Defining and Defending the Boundaries

8/14/2019 Defining and Defending the Boundaries

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Defining and Defending the Boundaries: Holding Social Marketing Together in the Age

of Direct Benefit

Social marketing is predicated on the ideals of commercial marketing, with the needs of the

market being paramount in the creation of a message, idea or product that will lead to social

change for the greater good. As an adaptation of commercial marketing, social marketing

acquired the understanding of commercial exchange and the freedoms to accept and reject theoffers in an open market. With the 2004 revision of the definition of commercial marketing,

social marketing also acquired the need to create, communicate and deliver value to the

consumer that directly benefited the organisation. Whilst direct benefit was historically the

anthema to social marketing, social change outcomes can be seen as directly benefiting the

organisation who promoted the original ideal. To complicate matters, at the same time social

marketing has needed to become more outcomes focused, the rise in upstream marketing has

created a situation where marketing can be used to restrict the available choices in the social

marketing marketplace. Yet at the same time direct benefit to the campaign is a necessary

prerequisite for marketing, and the temptation to modify the market to limit competition to

increase direct benefit, social marketing cannot afford to lose sight of the fundamental need to

remain a force for voluntary behaviour.

Social Marketing: One Social Change Technique, not The Social Change Technique.

Social marketing is one of a range of methods for changing the attitudes, beliefs and

behaviours of the broader public, or a smaller societal group. As a social change technique, it

sits alongside the process of education, legal reform and structural change as a mechanism for

the adjustment of society. However, increasing pressures on outcome based measures have

seen many marketers consider reaching into other aspects of the social change toolkit to

enhance the success of voluntary change through upstream marketing to either alter the

market conditions (voluntary change through involuntary removal of choice) or implement

legislative enforcement (voluntary change through voluntary compliance of law). As

effective as these mechanisms may be for achieving social change outcomes, they are not

marketing techniques. In fact, the alteration of a market to remove competitor messages isusually regulated against by government as anti-competitive and anti-monopoly in the

commercial sense, the upstream sentiment is to actively encourage choice. At the social

marketing level, choice seems to become an anathema. However, social marketing with its

parentage in commercial marketing and adaptation of commercial techniques remains

committed to freedom of choice, competition of messages, and non-monopolistic practices.

At least in theory, if increasingly less so in practice.

Defining the parameters of Social MarketingSocial marketing, as the name implies, is grounded in commercial marketing theory and

practice. However, given that the application of social marketing is predominantly in non

commercial sectors, social marketing practice draws on a range of related disciplines

i4ncluding sociology, psychology and other social welfare related activities. Social marketing

has had a range of definitions over the past thirty years, from the foundation definition in

1971, where social marketing was defined as the design, implementation, and control of

programs calculated to influence the acceptability of product planning, pricing,

communication, distribution and marketing research. (Kotler and Zaltman, 1971) through to

the definition used most widely and consistently which defines social marketing as "the

application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and


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evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences in

order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society." (Andreasen, 1995)

Kotler, Roberto and Lee (2002) contributed to the contemporary social marketing debate by

offering the following definition of social marketing as the use of marketing principles and

techniques to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon a

behaviour for the benefit of individuals, groups or society as a whole. The consistent

elements of the definition of social marketing have been the use of commercial marketingprinciples and techniques, voluntary action by the target of the social change, and the accrual

of benefit to the individual, and the broader society.

Within the context of the Kotler and Andreasens definitions, commercial marketing was

defined as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and

distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and

organizational objectives (AMA, 1985, p. 2). Consequently, the marketing tools and

techniques adapted for use in social change programs were based on the 1985 conceptual

model of marketing, with its emphasis on the creation of exchange of goods, services and

ideas (where exchange can be direct or indirect) through the application of the marketing mix.

Social Marketing 2006: Now with Direct Benefit and Stakeholders

In 2004, the nature of commercial marketing was radically altered by the American Marketing

Association (AMA) releasing a revision of the formal definition of marketing. The AMA,

with the tacit or otherwise endorsement of the global marketing community, relaunched the

marketing definition as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,

communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in

ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. (AMA 2004). With the significant

repurposing of the definition of marketing, does commercial marketing remain compatible

with social marketing, and vice versa?

Benefiting the Organisation and the Stakeholder

On the whole, social marketing fared reasonably poorly when commercial marketingrealigned itself as a business discipline focused on organisational and stakeholder benefit.

The introduction of direct benefit to the organisation as a core tenet of the marketing concept

is the antithesis of the social marketing principle of indirect benefit. The previously

immutable boundary between societal marketing (social causes for commercial gain) and

social marketing (social causes for societal benefit) has been blurred, if not erased entirely.

