We do it

Though overall participation in Boy Scouts of America programs has grown aggressively over the past several years, one segment hasn’t quite kept up the pace.

Since 1979, the total youth membership in scouting programs, such as Tiger Cubs and Cub Scouts, has increased by 33%, while membership in the Boy Scout segment has hovered around the same level, according to Lee Sneath, national spokesperson for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

Cub Scouting, which is tailored to the needs of 8 to 10 year old boys, is a home-centered program designed to build skills while emphasizing family and social involvement. Boy Scouting is more outdoor- and activity-oriented, emphasizing the 10-1/2 to 17 year old boy’s growing desire for independence and interaction with peers.

“We have found that traditionally we lose a lot of boys who come out of Cub Scouting and simply don’t make the transition to Boy Scouting,” Sneath says. David Palmer, national director of relationships and marketing, Boy Scouts of America, says that BSA has conducted extensive research in this area to understand how boys’ needs change as they grow, to make sure Scouting keeps up with those needs.

“The (Scouting) program is one that a boy uses throughout growing up, and that boy changes dramatically each year, so gaining an understanding of trial and repeat by product line, so to speak, was a very necessary element of the whole process. Once we understood how that product was being used and perceived, then it was necessary to understand what our basic problems were,” Palmer says.

For example, membership audits and follow-up surveys found that some boys drop out of the Cub Scout program early, because of a family move, for example, while others quit because they no longer feel challenged.

“After a couple of years, the Cub Scouting activities were still fun, but they weren’t as challenging in the third or fourth year as they were in the first and second, so the boys would move on to other activities.”

(Scouting isn’t the only organized activity that boys choose to leave early. Palmer says that retention studies with boys in the same age group who participate in league sports show a similar two-year involvement cycle. “All of a sudden when they get to age 10 or 11, they leave whatever it was they were into,” he says.)

When re-contacted a few years later to see if they were interested in joining Boy Scouts, many of these ex-Cub Scouts expressed confusion, Palmer says. Unable to discern between the two programs, they thought they had already been in Boy Scouts.

“They perceived themselves as past users, but they were past users of a different product,” Palmer says.

This backpack shaped direct mail piece was sent to ex-Cub Scouts to interest them in rejoining the Scouting program as Boy Scouts.

Increase awareness

To increase awareness that Boy Scouting is an activity-oriented program that differs in many respects from Cub Scouting, BSA began working with Salt Lake City-based Bonneville Media Communications on a multi-pronged marketing campaign.

To begin with, says Jeff Hilton, vice president of marketing and account manager for Bonneville Media Communications, ex-Cub Scouts between the ages of 9 and 12 were identified as the target audience.

“We really felt that boys who were Cubs at one point were the most familiar with it and had the best feel for what Scouting could offer,” Hilton says.

Focus groups

Focus groups were held last May in Los Angeles , Kansas City, and Minneapolis to gain greater understanding of how these boys, who were labeled “tryer-rejectors,” viewed Scouting.

The boys were shown concept statements that emphasized different aspects of Boy Scouting, such as the fact that it offers new experiences, and that it is different than Cub Scouting. Another statement dealt with the concept of fun, claiming that Boy Scouting represents a chance to have a good time and interact with other boys of the same age. These statements were presented in a discussion format; the boys were asked to provide their reactions to each and draw comparisons between them.

As expected, many of the boys couldn’t distinguish between the two programs; they felt that Boy Scouting was a continuation of Cub Scouting, with the same activities and structure. The new experiences concept was very important to them, but they also felt that the social aspect, being able to be with boys their own age, was significant. In addition, some were skeptical that Scouting would deliver the attributes mentioned in the concept statements.

Hilton says that the boys’ reactions provided valuable guidance on the approach the marketing campaign should take.

