Social Marketing aka the Moral Marketing

Social marketing as a discipline was found  in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman published "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change" in the Journal of Marketing. However, there is evidence of earlier social marketing used as a tool for birth control in India, where legislative approach was substituted with persuasion based approach. 

There are many definitions of Social Marketing but to summarize them: Social Marketing uses behaviour goals in order to influence social behaviours and to benefit the target audience and to promote society's well being as a whole. 

This technique has been used in various programms for example, for contraceptives, encouraging condom use, anti-tobacco campaigns, reducing cigarette smoking in public areas, campaign against skin cancer, asking public to use seat belts and follow speed limits. 

Social Marketing can have even more difficult goals: to make potentially a long-term behavioral change in target populations. 

The main difference between commercial and social marketing is that the primary aim of social marketing is social good, while in commercial marketing the aim is primarily financial.

I rememeber, in our campiagn class we had to create a social change campaigns. But what is the definition of it? According to Philip Kotler and Ned Roberto: "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."

I beleive that the success of Social Marketing depends largly on effective use of media channels. Social marketers have to have a realistic expectations too. The result of such campaign can be sometimes seen only in the long-term, even as long as 5-7 years. I remember that it was very challenging coming up with the right campaign ideas, however it is very rewarding and I hope to be part of a real social change campaign one day.

I was very interested when in January 2009 the Department of Health launched Change4Life - England’s first ever national social marketing campaign - with the aim of reducing obesity. The focus of the campaign was prevention and set out to change the behaviours and circumstances that lead to weight gain by urging the public to 'Eat well, Move more and Live longer'.

After the official launch of Change4Life the challenge was to help people recognise their family may be at risk and encourage the target audience to complete a 'How are the kids?' questionnaire.

Overall, radio proved to be highly effective in terms of changing attitudes and positively affecting behaviour, crucial for this initial phase of the campaign.

The relevance of the campaign improved with 10% more people strongly agreeing that Change4Life is "for someone like me" after being exposed to the campaign.

Furthermore, there was an 18% increase in the overall numbers of people intending to make changes to their lifestyle in the next month.

This is a chart on behaviour change of the target audience