Social marketing
Encyclopedia
Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing
, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as a whole. For example, this may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, asking them to use seat belts, or prompting to make them follow speed limits.
Although "social marketing" is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is an over-simplification.
The primary aim of social marketing is "social good", while in "commercial marketing" the aim is primarily "financial". This does not mean that commercial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good.
Increasingly, social marketing is being described as having "two parents"—a "social parent" = social sciences and social policy, and a "marketing parent" = commercial and public sector marketing approaches.
Beginning in the 1950s when Weibe asked "Why can’t you sell brotherhood and rational thinking like you can sell soap?”, it has in the last two decades matured into a much more integrative and inclusive discipline that draws on the full range of social sciences and social policy approaches as well as marketing.
Social marketing must not be confused with social media marketing
.
campaign "Quit" (1988), and "SunSmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer
which had the slogan Slip! Slop! Slap!.
WorkSafe Victoria, a state-run Occupational Health and Safety organization in Australia has used social marketing as a driver in its attempts to reduce the social and human impact of workplace safety failings. In 2006, it ran "Homecomings", a popular campaign that was later adopted in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and named the 2007 Australian Marketing Institute Marketing Program of the Year
DanceSafe
followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices.
On a wider front, by 2007, Government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.
Two other public health applications include the CDC's CDCynergy training and software application, and SMART (Social Marketing and Assessment Response Tool).
Social marketing theory and practice has been progressed in several countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and in the latter a number of key Government policy papers have adopted a strategic social marketing approach. Publications such as "Choosing Health" in 2004, "It's our health!" in 2006; and "Health Challenge England" in 2006, all represent steps to achieve both a strategic and operational use of social marketing. In India, AIDS
controlling programs are largely using social marketing and social workers are largely working for it. Most of the social workers are professionally trained for this particular task.
In the U.S. the Washington D.C. based organization "Men Can Stop Rape" Anti-Rape Movement
have successfully used social marketing in anti-rape posters and other media targeting a rape-prevention message at boys and young men.
A variation of social marketing has emerged as a systematic way to foster more sustainable behavior. Referred to as Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) by Canadian environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr, CBSM strives to change the behavior of communities to reduce their impact on the environment Realizing that simply providing information is usually not sufficient to initiate behavior change, CBSM uses tools and findings from social psychology to discover the perceived barriers to behavior change and ways of overcoming these barriers. Among the tools and techniques used by CBSM are focus groups and surveys (to discover barriers) and commitments, prompts, social norms, social diffusion, feedback and incentives (to change behavior). The tools of CBSM have been used to foster sustainable behavior in many areas, including energy conservation , environmental regulation and recycling
Public sector bodies can use standard marketing approaches to improve the promotion of their relevant services and organizational aims. This can be very important, but should not be confused with social marketing where the focus is on achieving specific behavioral goals with specific audiences in relation to different topics relevant to social good (e.g.: health, sustainability, recycling, etc.). For example, a 3-month marketing campaign to encourage people to get a H1N1 vaccine is more tactical in nature and should not be considered social marketing. Whereas a campaign that promotes and reminds people to get regular check-ups and all of their vaccinations when they're supposed to encourages a long-term behavior change that benefits society. It can therefore be considered social marketing.
As the dividing lines are rarely clear it is important not to confuse social marketing with commercial marketing.
A commercial marketer selling a product may only seek to influence a buyer to make a product purchase.
Social marketers, dealing with goals such as reducing cigarette smoking or encouraging condom use, have more difficult goals: to make potentially difficult and long-term behavioral change in target populations.
It is sometimes felt that social marketing is restricted to a particular spectrum of client—the non-profit organization, the health services group, the government agency.
These often are the clients of social marketing agencies, but the goal of inducing social change is not restricted to governmental or non-profit charitable organizations; it may be argued that corporate public relations efforts such as funding for the arts are an example of social marketing.
Social marketing should not be confused with the Societal Marketing Concept
which was a forerunner of sustainable marketing in integrating issues of social responsibility
into commercial marketing strategies. In contrast to that, social marketing uses commercial marketing theories, tools and techniques to social issues.
Social marketing applies a "customer oriented" approach and uses the concepts and tools used by commercial marketers in pursuit of social goals like Anti-Smoking-Campaigns or fund raising for NGOs.
announced its "Social Marketing" service, with which it aims to enable website owners to profit from social media
. Despite protests from the social marketing communities over the hijacking of the term, Jupiter decided to stick with the name. However, Jupiter's approach is more correctly (and commonly) referred to as social media optimization
. Another similar, but different marketing approach is Holistic Marketing which also aims to benefit society, but through aligning the values and ethics of employees and owners of a company with their marketing goals, regardless of the product being marketed.
and Gerald Zaltman
. However, earlier, social marketing had already been used as a tool for birth control in India, where a persuasion-based approach was favored over a legislative approach.
