Chapter 8Social Marketing

DefinedRelations to Public Information and Marketing

Theories of Social MarketingSponsors of Social Marketing

Social Marketing Defined

• “the application of commercial marketing 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 the society of which they are a part” (Andreasen, 2003, p. 296).

Key Characteristics

• Application of marketing principles to social concerns.

• Emphasis on changing behaviors.• Changes must be voluntary.• Focus on improving people’s lives and helping

society.

Behavior Emphasis

• Accepting a behavior.• Rejecting a behavior.• Modifying a behavior. • Maintaining a behavior. • Ending a behavior.

Three Related Concepts

1. Education campaigns that use information to change attitudes, often called public information.

2. Social marketing efforts that create behavior change.

3. Legislative behavior that is mandated.

Legislative Behavior

• Forces change, clear difference from other two.

• Examples are laws requiring seatbelt or motorcycle helmet use.

Education and Social Marketing

• Distinction is not always clear.• Information can lead to behavior change.• Salmon (1989) notes both involve planned

change.

Public Information

• Public information is a misnomer.• Campaigns seek change not just to create

awareness or to inform.• Information is strategically used to influence

behaviors.

Public Information

• A message shows a bloody scene of an automobile accident and information on how a seatbelt saves lives.

• What conclusion would you draw from the message?

• Information is used to control how people think and act (Rakow, 1989).

PSA

• Public service announcement or PSA is anoncommercial message designed to benefit society by promoting a desirable behavior or a specific public interest.

• Commonly used in public information efforts.

McGuire’s Model for Persuasion.

• Aware of information.• Change of attitude.• Remember message.• Engage in desired behavior.

Differences?

• Only shades of differences between education and social marketing.

• Matter of overt emphasis on information or behavior.

• Reasonable to include both in the same discussion.

Pro-social Bias

• Produce social change that makes society a better place.

• The target audience is better off than before the communicative effort.

Bernays and Smoking

• Edward Bernays contributed to increasing smoking among women.

• Did not create need, simply amplified it through public relations.

• Bernays felt remorse and later engaged in anti-smoking efforts.

Development of Social Marketing

• Target audience.

Segmentation

• Identify the specific target—who is to receive the message.

• Common segmentation factors include lifestyles, values, and behaviors.

Four P’s of Marketing

1. Product2. Price 3. Place 4. Promotion

Translated to Social Marketing

• Product would be the benefits associated with the desired behavior.

• Price can be the effort or the financial costs associated with the behavior, such as buying condoms.

Translated to Social Marketing

• Place is the action outlet. An action outlet is the location that the target audience will enact the behavior, collect necessary items, and receive training, if necessary (Grier & Bryant, 2005).

• Promotion refers to the various channels used to deliver the social marketing messages including advertisements, PSAs, print materials, web sites, special events, and interpersonal communication.

Social Marketing and PR

• Early public relations research frequently examined public information campaigns that would now be called social marketing (Salmon, 1989).

• Public relations is more than promotion; it shares a mindset and methodologies with marketing, and by extension, social marketing.

Complexity of Social Marketing

• Social marketing moves beyond the simplistic thinking of only using a PSA, often untested, to a mix of principles and theories for creating messages and methods of delivering those messages.

“This is your brain on drugs”

• Assumed to be effective.• Wide exposure and became a part of popular

culture.• Awareness and comprehension positive.• Ultimately failure, did not create behavior

change.

Five-Step Process for Social Marketing

1. Scanning2. Formative research3. Program development4. Implemenation5. Evaluation

Theories Related to Social Marketing

• Theory of Planned Behavior (TOB).• Extended Parallel Process Model.• Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change.

Theory of Planned Behavior

• Extension of the theory of reasoned action (TRA).

• TRA noted influence of subjective norms on behaviors.

• Subjective norm is composed of how those important to the target view the behavior.

• Targets attitude may be favorable but behavior does not change because subjective norm opposes the behavior.

Theory of Planned Behavior

• TPB adds perceived behavioral control (PBC). • PBC is the degree of difficulty or ease of

performing a behavior.• PBC is strongly associated with self-efficacy, a

person’s belief that she or he can perform a behavior.

