Social Marketing

10 Key excerpts on "Social Marketing"

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  The Routledge Companion to Nonprofit Marketing

  • Adrian Sargeant, Walter Wymer Jr(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  et al. 2003). The term Social Marketing is also commonly erroneously used to refer simply to social communications or advertising. As Social Marketing experiences significant growth, it is imperative to ensure that it is correctly understood.

  A recent definition, offered by the National Social Marketing Centre in the UK, describes Social Marketing as ‘the systematic application of marketing concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals relevant to the social good’ (French and Blair-Stevens 2005). Here the emphasis is on the unique, defining feature of Social Marketing – taking learning from the commercial sector and applying it to the resolution of social and health problems. Another useful definition was proposed by Lazer and Kelley (1973: ix) during the early days of the discipline:

  Social Marketing is concerned with the application of marketing knowledge, concepts, and techniques to enhance social as well as economic ends. It is also concerned with analysis of the social consequence of marketing policies, decisions and activities.

  This definition too captures the essence of Social Marketing as well as highlighting both sides of the Social Marketing ‘coin’. On the one hand, Social Marketing encourages the use of marketing skills and insights to progress social good. On the other, it facilitates the control and regulation of commercial marketing through critical studies of its impact on the health and welfare of society.

  Like commercial marketing, Social Marketing is not a theory in itself. Instead, it is a framework that draws upon several other disciplines, including psychology, sociology and communications theory, in an effort to understand human behaviour and how we might influence it (Kotler and Zaltman 1971). Like generic marketing, Social Marketing offers a strategic planning process which utilizes conventional marketing techniques. Over the past thirty or so years, social marketers have systematically applied concepts from commercial marketing – concepts like consumer research, segmentation and targeting, the marketing ‘mix’, competitor analysis and, more recently, branding and stakeholder marketing – to topics as diverse as domestic recycling, cancer prevention, sexual health and road safety. Several other key features characterize the Social Marketing approach. The first is a focus on voluntary behaviour change: Social Marketing isn’t about enforcement or coercion. It is based on the voluntary exchange of costs and benefits between two or more parties (Kotler and Zaltman 1971). Social marketers try to bring about change by applying the principle of exchange – the recognition that there must be a clear benefit for the customer if change is to take place (Housten and Gassenheimer 1987). In addition, the end goal of Social Marketing is to improve individual welfare and society, not to benefit the organization doing the Social Marketing. This is what distinguishes Social Marketing from other forms of marketing (MacFadyen et al

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  Hands-On Social Marketing

  A Step-by-Step Guide to Designing Change for Good

  • Nedra Kline Weinreich(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Policies that legislate a particular behavior under threat of jail or a fine, or increase the costs through taxation, can be very effective. These coercive methods make sense for behaviors that can hurt other people or are basic life-saving actions, such as preventing drinking and driving, wearing seatbelts, or not smoking in a public place. But do we want to live in a world where all our health or social behaviors are regulated? Diminishing liberty and free choice should only be done as a last resort when other methods have not worked.

  DEFINING Social Marketing

  Since the early 1970s, Social Marketing has emerged as an effective way of persuading people to voluntarily adopt healthy and prosocial behaviors for issues that may require more than just laying out the facts. Simply put, Social Marketing is the use of commercial marketing principles and techniques to promote the adoption of a behavior that will improve the health or well-being of the target audience or of society as a whole. These are the same methods that a company such as Coca-Cola uses to sell its soft drinks—a focus on its consumers, market research, and a systematic process for developing a marketing program. The key characteristic that distinguishes Social Marketing from commercial marketing is its purpose; that is, the benefits accrue to the individual or society rather than to the marketer’s organization. In addition, the cross-pollination of disciplines with marketing, including anthropology, social psychology, design, public health, behavioral economics, and persuasive technology, keeps the field dynamic and brings the best thinking about behavior change together in a cohesive process.

  Who Uses Social Marketing?

