Does social marketing work?

(2)Does social marketing work?

Social Marketing is a way of planning communication programs that aim to influence human behavior. Community-based Social Marketing (CBSM) is a variant that includes influence techniques drawn from social psychology. Communication for Behavioral Impact  (COMBI) is another variant that’s been designed for aid programs in developing countries. One of the most commonly heard definitions of Social Marketing is “Social Marketing is the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences to improve their personal welfare and that of society.” The problem with social marketing: If you work in health promotion or sustainability, you’ll have heard of “Social Marketing” and “Community-based Social Marketing”. I’ve noticed that these communication methodologies are sometimes treated with almost magical reverence, as if they are the long-awaited silver bullets for the complex social, health and environmental problems we struggle with. I believe many of the expectations placed on Social Marketing and its variants are overblown and social change practitioners need to be wary about claims made by their advocates. Here’s why: Of course you can market brands. But behavior change is not like buying a different brand of beer, it’s about getting people to DO THINGS THEY ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH, DON’T WANT TO DO OR CAN’T DO, or they would already be doing them. Like parents letting their kids walk to school, or smokers quitting, or drivers switching to public transport. These kinds of social, health and environmental behaviors are intractable because they are part of complex, “wicked” or messy social problems. That’s why they are still with us. They are intractable for very good reasons: they are fixed firmly in place by a powerful matrix of institutional, technological and social factors. To be effective change programs must therefore do more than just communicate persuasive messages, they must aim to modify those factors. So what does work? Let’s take the three behavioral challenges which have a strong emerging evidence base about what works and what doesn’t work: tobacco cessation, road safety, and obesity prevention. What reduces tobacco smoking; According to a 2010 US National Cancer Institute study, media campaigns can produce reductions in smoking, “but only when the rest of the social structure actively changes the environment of the smoker. What reduces road accidents;  The World Health Organization's 2004 "World Report on Traffic Injury Prevention", an authoritative global review of road safety interventions, does not mention Social Marketing, but  notes “when used in support of legislation and law enforcement, publicity and information can create shared social norms for safety. However, when used in isolation, education, information and publicity do not generally deliver tangible and sustained reductions in deaths serious injuries.” A 2004 systematic review into the effectiveness of anti-drink-driving programs concluded that mass media campaigns that are carefully planned and well executed, that reach a sufficiently large audience, and that are implemented together with other prevention activities – such  as  highly-visible enforcement  – are  effective  in  reducing alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol-related crashes.  So what, exactly, is wrong with social marketing? Like most systems of practice or models, Social Marketing is good at the things it pays attention to. The problem is the things it does not pay attention to. In other words, it’s hidden assumptions: 1) The behavior is always right; 2) Context blindness; 3) Crop spraying; 4) Claim creep; 5) Theory fetish; 6) Power blindness; 7) Individual focus; 8) Message Fetish; And my point is: I don’t discount the utility of Social Marketing, CBSM and COMBI as communication practices, but as social change practices they fall short. The halo of omnipotence that accompanies them is unwarranted. They are a valuable support practices, not the messiah. There is nothing wrong with marketers being involved in designing change programs. They bring vital skills and perspectives. In fact a change program that doesn’t involve marketers is probably only slightly less ridiculous than one that is run entirely by marketers.

******************************************            (7) why marketers should or should not have a responsibility to society? 
My answer is yes! They should have a responsibility to society. Most marketing organizations do not intentionally work in isolation from the rest of society. Instead they find that greater opportunity exists if the organization is visibly accessible and involved with the public. As we’ve seen, because marketing often operates as the “public face” of an organization, when issues arise between the public and the organization marketing is often at the center. In recent years the number and variety of issues raised by the public has increased. One reason for the increase is the growing perception that marketing organizations are not just sellers of product but also have an inherent responsibility to be more socially responsible, including being more responsible for its actions and more responsive in addressing social concerns. Being socially responsible means an organization shows concern for the people and environment in which it transacts business. It also means that these values are communicated and enforced by everyone in the organization and, in some cases, with business partners, such as those who sell products to the company (e.g., supplier of raw material for product production) and those who help the company distribute and sell to other customers  (e.g., retail stores). In addition to insuring these values exist within the organization and its business partners, social responsibility may also manifest itself in the support of social causes that help society. For instance, marketers may sponsor charity events or produce cause-related advertising. Marketers who are pursuing a socially responsible agenda should bear in mind that such efforts do not automatically translate into increased revenue or even an improved public image. However, organizations that consistently exhibit socially responsible tendencies may eventually gain a strong reputation that could pay dividends in the form of increased customer loyalty. Marketers are sometimes associated with some pretty negative terms: annoying, interruptive, manipulative. Well sometimes, whether we like it or not, it's our job to market the actions of our company. And sadly, sometimes businesses make poor decisions. Or sometimes they're perfectly justified decisions, but they fail to consider the long term negative impact of those decisions ... like environmental degradation, layoffs in a certain community, or chronic health problems. No wonder we look like jerks when our job relies on trying to find a positive spin (or just plain detract attention from) these unsavory stories. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is essentially an ethical plan. While you can read a bunch of long and fancy-sounding definitions, in its most basic sense CSR is understanding the results of your actions within the various communities associated with your brand. It's about making the ethically and morally correct choices. Why it is important? The CSR landscape is more critical today than ever before. Decades ago, the world was run on sovereignty. (Stay with me here. This won't turn into a political science post, I promise.) A country or state, or some government body, regulated how the world was run. Its actions impacted the state of the economy, and its regulations dictated how issues were solved. And while that still remains true to varying extents, businesses are now taking over as rulers of the world -- even if they (and we) don't see it that way. Let's look at some examples to illustrate how. For example: Apple; Steve Jobs hated Flash. Plain and simple. As a result, none of the Apple products -- iPad, iPod, iPhone -- were Flash compatible. Just few weeks, 5 million iPhone 5 devices have been ordered in the United States. Even further, CNBC reports that half of all U.S. households own at least one Apple product. So it's probably not a stretch to say that the overwhelming number of Americans using Apple products has had some impact on the diminishing use of Flash, right? While Steve Jobs likely had no direct intention to alter that market, he indirectly did by the decisions he made to restrict Flash from functioning on his company's products. Was he responsible or irresponsible? One could argue either way. But there is some component of social responsibility there. Who had to communicate the fact that Flash isn't compatible with Apple products? Even if marketers aren't ultimately the people making these decisions that so widely impact various societies and social settings, we have an integral part in the messaging and communication of it. Therefore, when we discuss our plans, consider our opportunities, and prepare our campaigns, it might behoove us to think about what the responsible route to take is.