Social Marketing Panorama

If Someone Mentions Messages, Communication or Social Media in the Same Breath as Social Marketing, KICK THEM IN THE SHINS!

Here I was, all ready to compose a nice post about using social marketing to address climate change, following up on the Copenhagen conference. Then several things happened to send me into a rant of desperation about the confusion between marketing and messaging!

The Irritants
1. First, I read several posts from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service Marketing blog that discussed the confusion in the UK over social media and social marketing.  Apparently the press and some members of Parliament are upset over large budgets for social media, which they are calling social marketing.  (There should be NO excuses for this confusion anywhere in the UK, given the wonderful resource of the UK’s National Social Marketing Centre!)

2. Next I read a blog post from ISIS-INC. (a non-profit dealing with sexual health) that equates social marketing with “Facebook and Twitter,” and then goes on to talk about a web-based Youth Social Marketing Toolkit (YSMT), created by the California Family Health Council Infertility Prevention Project and the California STD/HIV Prevention Training Center to help “agencies with limited financial resources...develop a social marketing [read social media] campaign.”

I visited the toolkit.  It is nicely developed.  It defines social marketing correctly.  It defines the 4-Ps, and adds policy.  Then it trips up with the statement:  “Social marketing is not always a success. If the attitudes and behavior changes you are encouraging are still not perceived as beneficial, acceptable and attainable by the priority population, it may not be worthwhile to develop a social marketing campaign at this time. [“Beneficial, acceptable and attainable”—isn’t that what the 4 Ps are about?!] In this situation, it is better to introduce a behavior change recommendation by developing connections with community and agreeing on a unified goal before planning a social marketing campaign.” It trips up, and continues the long fall throughout the rest of the site by talking about how to do communication campaigns!

3. Next was a post on the web site 4Hoteliers; Hospitality, Hotels and Travel News.  It acknowledges the origins of social marketing with Kotler and Zaltman, then says of social marketing:  “It delivers a two-way communication link between the consumer/customer and the brand.  While social marketing was originally developed from the desire companies had to capitalize on commercial marketing techniques, it has evolved into a more integrative and comprehensive discipline that draws on a wide array of technology, from the traditional media to new media referred to as “’social media.’” It continues to discuss social media.

4. Finally, there was a meeting last week where a colleague of mine says at a meeting, “Social marketing is a way to make communication more effective, right?”

Cue Eduard Monck’s painting, “The Scream!”

How did those of us involved in promoting health, community well-being and positive behavior change around other issues get so enamored with communication and messaging?  Do we think just telling someone about something, or to do something leads to their doing it?  Do any of us have children?!  Are we looking at what works in behavior change efforts?  Not only did we “drink the Kool-Aid” on communication and messaging, we tied cement blocks to our feet and jumped in!

I AM NOT “DISS-ING” COMMUNICATION!  I am “diss-ing” our over-reliance on it as the panacea for all problems!  I am “diss-ing” the confusion of social media and using communication with social marketing.

This Holiday, Repeat after Me:
1.  Communication may be a necessary condition for behavior change, but it may not be a sufficient condition;

2. Social marketing is more about removing barriers to behavior, and increasing benefits and facilitators, than it is about communicating;

3. Social media is a communication tactic.  Social marketing is a strategic process for effecting social change;

4. Social marketing (and commercial marketing) utilizes a mix of Product, Price, Place and Promotion;

5. If I Hear Someone Mention Messages, Communication or Social Media in the Same Breath as Social Marketing, I WILL KICK THEM IN THE SHINS!

(To be continued…!)

Public Health: From Cholera to H1N1

Many agencies and organizations in the US use April to showcase what public health does.  I  had intended, as April drew to a close, to write a post highlighting public health, and its relationship with social marketing. Then, the novel H1N1 flu began to emerge, and provided public health with the opportunity to showcase itself! (Although my involvement in the response delayed my completing this post.)

Though one can trace the historical roots of public health back to classical times, epidemiology--the scientific basis for public health--traces back to the work of John Snow. (Epidemiology, by the way, is the science of how and why diseases spread through populations.)  John Snow was a physician in 19th Century London who used the emerging discipline of epidemiology to discover and remediate the source of a deadly cholera outbreak.  Without knowing about the bacterium, Dr. Snow was still able to identify the source of infection--a contaminated community water pump--and execute an intervention to quell the epidemic:  he removed the handle from the offending pump! (Thus, one of the first "modern" public health interventions was a change in the environment!) The methods our current day Epidemic Intelligence Surveillance personel use to trace the source and spread of H1N1, while more sophisticated, still follow in John Snow's footsteps. Our modern public health personnel also exhibit the same tenacity, caring and passion, as he! (Some things don't change.)

Several years ago, I had work in London.  Being the good public health geek that I am, I asked my host to help me find the center of John Snow's work:  the famous Broad Street Pump in Soho! (Its near Carnaby Street, the center of 1960s London, for all you old hippies.) At the site of the pump, there is an appropriate plaque, with a stone set in the sidewalk to mark the pump's location. There is also the John Snow Tavern, the upstairs of which hosts a collection of memorabilia, as well as the John Snow Society, which celebrates his work. The book, The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, provides a very riveting, readable account of the outbreak and of Snow's work.

