Here’s the deal, I am a Master’s of Public Health graduate
student (in my last semester!) who decided to do a few entries on this blog as
part of an assignment for my health communications campaign course (social marketing). If anyone wants to offer feedback or thoughts, I would love to
hear them!
So first of all, what
is a social marketing campaign? Great
question, let’s answer that first!
“A distinct marketing discipline
that has been labeled as such since the early 1970s and refers primarily to efforts focused on
influencing behaviors that will improve health, prevent injuries, protect the
environment, contribute to communities, and more recently financial-wellbeing”. (Lee & Kotler, n.d)
Organizations who generally conduct social marketing
campaigns include:
- Governmental Agencies
- Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and Non-Profits
- Red Cross, National Canter Institute
- International Organizations
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- Businesses
- Usually for product promotion and de-marketing (AKA: product re-calls)
- Grass Root Organizations and Advocacy Groups
Social marketing campaigns can cover a wide variety of
topics in:
- Health
- Food and nutrition
- The environment
- Safety or accident prevention
- The community and/or civic causes
- In class we briefly discussed two great examples of Public Service Announcements (PSA) related to educating the public on health topics. The first on the Zika Virus and the other on the lead in the Flint water. http://www.cdc.gov/zika/pregnancy/index.html, http://www.michigan.gov/lead/
Now let’s talk about the key components of a marketing campaign:
- Marketing campaigns generally take place over several modalities to communicate distinct information.
- There is a strategy and process to all campaigns (or at least there should be if it is well designed!).
- Social marketing campaigns are coordinated between several key players, they are outcome orientated (what behavior are we trying to change and in what demographics?), and they have to have a way to measure these outcomes (basically, there will be no more funding if they don’t measure who they’ve reached).
So, to assist in this process the Ad Council was created
around World War II. They’re pretty
cool! Since their creation they have evolved into a huge organization. Apparently,
they foster partnerships between organizations, ad agencies (for pro bono
work), assist in locating public media time, and assist with campaign research,
strategy, and evaluation. The add council has ben apart of creating icons such
as Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear “only you can prevent wildfires”, and
McGruff’s “take a bit out of crime”
Now that I’ve
outlined some VERY basic information about social marketing campaigns, I’ll describe
how the rest of this blog will work.
I will report a brief summary of key takeaways from assigned
readings and class discussions as well as examine the
ethics behind certain social marketing campaigns and/or topics. Two interesting topics when discussing ethics are the difference between behavior change and empowerment.
Basic Principles (Tengland,
2012):
Behavior Change Vs. Empowerment
Persuasion Autonomy
Coercion Increasing skills
Manipulation Increasing
coping skills
Increasing inequalities Decreasing
inequalities
Hmm… from these principles do you think behavior change or
empowerment is more ethical? I’ll leave
that up to you to answer.
I have inserted 2 marketing materials. In my opinion, one was more focused at behavior
change while the other one was focused on empowerment. Can you tell the difference? Which one do you think is more
effective? How do you want to be
marketed to?
References:-Kotler, P., & Lee, N. Social marketing.-Tengland, P. (2012). Behavior
Change or Empowerment: On the Ethics of Health-Promotion Strategies. Public Health Ethics, 5(2), 140-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/phe/phs022
