What do college students do when a friend is mentally ill?
Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data.
Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety have increased, especially after the pandemic. Still, this topic continues to be stigma. The research methods used in this case study were designed to encourage college students to talk openly by conducting interviews in small groups and adding sensitive questions to an anonymous online survey to enable honest answers.
Problem
Discover the attitudes and behavior of college students when going through the stages of consumer journey mapping to search, share, and select resources to help a friend struggling with mental health.
Goal
Overview
Research Director
Collaborated with four students to design a marketing strategy by planning and overseeing the research process, defining methods and key findings.
Role:
Tools
Zoom
Qualtrics
Duration
4 weeks (only research)
Research Plan
Moderator Guide
Focus Group
Online Survey
Consumer Journey Map
Deliverables:
Background
Mental Health Issues On the Rise Among Young Adults
Understanding AllForLife services and research goals.
AllForLife Connecting Patient and Providers
AllForLife is a new online marketplace for affordable mental health services that connects patients and providers worldwide.
Research Findings should provide insights to support company goals:
Design a low-budget marketing strategy.
target college students in U.S, 18-26 years old.
Create awareness and engage with the target audience.
What College students do when helping a mentally ill friend?
Understand how they identify someone as mentally ill? (signs, symptoms)
Understand how they feel about intervening on their friend’s behalf
Understand what mental health problems (if any) are most prevalent in this age group
Understand how they communicate (language, slang, etc.)
Understand what services and/or terms do they research when looking for resources
Understanding their perception and process of identification, communication, and intervention.
Research Objectives:
30.6%
Young adults ( 18 - 25) in the U.S have the highest rate of experiencing any mental health concerns (30.6%) compared to adults (26 - 49), and the highest rate of serious mental illness (9.7%)
60%
of youth with major depression do not receive mental health treatment.
Method
Combining focus groups and online surveys
Building pre-defined responses based on qualitative findings.
I designed a moderator guide with open-ended questions to further explore research objectives based on participant feedback. My team and I used this guide to conduct a series of online focus groups and interviews, taking the role of moderator/interviewer and leading each research method.
Qualitative Research
1 Focus Group with four participants
1 Small Group Interview with two participants
9 one-on-one interviews
After analyzing answers from interviews and focus groups, I designed an online survey on Qualtric containing 22 questions: one open-ended question with text entry and 21 closed-ended questions composed of Likert scale, matrix table, multiple-choice, and rank order questions.
Quantitative Research
Findings
Using key findings to expand consumer journey map
Observance: student notices unusual behavior in a friend.
Reassuring observed behavior: student communicates with mutual friends and/or family members to confirm behavior.
Gaining understanding: student communicates with friend to better understand the situation.
Taking Action: student considers the best way to help
Searching resources: student seeks helpful resources
User experience on website: student navigates through websites (AllforLife) for more information.
Comparing and narrowing down options: student picks one or two brands to share with friend.
Sharing resources: student shares brand and content with friend.
By putting myself in the shoes of a college student who wants to help a friend with mental health issues, I established the potential steps the student would go through on the journey of helping a friend and finding a solution:
Consumer Journey Map
75% of students are "Extremely likely" to intervene
After analyzing qualitative and quantitative data, I better understood how students approach each step when helping a friend.
They will notice "unusual behavior" and communicate with their friend with a "positive and inspiring" attitude.
Key Finding #1
Students will seek "psychology" and "community support groups" on Youtube, Google, and websites, sharing information with their friends through Instagram and WhatsApp.
Key Finding #2
Gift Cards on the AllForLife homepage stand out during focus groups; participants described the page as "user-friendly" and "easy to understand." Still, others share their concern for "trust" issues. .
Key Finding #3
When choosing brands, students prioritize "affordability and outcome quality," sending low-budget services, and some of them would even be willing to pay between $1 and $50 to cover treatment.
Key Finding #4
Consumer Journey Map + Key Findings
Another significant finding is that most participants are more comfortable sharing information with their friends than family members. They feel like they can be themselves because they choose to be with these people based on commonalities.
Trusting friends over family
"It depends on the closeness with the family member. I would share with friends closer, more personal things than I would with a family member."
Participants Verbatim Responses:
"with your friends, you have more like a free conversation. So, you don't have that in mind. Oh, I would be judged about this if I say it."
"with a friend, you share your interests because they are in the same group. So, it is easy to connect with a person."
Impact
User-generated campaign with YouTube adds, Blog page, and WhatsApp community group.
Designing creative campaigns based on research findings
"We Do It AllForLife" Campaign Strategies
My team utilized research insights to propose marketing tactics that resonate with the target audience, making decisions about the campaign the message, communication channels, and visual graphics based on participants' responses.
1) Inspiring students through Youtube Ad:
The team designed this awesome video ad that implements research findings, using a positive and inspiring message to address mental health issues, showing friends supporting each other and highlighting AllForLife gift cards.
2) Building trust with weekly blogs/vlogs
AllForLife can show its commitment and expertise in mental health through weekly blogs, addressing participants' concerns for a trustworthy website and providing valuable tips for students to share with friends.
3) Promoting a "safe space" on WhatApps
The AllForLife WhatApps Community QR code will be added to the website and promoted around college campuses to connect with students and create a safe space and online community to support each other and exchange valuable resources.
Takeaways
Improving Moderator Guide!
Adding killer descriptive questions.
1) Asking participants to walk me through the process or describe the last time they help a friend:
To improve the quality of the qualitative research, I would have added a question in the moderator guide asking participants to walk me through the process and steps of helping a friend to improve the journey map further and directly gather clues about their thinking process instead of only asking individuals questions.