Craig Lefebvre and June Flora introduced social marketing to the public health community in 1988, where it has been most widely used and explored. They noted that there was a need for "large scale, broad-based, behavior change focused programs" to improve public health (the community wide prevention of cardiovascular diseases in their respective projects), and outlined eight essential components of social marketing that still hold today. They are:
Speaking of what they termed "social change campaigns", Kotler and Ned Roberto
introduced the subject by writing, "A social change campaign is an organized effort conducted by one group (the change agent) which attempts to persuade others (the target adopters) to accept, modify, or abandon certain ideas, attitudes, practices or behavior." Their 1989 text was updated in 2002 by Philip Kotler
, Ned Roberto
and Nancy Lee.
In 2005, University of Stirling
was the first university to open a dedicated research institute to Social Marketing, while in 2007, Middlesex University
became the first university to offer a specialized postgraduate programme in Health & Social Marketing.
In recent years there has been an important development to distinguish between "strategic social marketing" and "operational social marketing".
Much of the literature and case examples focus on operational social marketing, using it to achieve specific behavioral goals in relation to different audiences and topics. However there has been increasing efforts to ensure social marketing goes "upstream" and is used much more strategically to inform both "policy formulation" and "strategy development".
Here the focus is less on specific audience and topic work but uses strong customer understanding and insight to inform and guide effective policy and strategy development.
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as a whole. For example, this may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, asking them to use seat belts, or prompting to make them follow speed limits.
Although "social marketing" is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is an over-simplification.
The primary aim of social marketing is "social good", while in "commercial marketing" the aim is primarily "financial". This does not mean that commercial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good.
Increasingly, social marketing is being described as having "two parents"—a "social parent" = social sciences and social policy, and a "marketing parent" = commercial and public sector marketing approaches.
Beginning in the 1950s when Weibe asked "Why can’t you sell brotherhood and rational thinking like you can sell soap?”, it has in the last two decades matured into a much more integrative and inclusive discipline that draws on the full range of social sciences and social policy approaches as well as marketing.
Social marketing must not be confused with social media marketing
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is an addition to personal, small business, corporate, and non-profit organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans...
.
Applications of social marketing
Health promotion campaigns in the late 1980s began applying social marketing in practice. Notable early developments took place in Australia. These included the Victoria Cancer Council developing its anti-tobaccoSmoking cessation
Smoking cessation is the process of discontinuing the practice of inhaling a smoked substance. This article focuses exclusively on cessation of tobacco smoking; however, the methods described may apply to cessation of smoking other substances that can be difficult to stop using due to the...
campaign "Quit" (1988), and "SunSmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer
Skin cancer
Skin neoplasms are skin growths with differing causes and varying degrees of malignancy. The three most common malignant skin cancers are basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer, and melanoma, each of which is named after the type of skin cell from which it arises...
which had the slogan Slip! Slop! Slap!.
WorkSafe Victoria, a state-run Occupational Health and Safety organization in Australia has used social marketing as a driver in its attempts to reduce the social and human impact of workplace safety failings. In 2006, it ran "Homecomings", a popular campaign that was later adopted in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and named the 2007 Australian Marketing Institute Marketing Program of the Year
DanceSafe
DanceSafe
DanceSafe is a nonprofit organization, with 3 local chapters in the US and Canada.DanceSafe youth volunteers set up tables at raves and other events to distribute educational literature containing information describing the effects and risks associated with the use of various drugs and sell testing...
followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices.
On a wider front, by 2007, Government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.
Two other public health applications include the CDC's CDCynergy training and software application, and SMART (Social Marketing and Assessment Response Tool).
Social marketing theory and practice has been progressed in several countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and in the latter a number of key Government policy papers have adopted a strategic social marketing approach. Publications such as "Choosing Health" in 2004, "It's our health!" in 2006; and "Health Challenge England" in 2006, all represent steps to achieve both a strategic and operational use of social marketing. In India, AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
controlling programs are largely using social marketing and social workers are largely working for it. Most of the social workers are professionally trained for this particular task.
In the U.S. the Washington D.C. based organization "Men Can Stop Rape" Anti-Rape Movement
Anti-Rape Movement
- Ideological Roots of the Movement :In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new conceptualization of rape arose out of the second-wave feminist movement, which served as a foundation for the anti-rape movement to come. Within the movement, feminists began a reevaluation of women’s daily lives...
have successfully used social marketing in anti-rape posters and other media targeting a rape-prevention message at boys and young men.
