Cortland County Social Norming

Cortland County Underage Drinking Social Norming Campaign 

This campaign is focused on youth alcohol prevention. Social norms interventions like this aim to provide accurate information about peer group behaviors to correct misconceptions about norms. For example, presenting teens with accurate information about teen alcohol use rates, which may be lower than they assume. This can help alleviate the assumed peer pressure of an idea that "everyone is doing it."

In year one of implementation the social norming marketing campaign were launched on snapchat. In the first year of implementation, which was Phase I social norming marketing campaign, all messages were formatted as social norming messages using binge drinking rates or data related to consequences. As these were social norming messages, social media analytics data for the binge social marketing campaign are included with the social norming campaign data in this report. However, social media analytics data reported specifically for the binge drinking social marketing strategy includes only ads that were related to binge drinking rate or consequences of drinking.

The percentage of 7th-12th graders who overestimated peer alcohol use decreased from 43.2% in 2019 to 32.4% in 2020, a 33% decrease.