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1From Commercial to Socially Responsible Marketing
Since the introduction of modern marketing as a promising business discipline, sometimes attributed to Theodore Levitt (1960), noises have been made that the concept seemed to be too concentrated on tangible/commercial products. Despite the potential relevance of the marketing paradigm to almost anything we can think of (i.e., âbeing customer-centricâ), arguments were being made about the restrictive nature of the application of the concept of marketing. Indeed even Kotler, generally credited as one of the key influences on this discipline, soon made the argument that marketing is not just about promoting toothpastes (see Kotler and Levy, 1969; Kotler and Zaltman, 1971). Other voices joined and started to argue for the inclusion of other topics such as non-profit marketing and religious marketing (e.g., see Evans and Moutinho, 1999).
So what is social marketing? Is this just another case of hyperbole?
The aim of the next section is to introduce the concept of SM and define it broadly. Subsequently its precursors will be reviewed in turn for the rest of this section of the book.
There are many great products, services and ideas about how to make the world a better place but, as many marketing gurus would advocate, bad marketing usually leads to failed business enterprises. The reverse is also true: âhow many âunnecessaryâ or, even destructive products affect huge sections of our societies as a result of clever marketing (fatty food, alcoholic drinks, cigarettes, etc.)?â (Fourali, 2010).
The Journey from Marketing to Social Marketing
As is regularly argued (e.g., Fourali, 2010), social marketing (SM) is a relatively recent concept derived in the 1970s as a result of the development of the marketing concept. Hence it would make sense to first look at the broader concept of marketing before venturing toward any definition associated with SM.
But trying to define a concept is no small feat. Perhaps the following anecdote may demonstrate the point: a few years ago I was asked by the director of research of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) to be involved in a project for reviewing its famous definition of marketing. After several meetings/discussions and sifting through many new âdefinitionsâ suggested by the great and the good in marketing, it was decided to stick with the current (previously existing) definition as there was no agreement among the contributors about a new definition âfor the new millenniumâ.
Nevertheless, letâs review some of the well-known marketing definitions before contrasting them with the social marketing perspective.
Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.
(Kotler et al., 2001)
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
(CIM, 2016)
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
(AMA, 2016)
Marketing is the process of achieving corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition.
(Jobber, 2003)
As we can see above only one definition mentions the word âsocialâ as part of the definition of marketing. This was the one proposed by Kotler et al. (2001). This comes as no surprise as Kotler was one of the two authors generally credited with presenting the SM concept, as we will see later.
A more functional approach to defining the aims of marketing (responding to the question: âwhat is the key purpose of marketing?â) was produced by the now defunct UK-based Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body (MSSSB), following extensive consultations with marketing professionals inside and outside the UK (as will be shown later in the section on World-Class Standards for SM), as follows:
Marketingâs key purpose is to advance the aims of organizations (whether private, public or voluntary) by providing direction, gaining commitment and achieving sustainable results and value through identifying, anticipating and satisfying stakeholder requirements.
(Fourali, 2008)
This definition already took into account the fact that there are public and voluntary dimensions to marketing. However, is this enough to position the above definition as âsocial marketingâ especially when other concepts lay claim to the words âsocialâ and âpublicâ? For example, consider cause-related marketing, where an organization allocates a percentage of its funds/budget to a social cause; societal marketing, which reflects responsible business practices such as having policies regarding recycling, fair-trade or sustainability; and pro-social marketing reflected in building up a case for a social cause (NSMC, 2006).
It has been argued that SM as a new concept was first proposed as a separate discipline in the 1970s by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman when they realized that the same marketing principles/techniques that were being used to sell traditional products/services (such as toothpaste or gyms) to consumers could be used to âsellâ socially beneficent ideas, attitudes and behaviours (Weinreich, 2013). However, 25 years after the publication of this article, Kotler stated that other people already used the principles of SM without calling it SM. He quoted Wiebe (1952) who asked âwhy canât you sell brotherhood like you sell soap?â Nevertheless, the origin of social marketing is debatable since people have been thinking about and implementing ideas about bettering social conditions for centuries, if not millennia. A useful question to raise following this development is: is there an agreement among SM practitioners about what constitutes social marketing?
Perhaps to start with letâs look at some well known SM definitions:
The application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of society.
(Andreasen, 1995)
[SM is the] systematic application of marketing, alongside other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioural goals, for a social good.
(French and Blair-Stevens, 2005)
[SM is] a process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate, and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society (public health, safety, the environment and communities) as well as the target audience.
(Kotler et al., 2006, pers. comm. reported by Smith, 2008)
Although all these definitions cover both behavioural and social aims, it seems that the National Social Marketing Centre (French and Blair-Stevens, 2005) does not preclude the use of other concepts and techniques from the work of social marketers. In other words, they allow the creativity of the marketer to make use of non-traditional marketing concepts/techniques if this serves the purpose at hand.
Nevertheless Stephen Dann (2009) argued at the First World Social Marketing Conference that there was a need for a new definition of SM. He made use of a concept analysis software tool, known as Leximancer, to analyse no less than 45 then-existing definitions of social marketing. His suggested new definition was as follows:
[SM is] the adaptation and adoption of commercial marketing activities, institutions and process as a means to induce behavioral change on a temporary or permanent basis.