Public health tourist that I am, I had my wife photograph me at various spots around the pump's location! I have been extraordinarily proud of public health's response to the novel H1N1 flu outbreak. I think Dr. Snow would smile, too! 

The Social Marketing Blogosphere is Alive and Well!!

...Even if I have not posted in awhile!

My apologies to everyone who has followed my posts, for not having blogged in several weeks!  It seems I have run out of day before I have run out of things to do.  I have decided that creating this new blog is kind of like having a baby, in that you have to get into a rhythm of having this new thing in your life to care for.  So, "baby" and I will continue to get used to each other, and I plan to be a better blogger!

Despite my absence in the blogosphere, there are a whole family of social marketing blogs to keep your head well fed.  There are the blogs I cited in my September 10th post, Craig Lefebvre's "On Social Marketing and Social Change," Nedra Weinreich's "Spare Change," and Alexandra Rampy's "Social Butterfly."   In addition, I want to highlight the following social marketing blogs.

Stephan Dahl's "The Social Side of Marketing," gives us a look at things social-marketing from a UK perspective.  Stephan is Principal Lecturer at Middlesex University Business School in London.  Recent posts on his blog have included using mobile technology to access information on HIV, and links to an interview with Jeff French, head of Britain's National Social Marketing Centre.  (When you visit Stephan's blog, note that he uses the European convention of writing dates as day/month/year!)

Andre Blackman's blog, "Pulse and Signal" provides an enlightening look at public health and e-technologies.  Andre states that the purpose of his blog is to comment on "the impact and potential usefulness, of technology (e.g. social media, consumer/emerging web tech) on health communication, health education and social marketing."

Know of other social marketing blogs that I have missed?  Tell me about them, and I will post them.

On the right side of my blog, I have added a new feature, Social Marketing Bloglines, developed by Craig Lefebvre, which brings together feeds from several of the social marketing blogs.  If you see a topic that interests you, just click on the title and you can read the full post.  Just trying to make it easier, for you, my reader! (I removed the widget for assisting with hurricane responses, since we are coming to the end of the hurricane season here.)

Social Marketing: WOULD a Rose by Any Other Name Smell Just as Sweet?

Just as the World Social Marketing Conference in Brighton, England ended, I discovered an interesting article in the UK's Health Services Journal entitled, NHS social marketing:  the hard sell.  I was surprised to read the observation by Jeff French, Director of the National Social Marketing Centre, that the UK had been slow to accept social marketing, especially in light of the excellent backgrounding and promotion the centre has done for the approach.  French remarks that social marketing has been widely used in places like the US and Australia. I think the use of social marketing in the US has indeed grown greatly over the past 30 years, however, there is still misunderstanding and lack of acceptance of it here, as well.  Traditionally, people have equated social marketing with messaging, advertisements or public service announcements.  More recently, many proponents of Web 2.0 technologies have appropriated the term social marketing for what would more accurately described as social media or social networking.

Why Does This Confusion and Lack of Acceptance Occur?
In the article, French identifies two reasons:  1) the low priority given to marketing and communications functions in public services; 2) negative connotations to terms such as "customer" and "marketing," "with their overtones of privatisation in the NHS."

Low Priority. I see this in the US also, especially in the sphere of public health. Because public health is often the health care provider of last resort for marginalized populations in the US, and because the perceived need is so great, services can tend to focus on treatment and tertiary prevention, rather than on primary prevention.  In tight budget times, functions such as health communication will be cut back first to preserve treatment services.  Health educators are paid less than medical clinicians.  Many local public health agencies will not have a staff position dedicated to public affairs, marketing or media.  To use a familiar analogy, more effort is given to pulling drowning people out of the river("downstream" interventions, treatment, etc.), than to stopping them from being thrown into the river (upstream" interventions, prevention efforts, environmental and policy change, etc.) While this trend is changing, it is still active.

Negative Connotations.When I began practicing social marketing 11 years ago, I heard many more negative attributes ascribed to it than I do today. Over the years I have heard some people describe marketing--and therefore social marketing--as manipulative, as if it has the power to make people do things they do not want to do. Less noble than medicine or public health, because commercial marketing seeks profit as its bottom line.  Or sleazy, with images in mind of a used car salesman, haranguing defenseless buyers. 

Misunderstanding.Today, I encounter less negativity about marketing, but more of the misunderstanding and misuse of terminology I mentioned earlier. It is easy to see why people equate marketing with messaging and advertising.  Promotion is the most noticeable of the marketing strategies.  We are surrounded by advertisements of all kinds in every media channel. This MUST be marketing.  The person in the street never sees the strategic planning behind successful retail endeavors, nor do they recognize the product, price, and place strategies that make these endeavors successful. 

Companies that do only promotion (what Craig Lefebvre calls "1 P marketing") compound the problem by calling themselves marketing companies, and by referring to their adverts and campaigns as marketing.  (How many of the people working in such firms have actually had a course in marketing or business?)

