Essential Element 7: Developing Messages for Urban Adolescents

Part 2: Essential Elements of SBCC Programs for Urban Adolescents

This Essential Element will help you learn more about developing effective messages for your audience in the appropriate language. Here are some suggestions for working through this element:

Read the text from beginning to end.
Complete Worksheet #12 and Worksheet #13 using data from your program and your audience. Examples of each Worksheet are included to show how the program in Zanbe answered the questions.
Having completed Essential Element 1 and Essential Element 4 will provide you with the information you need for Essential Element 7. If you have not worked through Essential Elements 1 and 4, make sure you have reliable information about your intended audience. This information can come from reports, documents and statistics from government ministries, international and local NGOs or research institutes. You may also look at media consumption studies and other research done about your intended audience in your city or in your country.
Refer to the resources the end of this Essential Element as needed.

What is the Purpose of this Essential Element?

The purpose of this Essential Element is to:

Develop a creative brief that summarizes the key information for the creative developers using Worksheet #12: Creative Brief.
Collect the terminology that your intended audience uses with Worksheet #13: What Youth Say.
Learn about the importance of pretesting.

Why is this Important?

Key message points outline the core information that will be conveyed in all messages and activities. Message design cuts across all strategic approaches. Messages must thus reinforce each other across these approaches. When all approaches communicate the same key message points, effectiveness increases.

The process of developing good messages and materials starts with research and data, determining what you want to achieve (objectives), with whom (audience segmentation) and where (channels). If you are not clear about any of these steps, you can refer to Essential Elements #1, #3, #5 and #6 in this I-Kit.

All of this information is necessary to develop concepts or draft materials to review with your intended audience to make sure messages will be understood.