The SAGE Handbook of Social Marketing

Gerard Hastings, Kathryn Angus, Carol Bryant, Gerard Hastings, Kathryn Angus, Carol Bryant, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781849201889
• eBook ISBN: 9781473971677
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

For the first time, this benchmark handbook brings together a systematic framework and state-of-the-art thinking to provide complete coverage of the social marketing discipline. It presents a major retrospective and prospective overview of social marketing, helping to define and shape its current and future developments by:

- examining the defining elements of social marketing, their intellectual origins, evolution, current status and direction of travel;

- discussing how these have been used in practice, emphasising emerging areas and recent innovations; and

- setting the agenda for future research and development in the discipline.

For academics, this book will fill the gap in comprehensive social marketing literature, while being of interest to policymakers and post-graduate marketing and health studies students alike as it explores the idea that tools used to market fast-moving consumer goods and financial services can also be applied to pressing social problems.

SECTION 1

Theoretical Debates

1. THEORETICAL MODELS OF BEHAVIOUR CHANGE – R. DONOVAN

Donovan’s chapter opens with a discussion of the reasons why theory is important to social marketers and an overview of theoretical foundations relevant to the field. The chapter describes ‘cognitive decision models’ (e.g. the health belief model, protection motivation theory, social learning theory, and the theory of reasoned action) as well as social change models (communityreadiness model, stages of change, diffusion theory, social ecology model). It also includes a brief discussion of two concepts largely often overlooked by social change theorists: morality and legitimacy. Behaviour modification (or applied behaviour analysis) principles are also presented to underscore the importance of considering environmental factors and skills when translating people’s beliefs, attitudes and intentions into action. Donovan ends with a reminder that these models are useful for targeting policymakers as well as individuals, and a call for future research to enhance the predictability of health behaviour theories.

2. SOCIAL MODELS FOR SOCIAL MARKETING: MARKETING: SOCIAL DIFFUSION, SOCIAL NETWORKS, SOCIAL CAPITAL, SOCIAL DETERMINANTS AND SOCIAL FRANCHISING – R. C. LEFEBVRE

In this chapter, Lefebvre reviews theoretical models that focus beyond the individual. To equip social marketers to tackle social needs such as poverty and policy change, he reviews key elements of social determinants, social diffusion, social networks, social capital, building communities and social franchising. Lefebvre makes a compelling argument that a ‘more comprehensive perspective on how social marketing can be applied to the work of social innovation and change can provide new opportunities and tools to realise its potential and our ability to do good for the world’.

3. RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND SOCIAL MARKETING – S. MARQUES AND C. DOMEGAN

Marques and Domegan note that social marketing can be undermined by an underuse of relationship marketing. From three differing definitions, they propose that the Nordic school of thought has the most to offer social marketing, where relationship marketing defines the organisation as a service governed from a process management perspective with developed active networks and partnerships. The authors present the three key processes underlying relationship marketing as: the interaction process of the established relationship(s); the two-or multi-way communication process; and the value creation process, or how customers strive to fulfil their needs. These processes are supported by six psychological and one behavioural construct which social marketers should address and explore: relationship quality, trust, perceived value, satisfaction, commitment, identification and cooperation.

4. UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL NORMS: UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM APPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL MARKETERS – P. KENNY AND G. HASTINGS

Social norms perceptions, part of the peer influence field, are a powerful influence on human behaviour, especially amongst the young and vulnerable. In their chapter, Kenny and Hastings describe how social norms’ formation, influence and how marketing campaigns can manipulate them, are important to social marketers, as is an awareness of the categories of prescriptive and descriptive norms. Using the illustration of alcohol consumption, the authors demonstrate why an understanding of social norms is required for ‘downstream’ applications, such as social norms marketing campaigns, and for ‘upstream’ applications, such as regulations for the marketing of harmful products.