A variation of social marketing has emerged as a systematic way to foster more sustainable behavior. Referred to as Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) by Canadian environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr, CBSM strives to change the behavior of communities to reduce their impact on the environment Realizing that simply providing information is usually not sufficient to initiate behavior change, CBSM uses tools and findings from social psychology to discover the perceived barriers to behavior change and ways of overcoming these barriers. Among the tools and techniques used by CBSM are focus groups and surveys (to discover barriers) and commitments, prompts, social norms, social diffusion, feedback and incentives (to change behavior). The tools of CBSM have been used to foster sustainable behavior in many areas, including energy conservation , environmental regulation and recycling
Types of social marketing
Social marketing uses the benefits and of doing social good to secure and maintain customer engagement. In social marketing the distinguishing feature is therefore its "primary focus on social good, and it is not a secondary outcome. Not all public sector and not-for-profit marketing is social marketing.Public sector bodies can use standard marketing approaches to improve the promotion of their relevant services and organizational aims. This can be very important, but should not be confused with social marketing where the focus is on achieving specific behavioral goals with specific audiences in relation to different topics relevant to social good (e.g.: health, sustainability, recycling, etc.). For example, a 3-month marketing campaign to encourage people to get a H1N1 vaccine is more tactical in nature and should not be considered social marketing. Whereas a campaign that promotes and reminds people to get regular check-ups and all of their vaccinations when they're supposed to encourages a long-term behavior change that benefits society. It can therefore be considered social marketing.
As the dividing lines are rarely clear it is important not to confuse social marketing with commercial marketing.
A commercial marketer selling a product may only seek to influence a buyer to make a product purchase.
Social marketers, dealing with goals such as reducing cigarette smoking or encouraging condom use, have more difficult goals: to make potentially difficult and long-term behavioral change in target populations.
It is sometimes felt that social marketing is restricted to a particular spectrum of client—the non-profit organization, the health services group, the government agency.
These often are the clients of social marketing agencies, but the goal of inducing social change is not restricted to governmental or non-profit charitable organizations; it may be argued that corporate public relations efforts such as funding for the arts are an example of social marketing.
Social marketing should not be confused with the Societal Marketing Concept
Societal Marketing Concept
The societal marketing concept is an enlightened marketing concept that holds that a company should make good marketing decisions by considering consumers' wants, the company's requirements, and society's long-term interests...
which was a forerunner of sustainable marketing in integrating issues of social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model...
into commercial marketing strategies. In contrast to that, social marketing uses commercial marketing theories, tools and techniques to social issues.
Social marketing applies a "customer oriented" approach and uses the concepts and tools used by commercial marketers in pursuit of social goals like Anti-Smoking-Campaigns or fund raising for NGOs.
Social marketing confusion
In 2006, JupitermediaJupitermedia
WebMediaBrands Corp. a U.S.-based corporation, established in 1971, headquartered in New York, is a leading Internet media company that provides content, education, and career services to media and creative professionals through a portfolio of vertical online properties, communities and trade...
announced its "Social Marketing" service, with which it aims to enable website owners to profit from social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
. Despite protests from the social marketing communities over the hijacking of the term, Jupiter decided to stick with the name. However, Jupiter's approach is more correctly (and commonly) referred to as social media optimization
Social Media Optimization
Social media optimization is the methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO is one of many online methods of website optimization...
. Another similar, but different marketing approach is Holistic Marketing which also aims to benefit society, but through aligning the values and ethics of employees and owners of a company with their marketing goals, regardless of the product being marketed.
History of social marketing
Social marketing began as a formal discipline in 1971, with the publication of "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change" in the Journal of Marketing by marketing experts Philip KotlerPhilip Kotler
Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.-Early life:He received his master's degree at the University of Chicago...
and Gerald Zaltman
Gerald Zaltman
Gerald Zaltman is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the author and editor of 20 books, most recently How Customers Think and Marketing Metaphoria . In 1997 he founded the market research consulting firm Olson Zaltman Associates in partnership with Jerry C...
. However, earlier, social marketing had already been used as a tool for birth control in India, where a persuasion-based approach was favored over a legislative approach.