(Dann, 2009)
In my view, this definition seems to miss a key component of what constitutes an SM perspective and that is the âsocial goodâ dimension, unless the definition was only meant to reflect the general trend of views rather than what âshouldâ be included.
The author of this book was lucky to have been given the opportunity to manage a national project for developing the very first national occupational standards for SM. The project was undertaken under the aegis of the MSSSB, headed by the author. The project allowed him to link up with many gurus of SM including Philip Kotler, Alan Andreasen, Jeff French, Gerard Hasting, Craig Lefebvre, Ed Maibach and many others too many to list here (e.g., see details of First World Social Marketing Conference held in Brighton, UK at WSMC, 2008). The kind advice received from all those involved was decisive in getting some common agreement on the key components of SM. Our perspective in this project was not to just define the topic but rather to come up with some kind of functional description of SM to serve as the guiding reference for determining best practice. Hence, instead of trying to encourage practitioners to provide us with yet another definition of SM, we simply sought their help to provide us with âthe purpose of SMâ. After many discussions and conceptual iterations, we came up with the following key purpose of SM (this procedure will be presented in more details later):
To [a]pply marketing alongside other concepts and techniques in order to influence individuals, organizations, policy makers, and decision makers to adopt and sustain behaviour which improves peopleâs lives.
(Fourali, 2008)
Note that this definition reflects a few components of the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) approach. This reflected the general agreement among the contributors to the project that the NSMC was somehow closer to the general perception of the aims of SM.
More recently, a consensus definition was produced following consultation involving 167 members of the International Social Marketing Association, the European Social Marketing Association and the Australian Association of Social Marketing (Lefebvre, 2013a). The definition was meant to reflect both the nature and purpose of social marketing. The resulting definition these organizations endorsed, which came to be known as the âconsensus definitionâ of social marketing, states:
Social Marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviours that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.
Social Marketing practice is guided by ethical principles. It seeks to integrate research, best practice, theory, audience and partnership insight, to inform the delivery of competition sensitive and segmented social change programmes that are effective, efficient, equitable and sustainable.
(Lefebvre, 2013a)
This definition is clearly a good basis to build consensus. It seems that other definitions may need producing as the field develops to account for new developments. Perhaps the strongest element of this definition is that it made explicit the ethical dimension of SM with even an example of an ethical principle in the form of âequityâ. On the other hand, one still feels that the multidisciplinary nature of SM may need to be made more explicit. Perhaps the âfixing a problem situationâ (reflected in the âsocial changeâ expression) may also be moderated, as SM could be preventative in the sense of âimmunizingâ individuals and communities from the likely occurrence of unwanted situations (e.g., through acquiring attitudes and lifestyles) and encouraging a happier outlook on life (e.g., developing resilience). Perhaps this is another area that SM may need to outgrow. Changing behaviour is important but preparation for a variety of scenarios (through developing the right attitude) can be seen as a more effective approach. After all, one of the weakest areas of the behavioural approach is that not only can it be superficial (as in the simple stimulus-response that may overlook the proverbial âblack-boxâ represented by the conscious thinking mind) but it may also not be inclusive enough of the varieties of situations that a programme may be trying to address. In a way, the ethical dimension suggests that behaviour has to be underpinned by core beliefs; however, these beliefs currently seem to be primarily located in the mind of the project managers rather than the target population. Such core beliefs are at the heart of sustainable change as advocated by cognitive psychologists. Given these observations an alternative, functional, definition may therefore be:
SM is a multidisciplinary programme of change guided by a marketing philosophy, and inspired by strong ethical standards, to prevent, induce and/or sustain behavioural changes underpinned by core healthy beliefs that maximise the greater social good.
When considering the above, perhaps one may agree with the view that SM can be conceptualized as a mindset that reflects strategic planning, including partnerships development, with a view to influencing the behaviour of individuals, influential persons or policymakers for beneficial social and environmental changes (CDC, 2013). Nevertheless it is important to identify the key elements of this mindset or âcodifyâ it in order to not only ensure there are common grounds for recognizing SM but also provide a reference template to guide the implementation of SM programmes. In this respect French and Russell-Bennett (2015), building on earlier attempts (Andreasen, 2002; French and Blair-Stevens, 2005; Robinson-Maynard et al., 2013), came up with a helpful framework for determining the key dimensions that make up a SM programme. We feel the framework could have benefitted from a practical illustration to demonstrate its utility. We also feel that the idea of iteration that is inherent in adopting an action research perspective (see Chapter 8) would help improve the model through integrating within it the idea of cycles of research, implementation and evaluation. This and other issues will be discussed later in the book.
The next question one might ask is âhow does SM differ in practice from marketing?â This is the focus of the next section.
Differentiating Social Marketing from Marketing
Initially SM was very strongly associated with marketing. Researchers saw marketing as a tool that can be applied to a variety of situations including commercial and humanitarian/social objectives. This view is very much reflected by Lefebvre and Flora (1988), who argue that the key aspects of the marketing plan need addressing in order to market heal...