  This is just a sample of the many types of organizations that use Social Marketing in their education and prevention efforts:

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • National Cancer Institute
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • U.S. Agency for International Development

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  Selected Issues in Global Health Communications

  • Muhiuddin Haider, Heather Nicole Platter, Muhiuddin Haider, Heather Nicole Platter(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • IntechOpen

    (Publisher)

  In 1971, Social Marketing was born, when Kotler and Zaltman published their leading paper in Journal of Marketing and realized that the same marketing principles © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. that were being used to sell products to customers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes, and behaviors [2 ]. Andreasen’s defined Social Marketing as: “The application of commercial market -ing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society” [3]. Rothschild believed that Social Marketing employs the principles of commercial marketing to influence consumer behavior and decision-making and attempts to influence voluntary behavior by offering or reinforcing incentives and/or consequences in an environment that invites voluntary exchange [4]. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has introduced health marketing as an innovative approach that draws from traditional marketing theories and principles and adds science-based strategies to prevention, health promotion, and health protection. CDC defined health marketing as: “Creating, com -municating, and delivering health information and interventions using customer-centered and science-based strategies to protect and promote the health of diverse populations” [5].

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  Health Communication

  A Media and Cultural Studies Approach

  • Belinda Lewis(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The essential difference between Social Marketing and commercial marketing is that it involves the application of marketing concepts tools and techniques to achieve socially desirable goals. That is, the outcomes are focused around the ‘social common good’ rather than around producing commercial rewards for the organisations engaged in marketing their products and services. How does Social Marketing work? Social Marketing works by using a combination of media and interpersonal strategies to influence the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and ultimately the behaviours of particular target groups or ‘audiences’. This approach is often Social Marketing: PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION 83 described as ‘persuasive’ communication because it moves beyond traditional health information and education, deploying sophisticated strategies designed to motivate and persuade individuals to take action. Social Marketing is generally not considered to be a population-wide health promotion approach. While some Social Marketing campaigns (e.g. drink driv-ing, quit smoking) do reach a vast proportion of the population, their messages are usually designed to target particular audiences (e.g. youth drivers, smok-ers and their families). According to Noar (2012: 482), ‘a campaign that is designed for everyone will be successful with virtually no-one’. Instead, Social Marketing is aimed at specific ‘market segments’. During campaign develop-ment, extensive audience research is undertaken to understand the values, interests and motivations within the specific audience group as well as the likely barriers and enablers to change. The 5P’s of marketing are then used to tailor the media, messages and strategies specifically to each of the audi-ence segments they are seeking to influence. That is, having the right product, at the right price, put in the right place, backed by the right promotion and with support from the right people (Cheng et al. 2011; Donovan & Henley 2010).

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  Principles and Practice of Social Marketing

  An International Perspective

  • Rob Donovan, Nadine Henley(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  1 1 Social Marketing and social change Social Marketing is just one ‘branch’ of marketing, where the branches reflect the area of application: for example, sports marketing; business to business or industrial marketing; not-for-profit marketing; religious marketing; political marketing and so on. However, Social Marketing is more than just the application of marketing to social issues : the key point of difference to all other branches of marketing, is that the social marketer’s goals relate to the wellbeing of the community , whereas for all others, the marketer’s goals relate to the wellbeing of the marketer (sales and profits, members and donations, political representation, etc.). If the wellbeing of the community is not the goal, then it isn’t Social Marketing. Social Marketing is concerned with helping to achieve and maintain desirable social change. Sometimes social change occurs unplanned, and with generally benign or even positive effects, such as in the introduction of the printing press, the telephone, or the worldwide web. In other cases, change can be violent as in the French and Russian revolutions of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively, or have devastating health effects as in the industrial revolution’s underground mining and unsafe factor-ies. More recently, social and economic changes in countries previously constituting the Soviet Union have led to a marked increase in heart disease in these countries, especially among the unemployed and underemployed, with alcohol abuse being the major proximal contributor to deaths (Zaridze et al . 2009a , 2009b ). Hence, social mar-keters and other social change practitioners are called on to use their skills not only to achieve socially desirable change, but also to counter undesirable social change.

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  Tourism and Social Marketing

  • C. Michael Hall(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Figure 1.1 also identifies some of the other core shifts in the nature of Social Marketing. These include not only the expansion of the fields to which marketing is applied as well as its definition but also an increasing focus on behavioural change. Importantly for understanding the change agency that seeks to implement behavioural change interventions, Social Marketing also needs to contextualise within shifts to understanding the role of government and governance as well as the rights and responsibilities of business and individuals.

  FIGURE 1.1

  The changing dynamics of Social Marketing

  TABLE 1.2

  American Marketing Association (AMA) definitions of marketing

  Date	Definition
  1935	[Marketing is] the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers.*
  1985	[Marketing is] the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives.
  2004	Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders.
  2007	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.

