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SOCIAL MARKETING: MORE THAN JUST "ADVERTISING" FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Social marketing is more than the development of good marketing slogans or advertisements: it targets human behavior. Social marketing is a comprehensive, goal centered, and practice oriented approach to engage proactively with conservationists and non-conservationists with the objective of shaping their behavior to reach conservation goals.

Social marketing provides a strategic framework that draws from many other bodies of knowledge (e.g., psychology, political sciences, sociology, anthropology) and offers a logical planning process for projects that aim to reduce the impact of human activity on biotic diversity and the environment.

The shorthand definition of social marketing could be "using the hugely successful methods developed in commercial marketing for societal benefit instead of commercial gain." More formally, social marketing has been defined as "the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare as well as that of their society" (Andreasen 1995).

The fundamental considerations of social marketing are

Consumer orientation -- not "why don't they," but "why don't we." Marketing puts the "target consumer" at the center of our thinking. In conservation, the target consumer is any person whose behavior has a considerable impact on a conservation project. Instead of asking, "What is wrong with these people; why don't they understand the importance of conservation?" a social marketer asks, "What is wrong with us and what don't we understand about these people that makes us incapable of convincing them to behave in a conservation-friendly manner?" The "target audience" has a primary and active role in the process as only she or he reliably can tell you how to bring him or her to the point of behaving in a pro-conservation manner.

This customer orientation also engenders market segmentation, or grouping the target audience into subsets with similar features and then tailoring actions tightly to each segment.

Focus on voluntary behavior change. Research has demonstrated that information and awareness alone have little convincing power for the adoption of a more sustainable or healthy lifestyle (think, e.g., of smoking cessation). Therefore, the bottom line of social marketing is to convince the target audience to adopt a new, conservation friendly behavior as opposed to obtaining more knowledge about nature, becoming a conservationist, or adopting the marketer's value system. Social marketing frequently involves awareness raising, education, and related approaches, but only if those approaches serve the ultimate goal of behavior change. Moreover, the focus on voluntary behavior change forces the project manager or leader to define the goal of the project clearly, thus responding to the increasingly loud call for appropriate evaluation of effects.

Social objective. The ultimate objective of social marketing is to benefit the target person as well as society rather than, as in commercial marketing, the marketer. Note that voluntary behavior change necessarily implies some form of perceptible gain for the members of the target group. Ethical considerations are an essential part of the process, with regard to the ends of the project as well as the means used to pursue the ends.

Cost-benefit orientation. Like commercial marketing, social marketing recognizes the fundamental principle that customers take the desired action only when they believe they will benefit from the action, considering benefits as well as costs. However, the definition of cost and benefit in social marketing goes far beyond monetary value and may comprise factors like time, social status and pressures, traditions, values, practicality, capability to act, training, empowerment -- and even simply having fun.

Continual research. Any activity taken to explore and affect the behavior of the target group is based on a thorough and iterative scientific assessment of the status quo or the effect of the planned action. Qualitative and quantitative methods are used to provide insight to the barriers and benefits pertaining to the behavior. Research also encompasses the alternative (undesired) behaviors and their drivers.

Social marketing is more comprehensive and more complex than commercial marketing because its goal is to change problematic, high-involvement behaviors, in complex economic and social and political climates, often with very limited resources. Commercial marketing frequently concerns low-involvement brand choice behavior in a consumerist paradigm, usually with considerable funding and expertise.

What does a social marketing project look like?

A social marketing project usually has three phases.

1. Thorough investigation of the benefits and barriers -- formative research. A situational analysis of the internal and external environment of the consumer is conducted, starting with a literature review and progressing to individual surveys and focus groups. A compilation of relevant factors establishes a clear picture of the elements contributing to the behavior.

2. Planning and implementing a strategy to increase the benefits and decrease the costs of the proposed behavior and to create an enabling environment. Informed by and shaped in response to the outcomes of the formative research,

-- Increase the target group's perception of the benefits of the desired behavior. For example, provide information, awareness, incentives, make remembering easier, influence norms, and provide role models.

-- Decrease the target group's perception of the costs. Much like making access easier, make the behavior easier and more pleasant or modify social perceptions.

-- Enable the target group to perform the action through building capacity, empowerment and transferring responsibility, and removing antagonistic group pressures. These actions always should be tailored tightly to the formative research outcomes.

3. Evaluation and perpetuation of the project. After a behavior has been introduced it must be institutionalized to become part of "normal" behavior. Therefore, the marketer needs to ensure that upon his departure, other parties take over his role. Specific evaluation starts within phase one by determining the behavior itself, how the behavior can be measured, and establishing the baseline. Evaluation continues through phase two by permanent monitoring of intervention effects. In phase three, evaluation determines the degree to which further interventions are necessary to institutionalize the new behavior.

Historical Sketch

Academic discussions about the use of commercial marketing for political and social ends began during the late 1950s. Kotler and Zaltman coined the term in 1971 (Social marketing: an approach to planned social change. Journal of Marketing 35). Social marketing has been used widely and very successfully in preventive health programs, "brown" environmental campaigns, and recently in "green" environmental programs. In December 2006, the United Kingdom established the first National Social Marketing Centre.

Easy Access References

McKenzie-Mohr, D. and W. Smith. 1999. Fostering sustainable behavior, an introduction to community-based social marketing. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, Canada.

Andreasen, A.R. 1995. Marketing social change, changing behaviour to promote health, social development, and the environment. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, California, USA.

Web sites

Community Based Social Marketing, Fostering Sustainable Behaviour, Canada (Doug McKenzie-Mohr), www.cbsm.com

National Social Marketing Centre, London, UK, www.nsms.org.uk/public/default.aspx
Social Marketing Institute, Washington, D.C., USA, (Alan Andreasen), www.social-marketing.org

Institute for Social Marketing, Stirling, UK, www.ism.stir.ac.uk

R. Craig Lefebvre's Social Marketing Blog, socialmarketing.blogs.com

General information by Weinreich Communications, including a list of books in the "bookstore," www.social-marketing.com

Angelika Wilhelm-Rechmann

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