Principles of Social Marketing

Social marketing is the application of marketing principles in campaigns that seek to achieve social change. ‘It uses marketing principles and techniques to advance a social cause, idea or behaviour. More specifically, it is the design, implementation and control of programmes seeking to increase acceptability of a social idea or cause in target group(s)’ (Kotler,P. 1982: 490). However, commercial marketing principles are not used in the same way as in traditional marketing but they are modified to fit the social context. 

Social marketing should not be confused with societal marketing or social media marketing.

Social marketing or cause campaigns always have a specific goal which can be either to change negative behaviour (i.e. no smoking in public areas), or to promote positive behaviour (i.e. asking people to recycle) or as Kotler et al (2002: 5) put it ‘to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify or abandon a behaviour for the benefit of individuals, groups or society as a whole’. 

It is very important to remember that social marketing is about behaviour change and not attitude change. A campaign for obesity is not successful if people start thinking that they should change their diet, it is only successful when they actually change their eating habits. Also, social marketing seeks to establish long-term change and not to have some short-term effect on the target group(s).  This is why cause campaigns often seek changes in public policy, organisational structures, laws and social programmes. Social marketing avoids victim blaming and focuses more on social reform. This way it often targets the government, businesses or the industry and not individuals.

In commercial marketing, marketers sell products or services whereas in social marketing, change agents sell behaviour change. There are some fundamental differences between commercial marketing and social marketing. The first as I have previously mentioned, is the product sold. (Goods & services vs. behaviour change). The second is audience segmentation; in commercial marketing the primary aim is financial gain whereas in social marketing the aim is societal gain. Thus, commercial marketing campaigns target the most profitable audiences unlike social marketing which often targets hard-to-reach groups (drug addicts or old people). Another difference is the competitive environment in which they function. In commercial marketing there might be a great number of competitors selling the same product while in social marketing the environment is less competitive, where usually the only competitor is the target audience’s current behaviour. Lastly, commercial marketing promotes a product that is wanted by the customer whereas it is often the case that the behaviour change which is promoted by the change agent is not desired by the target audience. In this and other ways, social marketing is harder than commercial marketing.

Despite the differences between commercial marketing and social marketing, the two share some similarities: (1) They are targeted; they are aimed at (a) specific group(s); (2) Research is used to build effective strategies; (3) Audiences are segmented; strategies are tailored according to the needs, wants, resources and behaviour of each segment; (4) The 4P’s of marketing (product, place, price, promotion) are considered.

References:

Kotler, P. (1982). Marketing for non-profit organizations, 2^nd Ed . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Kotler, P., Roberto, N. and Lee, N. (2002). Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life. USA: Sage Publications Inc.
Tench, R. and Yeomans, L.(2006) Exploring Public Relations. Essex: Pearson Education Limited