As I noted above, there has been the maddening trend of many proponents of Web 2.0 technologies to refer to social networking or consumer generated media as social marketing. I subscribe to Google Alerts for the term "social marketing."  It is a depressing act that you do not want to imitate! In the last seven days, only 6.6% of the uses of the term "social marketing" that Google Alerts identified on web sites or in blogs have dealt with the strategic planning process Kotler and Zaltman described in 1971!!

Lack of Marketing of Social Marketing.  I believe one of the biggest contributors to the confusion about social marketing, and lack of acceptance of it in some quarters, has been the failure of social marketers to use what we know to promote the field.  While we may be brilliant in using social marketing concepts to better the lives of individuals and communities, we have forgotten to use social marketing "at home"--with internal audiences in our own organizations, with potential partners and funders, with policy and decision makers--to support the understanding and acceptance of social marketing and all the benefits it provides!  In fairness, for most of we practitioners of social marketing, promoting the field is not main thrust of our jobs--we have many other responsibilities.  And despite the earlier efforts of the Social Marketing Institute, there has not been an organization whose focus it is to promote the field. (Though this is about to change, with the efforts to create a social marketing association, as I reported in my September 30th post.)

Remedying the Problem.
There are a number of things we can to counter these problems.  First, Use Social Marketing to Market Social Marketing!  We hold the best solution in our own hands and minds, but we forget to apply it in our own situations.  This should not be rocket science for us!  Alan Andreasen wrote convincingly about this in his 2002 article, Marketing Social Marketing in the Social Change Marketplace. I also wrote about marketing social marketing in 2007 and 2004 articles on North Carolina's Social Marketing Matrix Team. (See the "My Publications" link in this blog. [Shameless self-promotion!]) 

Correct Wrong Definitions of Social Marketing when they occur. Have a 30 second "elevator speech"--a quick, easy to recite message--describing best practice social marketing.  Write comments to blogs and web site that misuse "social marketing" to mean social media. Feel free to use or modify my own response, "Correct Social Marketing," listed under Pages, to the left of the posts.

Support the Develop of a National Social Marketing Association, which can advocate for best practice social marketing, and which can respond "officially" to questions and misconceptions.

Tie Social Marketing to Your Audiences' Goals.  I have found that the best way to create buy-in to using the social marketing process from an audience that is wary about social marketing is to listen.

1. Listen to what they want to achieve.

2. Listen and acknowledge their concerns and misconceptions about social marketing.

3. Show how social marketing can enable them to achieve their goals.

4. Share examples from others similar to themselves.

5. Be sincere.  Their concerns and goals should be our concerns and goals.

Should we change the name of social marketing? This question comes up every so often at conferences, or on the Georgetown Social Marketing List Serve.  The consensus is always "no."  The term has been in use for 37 years.  And Kotler and Zaltman had specific reasons for coining the term social marketing. (If you have not already read their seminal article, Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change (1971), by all means, do!) Changing the name would not improve the fragrance of this rose.

We who practice social marketing have an approach to doing good and improving life for people that the world longs for!  As a matter of fact, I believe that a social marketing approach is the best approach with which to address any social problem! But, that is for another post...

Advancing Social Marketing: The British are Coming!

Actually, they have already arrived!

Tuesday marks day two of the World Social Marketing Conference in Brighton & Hove City England.   From what I heard through Twitter yesterday, the conference is quite good!  My fellow social marketing blogger Alex Rampy has a poster session at the conference, and gives a nice report of the first day.  If you want to follow events on Twitter, Alex reports that "Dr. Stephen Dann is commanding the Twittering front @WSMC, and you can following using Twitter Search #WSMC08."  (Yesterday was the first day I used Twitter!  If I can do it, you can do it!)  Sponsors of the conference include the The National Social Marketing Centre, England, The University of Lethbridge, Canada, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Speaking of the National Social Marketing Centre, they have been a strong proponent of social marketing in the United Kingdom.  The process the centre undertook to explore the usefulness of social marketing, then to promote it in the UK's government, is something to envy and emulate!  Their web site contains a number of informative and stimulating case studies, reports and presentations on social marketing and its applications.

Scotland is home to the The Institute for Social Marketing, a collaboration of the University of Stirling and the Open University.  The institute has played a seminal role in promoting tobacco control in the UK. Their web site provides succinct case studies of this and other initiatives, as well as a rich bibliography of the institute's research.

In Wales, faculty at the University of Cardiff Business School teach classes in social marketing, produce excellent academic publications on the topic, and are active in building social marketing capacity in country and in the UK.

Jump back across the pond, and many of you will remember having seen Bob Marshall's recent post on the Georgetown Social Marketing List-serve about efforts to establish a professional social marketing organization in the US. Bob created an anonymous survey to gain input into the goals and structure of such an organization.  Please take a moment to complete the survey if you have not!  You can follow efforts to develop a professional organization on Bob's blog USSocialMarketingPlan. 

Bob received a Fulbright Senior Specialist Award last summer to study how the United Kingdom has promoted social marketing, beginning at the highest levels of government.  He chronicled his experiences in the blog, BroadStreetPump-RI. He used insights from his experiences to inform efforts to create US social marketing organization.