Whilst problematic, this may not prove to be an insurmountable challenge for social

marketing.

The new definition broadens the role of the marketing orientation beyond the dynamic

between client/customer and the organisation. The expansion of the concept to include

stakeholder benefit as an explicit role of marketing impacts on the type and nature of thestrategies that can be considered to be marketing strategy. A core imperative to arise from

the marketing definition is the need to define the organisation's stakeholders. Freeman (1984)

defines stakeholders as "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the

achievement of the firms objectives". This is a noticeable departure from the narrow view of

stakeholders as shareholders, stockholders or owners of the organisation (Clement, 2005).

Stakeholders can be further split into primary stakeholders, who are directly involved in the

ongoing survival of the organisation (e.g. employees, customers and suppliers etc.); and

secondary stakeholders, who are influential, but not essential for the survival of the


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organisation (e.g. activists, communities and governments). The definition of "stakeholders"

is now a critical element in determining what marketing can do to create benefit for the

organisation and the stakeholders. From a social marketing perspective, incorporating

stakeholders has been a central tenet of indirect benefit exchange, and as such, represents the

inclusion of aspects of social marketings involvement in promoting marketing exchanges that

lead to benefits accruing to the individual and broader society. Both social marketing

(individual and society) and relationship marketing (individual and partners) have contributedto the inclusion of the stakeholders.

Compatibility and Incompatibility of Direct BenefitFrequently, social marketing is the inversion of commercial marketing profit, direct benefit

and shareholder benefit leads to long term sustainability of the business. Social marketing

instead seeks to solve a problem, present a cure for a disease, a reduction in the incidence of

an event, or the ultimate cessation of the social campaign once it has solved the social

problem. Few commercial marketers would regard a market need as a problem to be solved

ahead of being an ongoing opportunity to serve for gain. Commercial marketing and social

marketing have often been the most uncomfortable of travelling companions. The dichotomy

between the direct benefit profit orientation of commercial marketing, and the indirect

benefit social benefit orientation of marketing has always strained the relationship between

the parent and child discipline. Consequently, social marketing has always been based on the

simultaneous adoption of marketing philosophy and the adaptation of marketing tools. This is

done in order to develop programs which, whilst the programs are targeted at specific market

segments, will lead to socially beneficial outcomes for the broader community in the eyes of

the social marketer potentially then, if society exhibits a willingess to change, then the

organisation proposing the change can take a direct benefit from the groundswell of support

for the idea.

Change by any means possible is not Direct Benefit

Perhaps the greatest challenge to the social marketing community will arise from the adoptionof direct benefit as a core outcome of social change campaigns that use social marketing

techniques. If direct benefit is narrowly construed as the adoption of the change campaigns

social message or behaviour, then social marketing may be tempted away from the core

disciplinary message of voluntary change, towards an outcomes driven approach of change

at any cost. Increasingly, as the consumer becomes more resistant to the marketing

messages of commercial and social marketers, interest is growing in the upstream marketing

approach. Goldberg (1995) defined upstream marketing as manipulating the environmental

variables, market conditions and market needs by targeting the level above the consumer,

rather than consumer directly. In commercial marketing, upstream is usually seen as the

process of expanding the market, thus improving the size of the market even if the individual

percentage shares stay the same.

However, the fundamental nature of upstream marketing is the manipulation of the

environmental variables for the benefit of the marketer. As a commercial marketing

technique, it can, and has, been adapted and adopted by social marketers to achieve social

marketing outcomes. Unsurprisingly, upstream social marketing has tended towards the

inverse of commercial marketing by focusing effort on altering the environment for the

benefit the delivery of the social marketing message, behaviour or idea product by reducing,

rather than expanding the competition. For example, whilst a commercial marketer will use


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upstream to increase the number of distribution channels for their product, many social

marketers are using upstream techniques to decrease the number of channels open to rival

products. For example, a number of upstream social marketing campaigns regarding

childhood obesity has focused on decreasing the range of high fat foods that can be made

available to children, or decreasing the volume of advertising of these products. In contrast,

safe sex social marketers have historically used upstream marketing to broaden the

distribution base of condoms and safe sex information. As a technique, upstream socialmarketing is as inherently neutral as pricing, promotional or market research. With the

neutrality of the tool in mind, the priority must be placed on grounding the use of upstream

marketing within the context of the social marketing discipline.

