Don't forget the bushfire teen survivors by Jill Klein
Apr, 2009
By Jill G. Klein - Professor of Management, Marketing, Melbourne Business School
On December 26, 2004, a tsunami tore through the coastlines of India, Sri Lanka and South East Asia. In Thailand, the focus of this research, entire coastal villages were destroyed and up to 8,000 people died.
Despite the tremendous destruction, the Thai military as well as numerous public and private aid organisations quickly provided food, shelter, medical help and other essential items to the survivors.
Yet in the rush, they overlooked some silent needs of adolescent survivors and our research shows that this may have created some long-term emotional scars.
We learned five simple disaster relief lessons from our research that now have particular relevance to Australia's bushfire relief efforts.
The first lesson involves the types of goods that the adolescents felt would have been most helpful to them in the first few weeks after the tsunami. Many household items were mentioned; the teens were concerned primarily with helping their families.
When asked specifically about items for their own use, we found that in the first weeks after the tsunami, they desired possessions that brought comfort, helped pass the time in some engaging way, and allowed for sharing and interaction.
One girl aged 14 said she would have liked a stuffed toy to hug to relieve her sadness at night. Another said she would have liked a drawing set to draw with her friends, while a boy said that if I had a football I would play it with my little brother.
The second lesson addresses the strong sense by these teens that they had been overlooked by relief efforts. When asked if there were any items brought specifically for them, they replied, "no toys for us-just for the little kids."
Our interviews revealed that some relief efforts may have undermined adolescent self-esteem. In general, teens were thankful that people had come to help, but they had negative things to say about the fit between their needs and what was distributed.
"When they came to give us things, it was nice, but never things that we wanted. It was things that they wanted us to have."
There was a sense in these descriptions that poor-quality goods were not good enough for donors, yet donors thought they were good enough for the tsunami survivors.
This was most apparent in discussions of donated clothes. The clothes were in such abundance that the piles became a play¬ground for children. The teens searched for clothing that fit their self-image, but their efforts were often frustrated: One said, "There were a lot of clothes, but all the good clothes were taken before."
The adolescents we talked to were motivated to help others, particularly family members. However, in most cases, they were not given the opportunity to become involved in relief efforts. This provides us with the third lesson.
"We saw a lot of people giving things out," said one 14 y/o girl. "They were in a rush, and there were a lot of people around, grabbing things, taking things. We could have helped them make bags and [packs of goods to be distributed]. They said we were too little."
The few who were able to offer some help reported that this was beneficial to them and that they wanted to do more. "When I helped people, at that time, it helped me feel normal."
Lesson four from the tsunami is that agencies must find better ways of combining emergency response with rapid, participatory needs assessments.
Given the diminished sense of self that accompanies the loss of possessions and the crucial role of possessions for coping and self-definition, particularly for teens, it seems that aiding the repossession process of adolescents should be a priority after basic needs have been met.
Although the teens were helped to return to school-for which they were thankful-their needs for material possessions were over¬looked. Yet it may not have been obvious to relief organiza¬tions that this need existed or how to fill it. After all, it is not just any possession that can serve the self-enhancing and self-defining needs of the adolescent survivor.
Our research shows that not all material possessions are of equal impor¬tance to adolescent survivors. Some items are viewed as replaceable, whereas others are not. In other words, helping teens to repossess requires an understanding of their needs,
elf-perceptions, and attitudes toward their possessions.
This understanding is a forte of marketing practitioners in industries such as clothing, music, and toys, among others, but it is probably not a competency of most relief organiza¬tions, leaving an obvious opportunity for marketing in helping provide disaster survivors with the things they need.
During our research, we pilot-tested a menu containing three groups of pictures-items that could be of use for the whole family, hedonic gifts for teens, and school-related items. We then asked each teen to circle several items that he or she would like to receive from each of three categories.
We included these three categories because of our findings that teens first want to help their families and because some also strove to balance their desire for "fun" items with utilitarian possessions.
We found that they were happier thinking about hedonic items for themselves after these other concerns had been addressed. The teens enjoyed making choices from the menus and acknowledged that this would have been a helpful way for relief agencies to solicit their needs.
After the menu is constructed, it can be distributed to teens for their selections, and the goods can then be deliv¬ered. In Thailand, this work could have begun as early as five days after the tsunami, and selected gifts could have been in the hands of recipients within another few days.
Marketing companies could develop a Web site as part of their corporate social responsibility activities, and marketers from firms with knowledge of adolescent preferences could contribute lists of items based on their research. If such a database is used, the menu can be skipped. Teens would receive their selected possessions within days of the disaster. With teens being so motivated to help, we suggest involving teens, whenever pos¬sible, in this process.
The final lesson is focused at the individual level and involves the deeper and more time-consuming process of identifying treasured possessions that are replaceable. Teens must be interviewed and asked about the possessions they lost that were meaningful to them and whether they consider any of these objects replaceable or at least partially replace¬able. A few key items could then be identified and procured for each adolescent.
These findings provide an excellent corporate social responsibility oppor¬tunity for firms (and business schools) to assist NGOs in gaining a better understanding of survivor needs.
Reference: Klein, Jill G. and Laura Huang (2007), "After All is Lost: Meeting the Material Needs of Adolescent Disaster Survivors" Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 26, 54-59
Jill has recently joined MBS from INSEAD where she was on the faculty from 1997-2008. She has also been a faculty member at Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and spent periods as Visiting Professor at Bond University School of Business, Queensland, Australia, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland and The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Her research interests are consumer boycotts, corporate social responsibility, and international marketing.