  * Definition adopted by the National Association of Marketing Teachers, an AMA predecessor organisation

  Source: American Marketing Association 2008 The contested space of Social Marketing

  Although it is generally recognised that Social Marketing as we would now understand it began in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Kotler and Zaltman 1971), there has long been argument over exactly what Social Marketing is and how it should be used. This has meant that Social Marketing has struggled at times to gain its own identity (Andreasen 2003). Today marketing and Social Marketing scholars can generally be placed into two main groups, both of which highlight what they perceive to be the true essence of Social Marketing. Glenane-Antoniadis et al. (2003) describes these as either ‘traditionalists’ or ‘convergents’. ‘Traditionalists’ are those who advocate ‘intentionally or unintentionally, the transfer of traditional marketing tools, the same ones that have tended to be employed in commercial settings, to the Social Marketing arena … employing a rational economic model of behaviour’ (Glenane-Antoniadis et al. 2003: 326). In contrast, ‘convergents’ argue in favour of an ‘interdisciplinary approach to the study of Social Marketing and use of other tools that go beyond traditional notions’ (Glenane-Antoniadis et al

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  Strategic Social Marketing

  For Behaviour and Social Change

  • Jeff French, Ross Gordon(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  A strategic approach to Social Marketing is built on the foundations of research, data, evidence, and citizen and stakeholder insights together with competition, stakeholder and environmental analysis. A strategic approach to Social Marketing is also informed by theory, including marketing theory and theory from other relevant fields focused on the human condition and behaviour, such as behavioural economics, sociology, psychology and anthropology. A strategic Social Marketing approach is fundamentally defined by its systematic, transparent analytic processes together with a pragmatic assessment of the political and social acceptability of potential social policy initiatives. At its core, strategic Social Marketing seeks to influence social policy selection, development and programme delivery to reflect citizens’ wants, needs and values.

  Social Marketing can be used in this way to ensure that understanding about participants’ behaviour and preferences directly informs the identification and selection of appropriate social issues, policies and interventions.

  Any social policy seeking to influence citizen behaviour that does not have the broad support of the public and other relevant stakeholders, and does not meet the needs of citizens, is unlikely to be successful. There is a need then, if successful social programmes are to be developed, to engender a sense of ownership among the intended recipients and there are good guidance documents available to help enable such an approach (The Community Toolbox, 2015). Delivering any social policy also needs the involvement of the widest possible coalition of interests if a sense of ownership is to be created and if all available expertise and resources are to be used to inform the development and delivery of the policy. Social Marketing has a role to play in creating this sense of ownership and buy-in to social policies. Social Marketing can also help politicians and public officials to test potential policies and refine them through a process of target audience engagement and consultation as well as through a process of market research. The use of focus groups, surveys, interviews, observational studies and other forms of gathering citizens’ views can be a powerful tool for ensuring that policy and strategy are developed in such a way that they will be supported and taken up by those whom they are designed to help. However, such policy/strategy/intervention testing is still comparatively rare in many countries despite the obvious advantages to policy makers of testing and refining potential interventions using marketing research and marketing principles to engage and gather citizens’ views. The application of this kind of citizen-focused approach to the development and testing of policy and strategy will need to be used more often by governments and political parties to help them develop manifestoes and social programmes that carry popular support and are feasible.

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  Social Marketing and Social Change

  Strategies and Tools For Improving Health, Well-Being, and the Environment

  • R. Craig Lefebvre(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Jossey-Bass

    (Publisher)

  Ever since Lefebvre and Flora (1988) first opened up the idea that behaviors are an essential component of Social Marketing offerings, the view that behavior change is a requisite activity of Social Marketing has been repeated by many other commentators (Andreasen, 1995; French & Blair-Stevens, 2010; Kotler & Lee, 2008). Yet behavior change is far from being a distinguishing feature of Social Marketing anymore. In an era in which many health burdens are directly linked to behaviors that people engage in, many other change agents also claim behavior change as their ultimate criterion of success (Crosby, Kegler & DiClemente, 2009; Institute of Medicine, 2001; Schiavo, 2007, p. 9; The Editors, 2008).

  Table 2.1 also reveals that some Social Marketing ideas surface less frequently than others, such as incorporating behavioral theory and audience insight into the design of Social Marketing programs; coming to an understanding of the competition—the personal, environmental, and corporate factors that act against the desired behavioral choices and goals (cf. Andreasen, 1995)—and then using this understanding of competition to create differential advantages for Social Marketing offerings; monitoring and influencing the physical and social environments; and developing a marketing management system in which all elements are resourced and coordinated (cf. Lefebvre & Flora, 1988).

