Disease demarketing: the college AIDS challenge

The college population is an important target group for AIDS risk behavior demarketing. While college students appear to be factually knowledgeable they reportedly often engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. This study sheds light on this incongruity by investigating free association images of AIDS and the salient emotions revealed about the disease. The results suggest that students perceive strongly the finality of the disease with fear and sadness representing the most salient emotions. However, men and women may need to be treated as distinct demarketing and promotional targets. Males and females differ in their image of AIDS which may necessitate developing different promotional messages for each of them in order to more effectively influence attitudinal and behavioral change.