Teenage boys as change-makers preventing violence against women: using co-design to develop a social marketing framework

Purpose The purpose of this research is to co-design a social marketing strategy to reshape the gendered social norms among teenage boys that influence violence against women (VAW). Although social marketing to shift gendered social norms around VAW has shown promising impact, programs targeting teenage boys are rare. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a phenomenological approach, using 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews and two co-design workshops with teenage boys aged 16–19 to understand VAW norms, and to co-design messages to shift violence-supporting norms. Findings Teenage boys consider VAW unacceptable. Yet they paradoxically find several inequitable gendered social norms acceptable, despite their contribution to VAW. Multiple factors keep a norms perception-reality gap in place: toxic masculinity, social media, influencers, peers and pornography. Co-design workshops generated the fundamental idea of Reframing VAW by exposing the links in the norms perception-reality gap through social marketing. Two enablers to help close this gap are: engaging boys as agents of change to shift gendered social norms; and the use of entertaining, authentic emotive messaging. Research limitations/implications Understanding how social marketing can effectively address teenage boy’s gendered social norms regarding VAW is currently limited. Reframing VAW in messaging by and for teenage boys shows promise for future research. Social implications Co-designing a social marketing strategy with teenage boys has the potential to move boys toward more gender-equal and subsequently non-violent behaviors. Originality/value The authors propose a VAW norms continuum to inform this issue and introduce a novel Prevention Framework for social marketing to close the norms perception-reality gap among teenage boys.