half the adolescent recruitment toward gangs after 3 month. Then we could pass to second objective: decrease of half the number of adolescent inside the gangs yet. Indeed, the succeed of the first objective will allow us to show at these adolescent that our program working, and it's possible to succeed in the life without gangs, without violence etc. A second step that should succeed after 6 month. Now that we have targeted our objective of precise way, thanks a SMART method. We could pass at social marketing campaign. For this, we are going to use all elements of the social marketing mix.Like commercial marketing, the goal is on the consumer, on learning what people want and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to be producing. The planning process takes this consumer focus into account by addressing the elements of the "marketing mix." This refers to decisions about the conception of a Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Product: We know that our target joins the gangs easily, because it's a way for them to find a stable situation, earning money easily in this poor country. So our product it's to offer give a hand through an association. This association is composed of four centers. A center to allow them a schooling support. A center to allow them to coming after the school. We will find in this center, a place to play at football for example, but also to watch movies, to read books, etc. A center to allow at people who doesn't want continues the school, to learn a new job. Finally a preventive center to inform younger people on the risks with the gangs.

Price: Our target being very poor, we could not do paying this service with money. But we are going to ask them to pay with their times. We are going also to ask them to sign a little contract, to show them that it's not a joke, but it's very serious.

Place: The aim is to answer demand our target. For this, we need to be the nearest of the target. In this goal, we will open an association in each city where the gangs and the violence is more important. That will allow us to be in direct contact with the target. Then, we are going to create a huge center far away of these cities. This center will allow for younger people without families, or the younger people who wants to go out gangs, but afraid about reprisal, to be in safe. Promotion: We should attain the public target and increase the demand. So we are going to use 3 canal systems to be sure about our visibility. Firstly with radio, where we are going to send simple messages, clear and repetitive for that the target knows clearly who we are, what we are doing and with which means. Then with the TV. This channel will allow us to show our premises, our goal, etc. Thus, we could show some interviews about younger people having stopped to be in the gangs, and the good effects of this decision, etc. Finally, we are going to use the street. Indeed, some people could go directly talking with younger people to say them what is our action. They could also going in

schools. And plus, the police could send the young people finding in the street toward our associations. With these 4Ps, we can also using these means, in order to improve our social marketing: Publics: Indeed our public will be not only adolescent people, but also the families who should give us their agreement to support their childrens. Partnership: We are going to use the support of associations on the field yet. The same associations who working in the same goal: to stop the gangs. Purse Stings: We are going to use government grants to realize our objectives and also donations.

Conclusion:

Firstly thanks to our researches on Mexico, we have found the different problems with the gangs, and they are huge. And according to development of gangs, we knew since the beginning that our task isn't easier. A task who becoming more and more difficult, when we know that will be very hard to change the target behaviour. A target young but frighteningly touched by the misery and by the gang violence. Yet and thanks to example such as Montreal, proving succeed of a good campaign. So, I think that we have at last found the good method to stop young people recruitment in creating these associations nearest them. References: Books -Crime and Deviance, Interactionist Explanation by Tony Lawson and Tim Heaton - Marketing Social Change by Alan R. Andreasen

Web site - www.uri.edu - www.irenees.net - http://la-brochure.over-blog.com - http://www.usaid.gov - http://www.lavoixdunord.fr - http://www.pta.org - http://www.scribd.com - http://cyberdoc.univ-nancy2.fr - http://www.thetimes.co.uk - http://www.lemonde.fr - http://www.proceso.com.mx/