Social marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing alongside other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good. Social marketing began as a formal discipline in 1971, with the publication of the first edition of Social Marketing (ISBN 0-7619-2434-5) by marketing experts Philip Kotler and Eduardo L. Roberto. Speaking of what they termed "social change campaigns," Kotler and 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.
While social marketing initially developed from a desire to capitalise on commercial marketing techniques it has in the last decade 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. Increasingly social marketing is being described as having 'two parents' - a 'social parent' = social sciences and social policy, and a 'marketing parent' = commericial and public sector marketing approaches.
In recent years there as has been an important development to distinquish between 'strategic social marketing' and 'operational social marketing'. To date much of the literature and case examples focus on 'operational social marketing', using it to achieve specific behavioural 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 rather using the strong customer understanding and insight approach to inform and guide effective policy and strategy development. The UK who were in some ways slow initially to take up social marketing are now moving ahead in this regard and there are a number of key Government policy papers that adopt a strategic social marketing approach. eg: 'Choosing Health' public health white paper 2004; 'It's our health! independent national review of social marketing 2006; and 'Health Challenge England' policy paper, all represent steps to achieve both a strategic and operational use of social marketing.
Additional well-regarded texts which further cover the subject include Alan R. Andreasen’s classic Marketing Social Change (ISBN 0-7879-0137-7), Nedra Kline Weinreich’s Hands-On Social Marketing (ISBN 0-7619-0867-6), and Fostering Sustainable Behavior (ISBN 0-86571-406-1) by Doug McKenzie-Mohr and William Smith.
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[edit] Recognising the difference between Social Marketing And Commercial Marketing
Although 'social marketing'is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is not the case, and an over-simplification. The primary aim of 'social marketing' is 'social good', while in 'commericial marketing' the aim is 'financial'. This does not mean that commericial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good. It is important not to confuse 'social marketing' with other types of 'commercial marketing' where there is a contribution to a social good involved but not the primary aim. For example 'societal marketing', 'cause-related marketing' or 'pro-social marketing', each of these are aspects of commercial marketing that can contribute in different ways to 'social good' but the distinction between these and 'social marketing' is that in their case 'social good' is not the primary goal, but a related goal in order to support the companies commerical and financial aims. Using the benefits of doing 'social good' to secure and maintain customer engagement. In 'social marketing' the distinguishing feature is therefore it's 'primary' focus on 'social good', and it is not a secondary outcome. In this context it is useful to distinquish between different types of 'public sector and not-for-profit marketing', not all of which will be social marketing. Public sector bodies can use standard marketing approaches to improve the promotion of their relevant services and organisational aims, this can be very important, but should not be confused with 'social marketing' where the focus in on achieving specific behavioural goals with specific audiences in relation to different topics relevant to social good (eg: health, sustainability, recycling, etc). While in reality dividing lines are rarely clear it is important not to confuse social marketing with commericial marketing.
Also, whereas commercial marketing often aims at a comparatively simple influence over its target market, social marketing goals can be far more subtle and complex. 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 usage, 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. Indeed, 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.
[edit] Applications of social marketing
Health promotion campaigns in the late 1980s started to apply social marketing in practice. Notable early developments took place in Australia. These included the Victoria Cancer Council developing its anti-tobacco campaign "Quit" (1988), and "SunSmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer which had the slogan Slip! Slap! Slop!.
Dancesafe followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices.
On a wider front, by 2004, Government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.
[edit] Social marketing confusion
In 2006, JupiterMedia announced its "Social Marketing" service [5], 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 [6]. However, Jupiter's approach is more correctly (and commonly) referred to as Social Media Optimization.
In a similar incident, Forrester Research renamed their "Social Marketing Bootcamp" as "Social Computing Bootcamp" once they realised their mistake [7].
[edit] See also
Main article: List of topics related to public relations and propaganda
[edit] References
- ↑ Kotler, Philip and Eduardo L. Roberto. Social Marketing, 1971.
- ↑ Kotler, Philip, Ned Roberto and Nancy Lee. Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life, SAGE, 2002. (ISBN 0-7619-2434-5)
- ↑ VicHealth History: Major Events and Milestones
- ↑ UK Department of Health, Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier, Cmd.6374 2004.
