What’s in a name? Branding of online mental health programming for university students.

Abstract

Objective: University students experience many help-seeking barriers, and thus not all students who could benefit from mental health services enroll in them. This study aimed to examine student enrollment in response to strategic marketing of an online prevention program for anxiety and depression. Method: Data were collected from students at two universities during recruitment phases for the online program. The program was branded as either "The Happiness Challenge" or "ReBoot Camp" through parallel sets of recruitment materials using language intended to address help-seeking barrier concerns (e.g., stigma, inaccessibility). The yielded samples were examined for unaddressed psychological need rates, demographic composition, and differential enrollment by student subgroups into either program brand. Results: Replicated results between Study 1 (n ϭ 651 students; 71.2% undergraduate, 80.3% female, 27.9% White non-Hispanic) and Study 2 (n ϭ 718 students; 60.6% undergraduate, 73.4% female, 53.2% White non-Hispanic) showed that more than a third of students qualified as having "unmet need" for services, enrollment was disproportionately self-identified as female and Asian students, Asian students were less likely to report prior service use and more likely to be categorized as having "unmet need," and ReBoot Camp was disproportionately selected by male students. Conclusion: Findings suggest that recruitment effectively reached students with unaddressed mental health need, including high enrollment by Asian students, who historically seek services less often. Additionally, important gender differences emerged in preferences for program name. These findings could inform how to market services in university settings to reach more students, including those from underserved subgroups. What is the public health significance of this article?This study demonstrates how the advertising and branding of a psychosocial intervention can strategically attract students in need of services. Marketing may be one strategy to reach underserved student groups and more students with unmet need in general.

User Experience, Engagement, and Popularity in Mental Health Apps: Secondary Analysis of App Analytics and Expert App Reviews

“…There have also been efforts to improve engagement with digital mental health interventions. While this work is in its early stages, some promising strategies include incorporating human-centered design principles [ 13 ], branding digital mental health interventions in ways that appeal to specific subgroups of users [ 14 ], sending reminders and “digital triggers” [ 15 ], and incorporating human support [ 16 ].…”

Randomized controlled trial of a web-based program for preventing anxiety and depression in university students.

“…First, typically that reasons for poor usage of tech-based interventions have been understudied (Torous et al, 2018). In contrast, this research iteratively developed a novel intervention across multiple studies (Rith-Najarian et al, 2022; Rith-Najarian, Boustani, et al, 2019; Rith-Najarian, Sun, et al, 2019), collecting feedback along the way. Such “designing for dissemination” is thought to ultimately facilitate successful real-world implementation and dissemination (Rabin & Brownson, 2017).…”

“…One study found that young people report fewer stigma concerns about universal prevention programs (i.e., when all students participate), compared to indicated prevention programs (i.e., only some students participate; Rapee et al, 2006). Similarly, another study found that a prevention program offered explicitly for “all students” attracted a high proportion of previously unserved students, including university students from traditionally underserved demographic groups (Rith-Najarian, Sun, et al, 2019).…”

“…Accordingly, the online intervention allows for shared peer experiences by teaching skills through individual user accounts simultaneously to all student users at a given campus. Next, persuasive system design and marketing research informed the integration of certain intervention features, such as branding, prize incentives, and email reminders (Kelders et al, 2012; Rith-Najarian, Sun, et al, 2019).…”

The ‘branding’ of IAPT and private cognitive behaviour therapy services in England

“…Historically, marketing of psychological interventions has been largely unexplored (Rith-Najarian et al, 2019). A systematic review of health branding showed there is now a wider range of subject areas; however, none of the identified topics were mental health related (Evans et al, 2015).…”