2 Es and a Pyramid—Back to School with Social Marketing!

By now all public schools, colleges and universities in the US are back in session.  In that spirit, I want to go back to school with you and review part of the alphabet and some geometry--2 Es, and a pyramid to be exact.

 

2 Es

In my reading and conference-going over the spring and summer, two terms kept popping up:  emotions and the environment.  Regarding emotions: discussions about how we make decisions based on emotion first, then find the facts to back up our decisions.  MRI scans from neurobiology, revealing that the emotional centers of our brains "light up" during decision-making, when presented with certain informational or advertising stimuli--before the cognitive centers of our brains light up.  Recommendations that we focus on emotional appeals, rather than on factual appeals.

Regarding environment:  if you are looking for fertile ground in which to grow, or to practice, social marketing, look no further than environmental issues.  More and more environmental programs are showing an interest in using social marketing.  I can think of protecting turtle breeding grounds on beaches, air quality, wise water use during droughts and lowering peak use power demand, off the top of my head.  Despite skepticism in some quarters about global warming, there are public and private sector groups proposing programs that have a product and benefit, that need people to act in some way.  Whether they are focusing on a technology product or on a behavior change, we should be there with social marketing in hand.

Perhaps social marketing needs "The 2 Es" to go along with
The 4 Ps!

 

The Pyramid

Dr.Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, has proposed a pyramid to describe public health interventions, their level of influence (societal to individual) and their impact on life expectancy.  From bottom to top, the levels are:  socioeconomic factors; changing the context of default decisions; long lasting protective interventions; clinical interventions; counseling and education. Interventions at the bottom have more impact on the whole population, but may encounter political and other resistance.  Interventions at the top require more individual effort, and may not be as widely nor immediately effective.

I look at this and see a smorgasbord of opportunities for using social marketing!!  I think a social marketing approach can be applied at each level.  And I have heard one state health director comment that social marketing can be most effective in the lower levels of the pyramid!

So...If you are looking opportunities to grow or to use social marketing, consider the 2 Es and a pyramid.

Comments

[Mike N-W]

Thanks for your comment. However, you are mistaking social marketing and social media. What you describe is very much social media! Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing principles and planning processes to understand the barriers and facilitators an audience associates with a behavior (usually a behavior dealing with health, the environment, civil society, etc. that has personal and societal benefits), and seeks to lower those barriers, while increasing the facilitators and the benefits the audience receives. Think making the behavior "fun, easy and popular."

I have a great presentation differentiating social marketing and social media that you may want to take a look at: bit.ly/6qTHpv

[Toronto Marketing Company]

Nice Article! It is really a good blog. I am completely convinced with his thoughts. Social marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.

[Mike N-W]

Hi Leah,

Thanks for checking out the blog, and for your comment. (Thanks, too, for following me on Twitter.) It seems the pyramid is getting wider and wider play. I think it provides a good guide for what will give us the most return on investment. However, some public health-ers who have given their lives to the higher activities on the pyramid might feel threatened. I think often the problems we work with need multiple levels of intervention, so there should be no threat. And I think those of us who use social marketing should rejoice, because we can contribute to every level!

Mike

[Leah Roman]

Hello! I follow you on twitter and am just checking out your blog for the first time. I attended a lecture last week by the Philadelphia Health Commissioner outlining how they are applying the pyramid, proposed by Dr. Frieden, to the city of Philadelphia focusing on outcomes like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So thanks for highlighting it here!