  Some people simplify the idea of Social Marketing to the use of principles and practices of commercial marketing for behavior change to achieve noncommercial (social) goals. Yet when we look more closely at how Social Marketing is used in many countries, we find that it is focused on seemingly intractable behaviors and wicked problems in complex economic, social, political, and technological circumstances with usually very limited resources. And the goal for governments, NGOs, and other groups who strive to change these problems and conditions goes beyond individual behavior change. If we assume that a primary responsibility of marketers is to satisfy stakeholders who invest in these programs, the bottom line for social marketers is to also meet society’s desire to improve people’s quality of life (Serrat, 2010).

  HOW CAN WE USE Social Marketing?

  As I noted before, when Kotler and Zaltman (1971) first introduced the term Social Marketing into the literature, they defined it as using marketing to influence the acceptability of social ideas. When Lefebvre and Flora (1988) later wrote about it for public health programs, they focused on the uniqueness of Social Marketing as a way to formulate and implement “programs that are developed to satisfy consumer needs, strategized to reach as broad an audience as is in need of the program, and thereby enhance the organization’s ability to affect population-wide changes in targeted risk behaviors

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  AM:STARS Advances In Health Promotion for Adolescents and Young Adults, Volume 22, No. 3

  Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Reviews

  • Alwyn T. Cohall, Michael Resnick(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • American Academy of Pediatrics

    (Publisher)

  C. A. Bryant et al / Adolesc Med 022 (2011) 387–401 397 tion period. Finally, the campaign sought corporate and community sponsor-ship and buy-in. THE APPLICATION OF Social Marketing STRATEGIES: LESSONS LEARNED Over the past 3 decades, Social Marketing has evolved into a powerful force for health promotion and behavior change. 20,34 Social Marketing strategies have been successfully applied to the fields of public health, policy development, and environmental protection, and variations of the discipline have been imple-mented in a wide variety of initiatives to promote tobacco control, drug preven-tion, childhood immunization, improved nutrition, increased physical activity, and traffi c safety. 20 Social Marketing consists of a series of steps, implemented in a continuous, iter-ative process. This process begins with initial planning, formative research, and strategy development, followed by program development; pretesting; program implementation; and finally, program monitoring and evaluation. 18 Although public health professionals often inadvertently use the term Social Marketing to describe what is in fact advertising (an aspect of the “promotion” P ), social mar-keting specifically makes use of these multiple steps to inform consumers of the importance of behavior change by moving them toward a proposed solution, all while addressing the barriers, or costs, of performing the new behavior. 18,20 In recent years, public health professionals have used Social Marketing strategies to promote healthful behavior and counteract the effects of commercial market-ing, in particular the marketing of unhealthful foods and behaviors to children and adolescents. These campaigns have prevented and controlled tobacco use to a growing extent, increased physical activity, and improved nutrition among children and teenagers.

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  The Routledge Companion to Marketing and Society

  • Krzysztof Kubacki, Lukas Parker, Christine Domegan, Linda Brennan, Krzysztof Kubacki, Lukas Parker, Christine Domegan, Linda Brennan(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Today, the use of marketing tools and techniques for social impact is widely accepted as an effective commercial strategy (e.g., corporate social responsibility, sustainability marketing) and in non-profit domains (e.g., cause-related marketing, political marketing and environmental marketing). Increasingly, they are accepted as an approach to planned social transformation (e.g., Social Marketing) that can influence positive social change in behaviours such as recycling, healthy eating, domestic violence and human trafficking. Marketing scholarship and practice have come a long way in the more than five decades since Kotler and Levy’s seminal article. We, therefore, feel it is time to look back, reflect on the marketing journey, showcase the good, acknowledge the bad, and, when necessary, shine some light on the ugly. Hence, this Companion introduces a diverse and complex relationship between marketing and society and its social impact. Marketing and society As marketing courses, textbooks and scholarly journals emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, Witkowski in 2010 observed that journal articles dealing with marketing and society issues dominated the marketing literature until the 1950s. Later in the 1980s and 1990s, the decline of marketing scholarship about marketing and society became evident despite this initial recognition of marketing as a societal activity (Wilkie and Moore, 2003). This decline was attributed to two significant reputational challenges faced by marketing: lack of respect among corporations and lack of trust among consumers. Both challenges are strongly influenced by a narrow managerial perspective of companies rather than their consumer focus (Sheth and Sisodia, 2005). As a result, the value of marketing to society and the ethicality of managing social issues using marketing tools and techniques were questioned (Buchanan, Reddy and Hossain, 1994)

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