“We knew we had to jolt the boys out of their chairs and say to them, ‘Hey! Boy Scouting is not Cub Scouting. It’s different. It’s designed to meet your active needs, with camping, hiking, fishing, skiing. ‘We really had to be persuasive in terms of saying, ‘We do these things, we don’t just talk about them,’ which became part of our creative line.

“It really came down to selling the benefits of Scouting to these boys in an aggressive way. We knew we had a product that they’d be interested in if we could just convince them that that’s what the product was.”

Mothers play significant role

Previous research had indicated that mothers play a significant support role in the activities of boys in the target 9 to 12 age range, so focus groups were also held with mothers of the boys who participated in the focus groups.

They too were shown concept statements, which listed some of the potential benefits Scouting offered their sons, such as a positive alternative to potentially destructive influences, and a chance to develop character- and self-esteem-building skills and habits.

“We found that mothers were most interested in what Scouting could do for their boys in terms of personal development, as opposed to the boys, who just want to go out and have a good time and do all the activities. Mothers wanted to know ‘What will it do for my boy? How will it help him develop?’” Hilton says.

Thus, the research indicated that the content of certain elements of the marketing campaign—the television spots, magazine ads—would have to be specifically tailored to the mothers and sons.

Like their sons, the mothers had an unclear picture of what went on in the Boy Scouts program. “Mothers didn’t have an understanding of what Boy Scouting was, particularly what it offered that was different from what their boys had already experienced in Cub Scouts,” Hilton says.

More groups held

In late July, more focus groups were held in the same markets with another set of tryer-rejector boys and their mothers, testing the campaign’s components with animatics of the television ads, mock-ups of print ads, and versions of the poster, t-shirt, and direct mail piece.

Based on reactions of the focus group participants, several changes were made, including the elimination of some print ads and a redesign of the t-shirt.

“The research really helped us to refine our creative approach and come up with a much more effective campaign. Based on that second set of groups, we were able to make pretty dramatic changes.”

“We Do It”

The campaign, which emphasizes the theme “We Do It,” was unveiled in October in six test markets. The television spots aimed at the boys accent activity and social interaction, showing Scout troops engaging in many activities, such as fishing, hiking, climbing. At the end, the youthful narrator invites the boys to pick up a free t-shirt by calling a toll-free number for more information.

The ads aimed at the mothers use similar footage but to a different effect. To emphasize the Scouting program’s character-building potential, the spots intersperse lines from an inspirational Robert Frost poem with added scenes of Scouts at work building a bridge, setting up a campsite.

An activity-packed poster showing Boy Scouts hiking, water skiing, and fishing, for example, has been distributed to schools and the direct mail piece—which is shaped like a backpack—will be mailed to tryer-rejectors identified from BSA mailing lists to supplement the other promotional efforts.

“We had mass vehicles in place, but we really wanted to target those boys with a very focused medium, and direct mail seemed to make a lot of sense,” Hilton says.

Tracking research

To monitor the effectiveness of the marketing efforts, two ongoing tracking research projects are in use. A cross-sectional tracking study will be performed with mothers and boys four times during a one-year period to monitor changing attitudes about scouting and leisure time activities for boys. In addition, a panel study will follow attitudes of a group of boys and their mothers in similar areas. BSA’s David Palmer says that overall, the awareness program has two basic goals:

“To understand our market, and to use proven marketing tools and techniques to increase the usage of our Boy Scout program, so that boys have the opportunity to join us and benefit from what we have to offer.

“What you have here is the epitome of marketing and marketing research at use. You have a successful organization that is using market research to find bottlenecks that have kept it from growing as fast as it could, and then applying marketing tools to alleviate those bottlenecks,” he says.

“We want to reach as broad a spectrum of boys in that age group as we can,” says BSA spokesperson Lee Sneath. “We want to keep the boys that are coming out of Cub Scouts actively involved in the Scout program by moving them into Boy Scouts. We also want to attract boys with no Cub Scouting experience to give Scouting a try, because we feel that we have absolutely the finest youth development program on the market.”