Craig Lefebvre and June Flora introduced social marketing to the public health community in 1988, where it has been most widely used and explored. They noted that there was a need for "large scale, broad-based, behavior change focused programs" to improve public health (the community wide prevention of cardiovascular diseases in their respective projects), and outlined eight essential components of social marketing that still hold today. They are:
- A consumer orientation to realize organizational (social) goals
- An emphasis on the voluntary exchanges of goods and services between providers and consumers
- Research in audience analysis and segmentation strategies
- The use of formative research in product and message design and the pretesting of these materials
- An analysis of distribution (or communication) channels
- Use of the marketing mixMarketing mixThe term "marketing mix" was coined in 1953 by Neil Borden in his American Marketing Association presidential address. However, this was actually a reformulation of an earlier idea by his associate, James Culliton, who in 1948 described the role of the marketing manager as a "mixer of ingredients",...
—utilizing and blending product, price, place and promotion characteristics in intervention planning and implementation - A process tracking system with both integrative and control functions
- A management process that involves problem analysis, planning, implementation and feedback functions
Speaking of what they termed "social change campaigns", Kotler and Ned Roberto
Ned Roberto
Eduardo L. Roberto or Ned Roberto is a Filipino professor who is considered Asia's foremost authority in marketing. He was the Coca-Cola Foundation professor of international marketing, at the Asian Institute of Management located at Metro Manila in the Philippines...
introduced the subject by writing, "A social change campaign is an organized effort conducted by one group (the change agent) which attempts to persuade others (the target adopters) to accept, modify, or abandon certain ideas, attitudes, practices or behavior." Their 1989 text was updated in 2002 by Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.-Early life:He received his master's degree at the University of Chicago...
, Ned Roberto
Ned Roberto
Eduardo L. Roberto or Ned Roberto is a Filipino professor who is considered Asia's foremost authority in marketing. He was the Coca-Cola Foundation professor of international marketing, at the Asian Institute of Management located at Metro Manila in the Philippines...
and Nancy Lee.
In 2005, University of Stirling
University of Stirling
The University of Stirling is a campus university founded by Royal charter in 1967, on the Airthrey Estate in Stirling, Scotland.-History and campus development:...
was the first university to open a dedicated research institute to Social Marketing, while in 2007, Middlesex University
Middlesex University
Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...
became the first university to offer a specialized postgraduate programme in Health & Social Marketing.
In recent years there has been an important development to distinguish between "strategic social marketing" and "operational social marketing".
Much of the literature and case examples focus on operational social marketing, using it to achieve specific behavioral goals in relation to different audiences and topics. However there has been increasing efforts to ensure social marketing goes "upstream" and is used much more strategically to inform both "policy formulation" and "strategy development".
Here the focus is less on specific audience and topic work but uses strong customer understanding and insight to inform and guide effective policy and strategy development.
See also
- Development communicationDevelopment communicationDevelopment Communication, has been alternatively defined as a type of marketing and public opinion research that is used specifically to develop effective communication or as the use of communication to promote social development...
- Agenda-setting theoryAgenda-setting theoryAgenda-Setting Theory states that the news media have a large influence on audiences, in terms of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. Agenda-setting theory’s main postulate is salience transfer. Salience transfer is the ability of the news media to...
- Health promotionHealth promotionHealth promotion has been defined by the World Health Organization's 2005 Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World as "the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health"...
- Jay WinstenJay WinstenJay Winsten is an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Frank Stanton Director of the School's . He is best known for his work in social marketing, spearheading high-profile national social campaigns on designated driving, youth violence, and youth mentoring...
- Financial literacyFinancial literacyFinancial literacy is the ability to understand finance. More specifically, it refers to the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions through their understanding of finances...
Further reading
- Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Michael (2009) The increasing importance of public marketing: Explanations, applications and limits of marketing within public administration, European Management Journal.
External links
- Visual rhetoric in social campaigns
- Social Marketers Global Network is the online community for those engaged in social marketing.
- National Center for Health Marketing at the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionCenters for Disease Control and PreventionThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
(CDC) - On Social Marketing and Social Change by Dr. R. Craig Lefebvre
- Social Marketing Institute (SMI) at Georgetown UniversityGeorgetown UniversityGeorgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
- National Social Marketing Centre (The NSMC) - social marketing resources, tools and online training.
- Institute for Social Marketing at the University of StirlingUniversity of StirlingThe University of Stirling is a campus university founded by Royal charter in 1967, on the Airthrey Estate in Stirling, Scotland.-History and campus development:...
- The Advertising Industry's Commitment to Social Responsibility and Children's Health and Wellness - a 2005 symposium by the Advertising Educational Foundation
- Social Marketing Quarterly - an academic journalAcademic journalAn academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
on social marketing - Online Interventions for Social Marketing Health Behavior Change Campaigns