Social Marketing Panorama

Riding the Social Marketing Wave--Surf's Up!

This is proving to be quite the year for social marketing!  Just today I learned that social marketing is in the preliminary Healthy People 2020 Health Objectives for the nation! While the US Department of Health and Human Services has to approve all of the 2020 objectives, the social marketing objectives were approved by an interagency committee charged with preparing objectives for a specific issue area--a momentous step!  The social marketing objectives are part of the "Health Communication / Health Information Technology Objectives." They read:

HC/HIT HP2020-13:  Increase social marketing in health promotion and disease prevention.

HC/HIT HP2020-13a: Increase the proportion of state health departments that report using social marketing in health promotion and disease prevention programs.

HC/HIT HP2020-13b:  Increase the proportion of Schools of Public Health and accredited MPH programs that offer one or more courses in social marketing.

HC/HIT HP2020-13c:  Increase the proportion of Schools of Public Health and accredited MPH programs that offer workforce development activities in social marketing for public health practitioners.

 

Efforts continue to form a Global Social Marketing organization. The hope is to roll this out at the Social Marketing in Public Health Conference (see below) this summer.  There is a very good communications vehicle for this nascent organization in the Social Marketers Global Network. The site offers a way to communicate with individuals and groups doing social marketing, share articles, conference announcements and other resources, and even post your own blog. (And, of course, there is still the Georgetown University Social Marketing List serve.)

The 20th Annual Social Marketing in Public Health Conference is coming up June 11th & 12th, in Sand Key, Florida!  That is right: the 20th! This is, I believe, the longest running social marketing conference in the world.  And little wonder, it is wonderful!  I have attended for 13 years, and I always find something new and engaging.

The University of South Florida School of Public Health--a leader in social marketing thought and practice--sponsors the event. And this year they are celebrating in style.  Philip Kotler, one of the founders of social marketing will deliver the key note address. There will other long-time social marketers, such as Alan Andreasen and Bill Novelli, talking about the past, present and future of the field, also.  Plus, there is a whole extra set of workshops this year.

Surf's up! Come on in and catch the wave!

Social Marketing Anniversary-Phil Kotler's Thoughts!

As I wrote in my July 6th posting, this month marks the 38th anniversary of the birth of social marketing--the anniversary of Kotler and Zaltman's article "Social Marketing:  An Approach to Planned Social Change," (the Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35, pp. 3-12, July 6, 1971) in which they first conceptualized social marketing !

I was interested in Kotler's thoughts about social marketing now, after 'lo these many years. Here is what you had to say.

"In the 1970s, a few of us academic marketers at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University started to assert that marketing can be applied to a broader range of issues beyond the marketing of goods and services.  Marketing could help create interest in places, persons, organizations, ideas, and causes.  In the last case, Professor Gerald Zaltman and I had been exchanging ideas about social change and social movements.  We decided to research and write an article on how marketing could be used to "sell" better behaviors, such as "say no to drugs," "don't litter,"  "exercise regularly," and so on.  We chose the name "social marketing" to help the public's gain a better view of marketing.  In retrospect, we could have called it "cause marketing" or "social cause marketing."   

 

The field of social marketing grew slowly at first.  Ned Roberto and I wrote the first book, Social Marketing, on the subject. Eventually social marketing drew the interest of the Center for Disease Control, the World Bank, World Vision, Population Services International, the Population and Community Development Association of Thailand, and other organizations.  Social and health oriented advocates began to appear from different countries.  Alan Andreasen and others wrote books on social marketing and organized annual meetings.  This culminated with the launching of the World's First Social Marketing Conference in Brighton England in late September 2008 which drew 700 attendees.  In July 2009, Nancy Lee and I published Up and Out of Poverty: The Social Marketing Solution, the first book applying social marketing to a specific and grave problem, poverty. 

 

It appears that social marketing has passed the take-off stage and is entering a period of steady growth." 

When I asked him the current practice of calling social media "social marketing," he had this to say:

We wish that those who talk about social media use that term [i.e. social media].  They can call it social media marketing.  But it shouldn't be abbreviated to social marketing. 

So, there is a brief history of social marketing from one of its fathers!  And the next time you hear someone say "social marketing" when they are talking about social media, resist the impulse to throttle them (or not!)--whip out the quote from Dr. Philip Kotler!

Happy Anniversary Social Marketing!!

 

This month, July 2009, marks the 38th anniversary of the conceptualization of social marketing, by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman! Their seminal article, "Social Marketing:  An Approach to Planned Social Change,"  appeared in the Journal of Marketing (Vol. 35, pp. 3-12) in July 1971.  In the article, Kotler and Zaltman discussed how "the logic of marketing [could be applied] to social goals."  And a new approach to supporting social change for the well-being of individuals and communities was born!

Everyone who uses social marketing should read this article.  It is a grounding text, a "sacred text," for what we do.

(And,for those who would equate social marketing with either advertsing or messages alone, or with the use of interactive, social media, Kotler and Zaltman are precise in grounding social marketing in the management, research and planning of marketing science, using all of marketing's strategies--product, price, place and promotion.)

Since 1971, social marketing has been used, literally, around the world to remediate a variety of health, environmental and societal concerns.  A small sampling of users includes: WHO; The North Carolina Division of Public Health; US Department of Agriculture; RARE Conservation; World Wildlife Fund; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Rock the Vote; Red Cross; the Episcopal Church.  Issues have ranged from promotion of oral rehydration therapy and breastfeeding, to woodlands management and recycling, to anti-doping in sport and democratic voting in civil society.

There are more than 25 universities that offer social marketing courses; 11 text books on the topic; an international list serve with approximately 1,700 members; at least three international conferences (the oldest of which just had its 19th meeting); a dedicated journal; social marketing centers in Scotland, Canada, Poland and Australia; a governmental social marketing center in the UK. And, as many of you know, an international social marketing professional organization is in development, with expected roll-out in summer, 2010.

So, pour a glass of your favorite libation, sit down with a copy of the article, and raise a toast to Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman!  They have given us a way to change the world for the better.

(Photo: robokow)