Social Marketing Panorama

The Current State of Social Marketing--Views from the USF Conference

Last month I shared gems of wisdom from the founding fathers of social marketing.  In this post, I offer up more of the rich content from USF--this time, comments on the current state of the field from three practitioners:  Keith Goodman, Alliance for Climate Protection, in Washington, DC; Carol Bryant, founder fo the USF conference (whom I call the "godmother" of social marketing in public health); and Jeff French, CEO of Strategic Social Marketing, Ltd., and former director of Britain's National Social Marketing Centre.

 

Keith Goodman

• Government needs to do audience research for their program.  They don't understand this (a recurring theme at the conference was the federal gov't. in the US not getting marketing--sm1guru) 
• Technologies used in social marketing (e.g., mass media, social networking) are just tools
• We need to provide benefits for behavior, such as "bragging rights" through easy access into Facebook or Twitter; remember the importance of making the behavior fun
• We have the opportunity to "pile on benefits"

 

Carol Bryant

• We need to address the outer circles of the socio-ecological model
• Community-base social marketing has three major facets:  tapping into local wisdom and sharing control; using the socio-ecological model; using social marketing basics
• Community members (i.e., the "target audience") bring tremendous local knowledge
• Sharing the social marketing process and the ecological model enables the community to make the local knowledge actionable

 

Jeff French 

• We need to "get out of our social marketing ghettos," and talk to others about social marketing
• We have problems in promoting social marketing:  1) definitional and branding problems; 2) not enough proponents, and they are unevenly distributed; 3) lack of alignment with organizational strategies--social marketing is viewed as a third level of activity
• We need to get strategic, and influence policy and evaluation
• We need to develop:  1) standards and codes; 2) social networks of practitioners; 3) an academic evidence base with research and case studies
• There are opportunities in the demands for citizen-based solutions for social problems

 

The three take-home messages for me are that we need to:  1) focus much more on providing benefits; 2) open up our practice to the communities in which we work; 3) shore up the field academically and structurally.  What struck you in the remarks? What ideas do you have about how to act on these observations?  I invite you to examine your own practice of social marketing, and see how it stands up against the comments above.  Are you in good shape, or do you have work to do?

Environmental Sustainability, Community-Based Social Marketing & Doug Mckenzie-Mohr

With the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continuing to unfold before our very eyes, more people are talking about the health of the environment and issues of sustainable living. How can we live our own lives in an environmental responsible way?  How can we support others in doing the same?  Social marketing can help!  And there is one person who stands out as a giant in the application of social marketing principles to issues of environmental sustainability:  Doug McKenzie-Mohr.  Doug, a conservation psychologist, created the "specialty" of community-based social marketing.  I had the opportunity to chat with him in person last week when he conducted a workshop in Charlotte, NC for the Clean Air Works! and the N.C. Air Awareness programs. Here are some of the take-aways.

 

I. Many Behavior Change Programs are Information-Intensive--And They DON'T WORK. 

They rely on one of two two theses: 1) Information brings about attitude change, which brings about behavior change; 2) Economic self-interest--if I learn that an action is in my financial self-interest, I will choose this alternative. Five decades of social psychology research on the connection between attitude change and behavior change have shown that there is virtually no relationship. Similarly, a review of programs designed to appeal to economic self-interest did not find change above the level of that in control groups.

 

II. We Continue to Use Information-Intensive Approaches for Several Reasons.

• We under-estimate the difficulty of behavior change. We see that advertisements for businesses seem to work, and assume they will work for our environmental (health, safety, etc.) issues. However, the behaviors associated with these issues are more complex than buying decisions.
• Expediency. We've always done it this way. It's the path of least resistance.
• Relative ease of developing messages, versus other interventions
• Lack of proper evaluations. We tend to evaluate outputs (e.g., number of media buys), not outcomes.

 

III. What works, of course, is the social marketing approach because of its emphasis on the barriers and benefits the target audience associates with the environmentally sustainable behavior! Doug noted that barriers and motivators differ by behavior, and need to be determined for each behavior.

 

IV. When selecting target behaviors, look first for one-time behaviors people can do (e.g., wrapping the hot water heater in insulation, switching from gas to electric lawn mowers).  However, most transportation solutions involve repetitive behaviors (e.g., taking ligth rail every day). Prompts and gaining commitments are two tactics that promote such behaviors.  (And among commitments, verbal commitments are the weakest, while written commitments, made in front of others are the strongest.  Who knew?!)

 

V. Some other "goodies."

• Doug thinks Australia has done the best job of applying social marketing to sustainability issues. They sought buy-in at high government levels. Positive experiences using CBSM to address water-scarcity issues generalized to other environmental issues.
• Three sustainability-related iPhone apps:  Twavel; Seafood Watch; Billion Acts of Green.
• Doug's website, www.cbsm.com, has an embarrassment of riches! Case studies, articles, strategies and a forum. You can also download at no cost, his book, written with Bill Smith, Fostering Sustainable Behavior.

Are you working on green behaviors?  Give your project some legs, and use community-based social marketing.

Social Marketing and Environmental Issues

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2009!  As we celebrate Earth Day, it is a good time to remember that social marketing can be a useful approach to address environmental issues.  Indeed, social marketing has already been used to address issues as diverse as non-point source water pollution, sustainable forests, decreasing fertilizer run-off (including the famous "Save the Crabs" campaign for Chesapeake Bay), watershed protection, reducing automobile idling, and it under girds the Environmental Protection Agency's "Energy Star" program, which certifies energy-efficient home appliances.  Jay Kassirer's Tools of Change web site offers an impressive list of social marketing case studies addressing environmental concerns. Jay's site is available in French and English.

Another good resource is Doug McKenzie-Mohr's web site on community-based social marketing.  It has a searchable database of journal articles, cases and forums about social marketing approaches to environmental problems. Doug also has co-authored a book with Bill Smith of the Academy for Educational Development, Fostering Sustainable Behavior:  An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing,which details his approach.  As many of you know, the Georgetown Social Marketing List serv is a good place to ask questions about many facets of social marketing, including environmental applications. (For directions to subscribing, click on the link on the left of this page.)  The Conservation Psychology List serv, hosted at the University of Michigan, addresses issues specific to human behavior and environmental conservation.  Ed Maibach, at George Mason University, has created the Center for Climate Change Communication.  Its mission is to "conduct public engagement and behavior change research that can be used to improve climate change communication and social marketing programs."  Ed and the center collaborated on a wonderful piece of audience research, Global Warming's Six Americas:  And Audience Segmentation.

I created a PowerPoint case study to illustrate what a social marketing approach to an environmental issue might look like.  You can view it on Slideshare.com at  http://tinyurl.com/c5nctz.

On Earth Day and every day, do something nice for the environment!  Use social marketing to keep it clean, green and functioning!