Weathering the Storm: A Social Marketing Perspective on Disaster Preparedness and Response with Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

The devastation of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina presents an opportunity and an obligation to examine the human and social factors that influenced the nation's response to this disaster. Lessons from Katrina suggest that a social marketing approach to disaster management could increase the likelihood of positive outcomes for individuals and communities when a disaster strikes. The authors propose an integrated approach to effective risk communications that encourages selfprotective behaviors.Deirdre T. Guion is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph's University (e-mail: dguion@sju.edu). Debra L. Scammon is Emma Eccles Jones Professor of Marketing, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah (e-mail: mktdls@ business.utah.edu). Aberdeen Leila Borders is Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of New Orleans (e-mail: aborders@uno.edu). This article is dedicated to the memory of Derek F. Ridge and all the others who weathered the storm but did not survive its aftermath. For centuries, catastrophic events were considered "acts of God" beyond the control of human decision makers. Today, there is widespread agreement that though natural disasters cannot be controlled, their impact can be managed. The traditional model of disaster management (Mileti 1999) recognizes that disasters evolve through time. Mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery are identified as explicit phases that differ with regard to the management efforts that are required to deal with disasters. For 50 years, this model has served as the basis for disaster management practice and has guided research on experiences with disasters. Through the focused efforts of social science researchers, a wealth of information about disasters and their management has been amassed.Despite the diversity of perspectives represented in the research, little of it has drawn from the field of marketing. What can marketing offer? Because of marketing's focus on the needs of consumers, we contend that a social marketing perspective could shift focus in disaster management from the needs of emergency management personnel to the needs of people whom they are charged with assisting. To put people's needs first, though, emergency managers need a deeper understanding of the perspectives of individuals in various subgroups of the population, particularly with regard to how they perceive and respond to risks.Disasters are both sociological and political events, and though hurricanes and earthquakes are acts of nature, the disasters resulting from these events are social in origin (Tierney, Lindell, and Perry 2001). This study examines the human and sociological realities of area residents as they prepared for and responded to the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. In this article, we apply a classic four-phase model of emergency management (Mileti 1999) to analyze the factors that affect people's preparedness for and response to disasters. Critical analysis of the human and organizational response to Katrina ...

Informing crisis alerts using social media: Best practices and proof of concept

“…Concerning receiver characteristics, studies have shown that, for instance, people with previous flood experience envisioned flood consequences differently compared to previously unaffected people: People without previous experience underestimated the negative effects of floods (Siegrist & Gutscher, 2008). This may have an effect on how they react to and follow for instance evacuation instructions, which is something that needs to be considered as it is important to affect and change people's behaviour before something happens and not whilst it is already going on (Guion, Scammon, & Borders, 2007). One possible way to do this is to make use of new socio-technical behaviour, and affect people through the use of social media (Goolsby, 2010).…”

Should We Leave? Attitudes towards Relocation in Response to Sea Level Rise

“…For example, the model can interpret how a diabetes patient perceives long-term risks associated with unhealthy eating behaviors and whether such cognitive assessment may influence his/her diet habits accordingly. It was later justified by the scholars in behavioral studies concerning earthquake [22], wildfire [23], flooding [24], and other natural hazards [25], but the applications on slow-onset disasters are rare.…”

A Case Study of Preliminary Cost-Benefit Analysis of Building Levees to Mitigate the Joint Effects of Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge

“…Accelerated climate change due to human activities requires the rethinking of hazard risk management to incorporate the BCA approach. Traditional disaster management practice has four successive phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery [54]. The preparedness phase requires the consideration of a combination of adaptation strategies that are "no-regret" and cost-efficient.…”