5. DESIGN THINKING, DEMARKETING AND BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS: FOSTERING INTERDISCIPLINARY GROWTH IN SOCIAL MARKETING – R. C. LEFEBVRE AND P. KOTLER

Lefebvre and Kotler encourage us to look outside the social marketing literature for innovative ideas that can improve our practice. Their chapter introduces us to ideas from two emerging disciplines, behavioural economics and design thinking, and a decades old commercial marketing approach, demarketing, that has been underutilised by social marketers. Their thought-provoking summaries of relevant principles and applications from these three idea sets are designed to provide social marketers with alternative ways to think about social problems and to develop more effective solutions for individual behaviour change interventions and organisational, policy and cultural shifts. While acknowledging that evidence to support the efficacy of these approaches is still lacking, they make a compelling case for exploration of their utility in designing social marketing interventions.

6. CRITICAL MARKETING: THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS – M. SAREN

Saren describes the role and importance of critical marketing and why it provides support for the social marketing discipline. A range of mainstream marketing topics challenged by critical assessment are reviewed from this stance, including the core marketing concept, critical theory, the role of markets, consumer behaviour, and marketing assumptions, knowledge and philosophy. Saren proposes that social marketers can use and develop critical research methodologies to study underlying social and behavioural phenomena from a more holistic perspective than commercial market research methods and consumption theories may permit.

7. NOVEL APPROACHES TOWARDS RESISTANCE TO PERSUASION – P. K. PETROVA AND R. B. CIALDINI

Petrova and Cialdini review recent research about creating and overcoming resistance to persuasive messages. They first answer the question: ‘What constitutes an effective counterargument? They then examine how social marketing campaigns can increase resistance to persuasive messages promoting risky behaviours and reduce resistance to messages promoting healthy behaviours. They give special attention to overcoming three types of resistance to social marketing interventions: reactance, scepticism and inertia. Also of interest to social marketers are their insights into alignment of counterarguments, revelation of manipulative intent and undermining the credibility of stronger opponents.

1

Theoretical Models of Behaviour Change

Rob Donovan

‘There’s nothing so practical as a good theory’ said the father of social psychology Kurt Lewin way back in 1952. These words were true then and are still true today.

While the word ‘theory’ has a number of lay and technical reasons, it is used here in its scientific meaning: that is, a theory about some phenomenon is a set of concepts and their interrelationships that attempts to explain the occurrence of or changes in the phenomenon under question. What distinguishes theory in this sense from other meanings, is that the concepts can be operationalised and hence the theory is empirically testable.

Theoretical models of behaviour change are useful for a number of reasons:

• First and foremost, generating a theory or model of the behaviour or issue under consideration makes us think more deeply and more creatively about that behaviour, its causes, influencers, and so on.
• Second, such thinking results in the identification of a variety of factors that may influence that behaviour.
• Third, the identification of factors potentially influencing a behaviour provides hypotheses for testing and guidelines for conducting qualitative and quantitative research into how the various factors influence the behaviour both independently as well as how they might interact.
• Fourth, a model of influencing factors provides direction for developing interventions to change the behaviour in question by changing the influencing factors.
• Fifth, evaluation of such interventions then provides feedback for further refinement of the model.

The value of iterative feedback from interventions to theories, and from theories to interventions, is summed up in further words of wisdom attributed to Lewin: ‘If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.’

There are numerous models of behaviour change, from individual to organisational to system perspectives. Darnton (2008) identified some 60 models with approximately half of those having some presence in the literature. Not unexpectedly, there is considerable overlap between many models. Drawing from Donovan and Henley (2010), this chapter presents the major theoretical models used in social marketing, public health and social policy campaigns, across different countries and cultures, concentrating on those either most widely used or of most potential utility.

A useful binary classification of such models is that some (the vast majority) emphasise how beliefs and attitudes influence individual decision making and behaviour change, while others emphasise how behaviour change occurs over time for individuals or populations. The former are generally known as ‘cognitive decision models’ or knowledge-attitude-behaviour (KAB) models, while the latter are known as stage of change models when referring to changes in individuals’ beliefs and attitudes over time, and as diffusion models when related to how ideas and behaviours are adopted and spread throughout a community or population.

This chapter begins with cognitive decision models and includes a brief discussion of two concepts generally ignored by the KAB models: morality and legitimacy. Behaviour modification (or applied behaviour analysis) principles are also included to further emphasise that we must translate people’s beliefs, attitudes and intentions into action, and that to do this, we must be aware of the necessary environmental factors and skills that will facilitate this translation.

