Social Marketing and Social Change

Strategies and Tools For Improving Health, Well-Being, and the Environment

R. Craig Lefebvre

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118235249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Public Health, Administration & Care

How can we facilitate more effective, efficient, equitable and sustainable solutions to the problems that confound our communities and world? Social marketing guru R. Craig LeFebvre weaves together multi-level theories of change, research and case studies to explain and illustrate the development of social marketing to address some of society's most vexing problems. The result is a people-centered approach that relies on insight and empathy as much as on data for the inspiration, design and management of programs that strive for changes for good. This text is ideal for students and professionals in health, nonprofit, business, social services, and other areas. "This is it -- the comprehensive, brainy road map for tackling wicked social problems. It's all right here: how to create and innovate, build and implement, manage and measure, scale up and sustain programs that go well beyond influencing individual behaviors, all the way to broad social change in a world that needs the help."— Bill Novelli, Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, former CEO, AARP and founder, Porter Novelli and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

"I'm unaware of a more substantive treatise on social marketing and social change. Theoretically based; pedagogically focused; transdisciplinary; innovative; and action oriented: this book is right for our time, our purpose, and our future thinking and action."— Robert Gold, MS, PhD, Professor of Public Health and Former Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park

"This book -- like its author -- is innovative and forward-looking, yet also well-grounded in the full range of important social marketing fundamentals."— Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD, University Professor and Director, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University

Chapter 1

The History and Domains of Social Marketing

This area in Soweto, South Africa, experiences multiple challenges in housing, health, sanitation, and employment. Picking the right approach to addressing complex problems is part of social marketing practice. (Image courtesy of the author.)

Learning Objectives

• