Weinreich Communications is a social marketing consulting firm with years of experience in effectively addressing health and social issues.a) Definition and features

Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman: Social marketing is “differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviour not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and general society.”[1]

It is “[t]he application of private sector marketing principles, audience research and strategic planning to non-profit and government initiatives to help achieve social goals.”[2]

Social marketing is a process that aims influencing the behaviour of individuals and groups.

Like in commercial marketing, the primary focus of social marketing is on the consumer. Marketing talks to the consumer and not about the product. It aims at understanding what people want and need.

Planning of marketing focuses on the elements of the “marketing mix”. This refers to decisions about 1) the conception of the PRODUCT, 2) PRICE, 3) distribution (PLACE) and 4) PROMOTION. To these 4 Ps Social Marketing also adds a few more.[3]

• Product: In social marketing the product is not necessarily a physical offering. Products can range from physical products (e.g. condoms), to services (e.g. medical exams), practices (e.g. breastfeeding) and finally more intangible ideas (e.g. environmental protection). In order to have a viable product, people must first feel that they have a genuine problem and that the product offers a good solution for that problem.
• Price: Refers to what the consumer must do in order to obtain the social marketing product. This cost may be monetary, or it may instead require the consumer to give up intangibles, such as time or effort, or to risk embarrassment and disapproval. In order for the social marketing product to be adopted, the benefits have to outweigh the costs.
• Place: Describes the way that the product reaches the consumer. For a tangible product, this refers to the distribution system. For an intangible product, place is less clear-cut, but refers to decisions about the channels through which consumers are reached with information or training.
• Promotion: consists of the integrated use of advertising, public relations, promotions, media advocacy, etc. The focus is on creating and sustaining demand for the product. Research is crucial to determine the most effective and efficient vehicles to reach the target audience and increase demand.

Additional Social Marketing Ps:

• Publics: Social marketers often have many different audiences that their programme has to address in order to be successful. Publics include the target audience, secondary audiences, policymakers and gatekeepers.
• Partnerships: Social issues are often so complex that one agency can’t make a difference on its own. There is a need to team up with other organizations in order to be effective.
• Policy: Social marketing programs can do well in motivating individual behaviour change, but this is difficult to sustain unless their environment supports the change for the long run. Often, policy change is needed, and media advocacy programmes can be an effective complement to a social marketing programme.
• Purse strings: Most organizations that develop social marketing programs operate through funds provided by sources such as foundations, governmental grants or donations. This adds another dimension to the strategy development, namely where do you get the money to create your programme?

Social marketing is not:

• Social advertising
• Driven by organisational expert’s agendas
• Promotion or media outreach only
• About coercing behaviours

b) Development of the approach
Social marketing is an approach that is increasingly being used to positively influence the behaviour of individuals and groups. Social marketing was born as a discipline in the late 1960s and 1970s.[4] It was realized that marketing principles could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviours.

Social marketing has been used extensively in international health programmes and is now increasingly used for such topics as drug abuse, organ donation, civil engagement, etc.


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Further Reading:

• Nedra Kline Weinreich: What is social marketing?, in: www.social-marketing.com/Whatis.html (last accessed: 26/03/2009) This is a brief introduction to social marketing, including the social marketing Ps. This is published on the website of Weinreich Communications, a social marketing consulting firm with years of experience in effectively addressing health and social issues.
• Turning Point: The basics of Social Marketing. How to use marketing to change behaviour, in: http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/pdfs/social_market/smc_basics.pdf. This paper provides a definition of Social Marketing and its basic elements, discusses phases of social marketing and key concepts. Turning Point, started in 1997, was an initiative of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Its mission was to transform and strengthen the public health system in the United States by making it more community-based and collaborative. The initial idea for Turning Point came from the foundations' concerns about the capacity of the public health system to respond to emerging challenges in public health, specifically the system's capacity to work with people from many sectors to improve the health status of all people in a community.
• Turning point: Social Marketing. A resource guide, in: http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/pdfs/social_market/social_marketing_101.pdf (last accessed: 26/03/2009) This guide introduces to social marketing, outlines a case study of a social marketing campaign and provides key definitions in social marketing.
• Community Tool Box: Understanding Social Marketing: Encouraging adoption and use of valued products and practices, contributed by Jenette Nagy, edited by Bill Berkowitz and Jerry Schultz, in: http://ctb.ku.edu/tools//section_1321.htm (last accessed: 26/03/2009). This section of the Community Tool Box compiled by the University of Kansas deals with the following questions: What is social marketing? Who can do social marketing? Why is social marketing important? What are the basic principles of social marketing? What are the stages of a successful social marketing effort?

The development of the Community Tool Box has been ongoing since 1994. The CTB Team at the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, and partners nationally and internationally, have tried to identify what the intended users might need to know to be able to do this work of building healthier and more equitable communities. The Tool Box provides over 7,000 pages of practical information to support your work in promoting community health and development. The focus is on specific practical skills, such as conducting a meeting or participatory evaluation, that help create conditions for health and human development.