Upstream Social Marketing: Broaden, not narrowing for direct benefit

As a pragmatic tool for social change, upstream marketing which results in legislative

controls over rival social message is a tempting form of social change. However, with

voluntary adoption of the product at the very core of commercial and social marketing, the

marketer cannot alter conditions to the point that voluntary becomes a question of

compliance via lack of alternative options. This is the point of departure between social

marketing, and social change through alternative methods such as social propaganda. Social

propaganda is based on the notion of the promoter of the message being convinced of the

essential righteousness of the message (OShaughnessy, 1996). The notion of inherent

righteousness overrules any marketing led decisions to modify the social message to meet

the need of the market. In fact, it emphasizes the modification of the market to fall into line

with the needs of the message changes to the market are appropriate and desirable since the

message is inherent correct, appropriate and whats best for the target audience. In

essence, social propaganda would seek to modify the conditions of the market to reduce the

competition between the true message and the distorting voices of competitive ideas.

Its not voluntary change if you have no choice

Upstream social marketers walk a fine line between social marketing (adjusting the message

to the needs of the market) and social propaganda (adjusting the market to the message). At

the core of a variety of social marketing definitions is the role of the discipline as a persuasive

force (Holdford, 2005) driven from understanding the consumer (Redmond and Griffth,

2005). The social marketing process requires the market to either be aware of, or informed of

a problem and to recognise the social product as good solution to that specific problem

(Weinreich 1999 in Griffin, Hall and Watson, 2005). Putting the needs of the consumer intothe development of the social product and solution has been the defining hallmark of the

social marketing as a change agent (Redmond and Griffth, 2005). Consequently, upstream

social marketing needs to be constrained by the needs of the consumer, and by the parameters

of both commercial and social marketing. Commercial marketing, with requirement of

benefit for the organisation and stakeholder, limits what upstream marketing can be used toachieve. Using upstream to create bnefit for the organisation has a proactive bias towards

increasing opportunity, broadening distribution channels and increasing the way in which the

consumer can interact with the social marketing message. In addition, social marketing needs

to use upstream marketing with care to ensure that the fundamental principle of voluntary

adoption for the benefit of the individual and society is retained. Modification to the

structure and nature of the social change marketplace that enhance the connection between the

social marketing product (idea, behaviour) and the individual and societal reward would

constitute a valuable use of the upstream approach. There is also considerable potential for


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inappropriate upstream social marketing to act in a manner contrary to both the social and

commercial marketing parameters. Limiting the voice of the rival messages for the greater

good may conflict with the fundamental principle of direct benefit. Does silencing a critic, or

a contrary message, create a direct benefit for the organisational and its stakeholders?

Possibly, although a brief analysis of stakeholder theory would suggest that the stakeholders

groupings of competitors and media may not see the benefit in restrictions on the

communication of rival messages. In addition, questions need to be asked regarding the valuethat is created, communicated or delivered to the customer through the reduction in their

freedom to accept or reject a social marketing message.

Upstream versus Smoking: A Mini Case

One of the most visible applications of upstream marketing has been the push to limit the

available spaces where a smoker may legally consume legal tobacco products. If the aim of

the social marketing campaign is the voluntary cessation of smoking, does the removal of the

ability to smoke in public places create value for the smoker? Does it in fact, destroy an

existing level of value the target consumer (the smoker) currently enjoy? Further, upstream

marketing that limits the behaviour of the smoker serves only to reduce the utility of the

current (smoking) behaviour. It does not create, communicate or deliver value for the

smoker, and as such, is it even a marketing behaviour? Certainly, the social marketing

product of non-smoking which is targeted at the non-smoker will receive benefit from the

upstream marketing - there is a clear creation, communication and delivery of value to the

target customer, and this will manage the ongoing relationship between the non-smoker and

the non-smoking campaign. However, if the upstream social marketing campaigns was

targeted at the smoker does the removal of freedom constitute the creation of value? Even if

it does, the removal of the choice means that the smoker cannot voluntarily adopt the non-

smoking behaviour, thus effectively ceasing any pretence that they are adopting a social

marketing product. In essence, even the non smoker is prohibited from engaging in a

voluntary adoption of the social marketing campaign without the freedom to reject the

behaviour, they have no freedom to adopt the product either.

Unfortunately for social marketing, the core principles of the discipline require it to forgo the

expediency of mandatory social change in favour of the higher risk, higher reward strategy of

voluntary compliance. Inherent in the social marketing approach is the consumer orientated

creation of a social product that creates, communicates and delivers superior value to the

market and which forces the marketer to address the needs of the market and maintain the

relationship in order to receive the direct and indirect benefit of compliance with the social

marketing message. Whilst social upstream marketing can be used to facilitate the creation,

communication and delivery of value, and to strength and reinforce the relationship,

ultimately, the marketer must give the freedom to accept or reject to the consumer. If the

customer has no freedom to reject the offer, then marketing does not take place, and socialmarketing simply ceases to exist where legislation or coercion takes precedence over

voluntary choice.


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Defining and Defending the Boundaries