COGNITIVE DECISION MODELS

Most of these models are based on the assumption that an individual’s beliefs about some person, group, issue, object or behaviour will determine the individual’s attitude with respect to that person, group, issue, object or behaviour. Subject to social norms and self-efficacy, these attitudes in turn predict how the individual intends to act with regard to that person, group, issue, object or behaviour. Finally, whether or not these intentions result in behaviour will depend on environmental facilitators and inhibitors, both perceived and actual, and both situational (temporary) and structural (enduring). In short, favourable attitudes and intentions towards purchasing and consuming more fruit and vegetables will only translate into behaviour where good quality fruit and vegetables are readily available at a competitive price.

The KAB or ‘social cognition’ models conceptualise the influences on behaviour, and hence provide a framework for formative research, strategy development and campaign evaluation. In general, changes in the major components in these models, such as attitudes, norms and efficacy, have been found to be good predictors of changes in behaviours and intentions (Webb and Sheeran, 2006).

The health belief model

The health belief model (HBM) was perhaps the first behavioural model in health education. It was developed in the 1950s by US Public Health Service workers in an attempt to explain participation and non-participation in screening programmes for tuberculosis (Becker, 1974; Rosenstock, 1974; Rosenstock et al., 1988). As the oldest model, the HBM has been used in planning programmes in a wide variety of health areas and is still widely used today in a broad variety of areas (see Darnton, 2008).

The model lists the following factors that are presumed to influence behaviour change in response to a potential health threat:

• Perceived susceptibility: the individual’s perceived likelihood of the threat occurring to them (e.g. contracting HIV and AIDS).
• Perceived severity: the individual’s beliefs about the negative consequences of the threat occurring to them (e.g. how severe HIV/AIDS is seen to be).
• Perceived benefits of the recommended behaviour: the individual’s perceptions that the recommended behaviour will avert the threat (and any other additional benefits) (e.g. perceived likelihood of condoms reducing risk of transmission of HIV).
• Perceived costs and barriers: the individual’s perceptions of the costs of, and perceived barriers to, adopting the recommended behaviour (e.g. perceived reaction of potential partners, etc.).
• Cues to action: individual, situational or enduring events or activities that prompt the individual to act (internal such as symptoms; external such as advertising or word-of-mouth recommendations).

It is also assumed that demographic and psychosocial variables will moderate the above variables.

Hence, an individual is more likely to take up exercise if they consider they are at high risk for diabetes, if they perceive diabetes as a serious disease, if they believe that increased exercise is effective in reducing the risk of diabetes, if they perceive no major barriers or costs (financial, social or physical) to increasing their level of exercise, and if a friend draws their attention to a physical activity programme commencing at a nearby community recreation centre.

Protection motivation theory

Rogers’ (1975) protection motivation theory (PMT) was developed originally as a model of fear arousal to explain the motivational effect resulting from physical, social or psychological threats. PMT incorporates the concept of self-efficacy from Bandura’s (1986) social learning theory. PMT postulates that individuals undertake two major appraisals when confronted with a threat: a threat appraisal and a coping appraisal. Similar to the HBM, a threat is appraised on two major factors: the individual’s perceived vulnerability to the threat and a coping appraisal.

Vulnerability is assessed on these two factors:

• The perceived severity of the threatened harmful event if it occurs.
• The perceived likelihood of the threatened outcome occurring if the recommended behaviour is not adopted.

The coping appraisal consists of an appraisal of the recommended behaviour on the following two factors:

• The perceived effectiveness of the promoted behaviour to avoid or reduce the likelihood of occurrence of the threat (i.e. response efficacy).
• The individual’s belief in their own ability to perform the recommended behaviour (i.e....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editorial Board and Reviewer
• About the Authors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Introduction: A Movement in Social Marketing
• SECTION 1 THEORETICAL DEBATES
• SECTION 2 MARKETING PLANNING
• SECTION 3 RESEARCH – ITS ROLES AND TECHNIQUES
• SECTION 4 DANCING WITH THE DEVIL
• SECTION 5 UPSTREAM AND SOCIAL CHANGE
• SECTION 6 SOCIAL MARKETING IN PRACTICE: CASE STUDIES
• Social Marketing: A Future Rooted in the Past
• Index