Monique Turner MD Jan 31, 2009 13:48 pm

Dear Colleagues:

My name is Monique Turner. I am a professor at the University of Maryland, the director of the Center for Risk Communication Research (www.riskcenter.umd.edu) and the president of Mpact Communication, LLC. My research focuses on the development of innovative, effective social marketing messages. Most of my research has dealt with emotional appeals (when they work, when they do not) and how emotion affects the way people are persuaded to change their behavior, particularly in pro-social contexts.

Social marketers understand that the best way to encourage pro-social behavior is to focus on broad-based interventions. Inherent in effective interventions are innovative messages that influence attitudes. Research is clear that for every message we send, we should think about: how to best present our evidence, the emotions we communicate, whether to discuss pros and cons of behaviors, the intensity of the language we use and much more. In order to get people to do things such as conserve water, use public transportation, change their light bulbs, and avoid using plastic bags, we need to think about these issues both in terms of the individual messages we use and the larger broad-based interventions we develop.

There is a unique training opportunity designed to strengthen the impact of broad-based interventions by rethinking our approach to the messages they communicate .The course is called "Advancing Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors Through Research Based Messaging," It will be offered April 16 and 17, 2009 in Alexandria, VA. The training represents an innovative approach to pro-social interventions and message design by combining social marketing principles with research-based best practices from the social influence literature.

You can learn more and register for the course at: http://www.mpactcomm.com. You can also e-mail me at [email protected].

I am excited to provide this training and I hope to see you there. Also, please help me spread the word by forwarding this message to your colleagues. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Monique

Monique M. Turner, PhD


Monique Turner
Associate Professor, U of Maryland
President, Mpact Communication
United States
http://www.riskcenter.umd.edu