PBC

• Perceptions of resources and obstacles shape a person’s PBC.

• Resources facilitate the desired behavior.• Obstacles block a desired behavior.

Extended Parallel Process Model

• Emphasis on fear appeals.• Fear appeal warns people that bad things will

happen if they do not engage in the desired behavior.

• A fear appeal needs a threat, something bad will happen, and a recommended response that will help to avoid the threat.

Extended Parallel Process Model

• A threat triggers cognitive appraisal, we think about the fear and its related behaviors.

• Two responses to cognitive appraisal:– Fear control– Danger control

Fear Control

• People try to control the fear by such measures as avoiding the fear.

• Not the response social marketing wants.

Danger Control

• People seek to alleviate the danger. • People engage in behaviors designed to

reduce the threat.• This is the response social marketing wants.

Evaluations

• Message triggers evaluation of – threat– efficacy

• Appraisal of these two factors will shape if the person responds with the fear process or control process.

Threat Evaluation

• Threat appraised for perceived susceptibility and perceived severity.

• Perceived susceptibility determines if the threat can affect them.

• Perceived severity is the amount of danger the threat possesses.

Threat Evaluation

• People are motivated to act when the threat can affect them and/or is serious.

• If people are motivated, they then assess the efficacy of the recommended response.

Efficacy Evaluation

• People assess response efficacy and self-efficacy.

• Response efficacy determines whether or not people believe the recommended response will actually avoid the threat.

• Self-efficacy is whether or not the people believe they can enact the recommended response.

Results of Evaluations

• If the people do not believe a recommended response will work, they will not follow the advice.

• When response efficacy and self-efficacy are high, people try to enact the recommended response (danger control). If either or both are low, people will try to control the risk through denial or avoidance (fear control) (Witte et al., 2001).

Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM)

• Behavior change occurs over time.• Behavior change is a process.

Five Stages1. Precontemplation stage: the person has no intention of

changing behaviors in the near future (typically in the next six months).

2. Contemplation: the person thinks about making a change in the next six months.

3. Preparation: a person is planning a behavior change in the next months but may not know how to successfully create the desired change.

4. Action: a person takes action designed to make changes.5. Maintenance: a person works to prevent a relapse and

keep the gains she or he has made (Prochaska & Velicer, 1997).

Ten Processes1. Consciousness raising: people need to understand the

negative consequences of a behavior and the benefits of a change.

2. Dramatic relief: people must experience the emotions and feelings associated with the problem behavior.

3. Self-reevaluation: people assess their self-image with and without the problem behavior.

4. Environmental reevaluation: people assess how the presence or absence of the problem behavior affects their social environment.

5. Self-liberation: people decide they can change and commit to the change.

Ten Processes

6. Social liberation: people must increase the opportunity for non-problem behaviors.

7. Counterconditioning: people must learn to substitute a healthy behavior for the problem behavior.

8. Stimulus control: people attempt to remove stimuli connected to the problem behavior and replace them with cues for the healthy behavior.

9. Provides consequences for engaging in or avoiding the problem behavior.

10. Helping relationships: others support people’s attempts to change (Patten, Vollman, & Thurston, 2000).

Sponsors of Social Marketing

• Government and Private Voluntary Organization (PVOs) typical sponsors.

• Most social marketing messages are delivered free of charge.

• Ad Council active in the U.S. with social marketing efforts.

Sponsors of Social Marketing

• Corporations may pay to develop their own social marketing efforts.

• Alcohol and tobacco are common sponsors.

Reflection Points

• Why do some corporations create their own social marketing efforts?

• Why is it important to ask who benefits from the social marketing effort?

• What does it mean to say social change is value laden?

Reflection Points

• Who gets marginalized in social marketing and why does that matter?

• What does it mean to say social problems are framed and why does that matter?

• Why does it matter who creates the social marketing messages?

Reflection Points

• How would it help to have the targets involved in creating the social marketing messages?

• What is the benefit of extending social marketing to structural changes?

• What does it mean to have competition in social marketing and why does that matter?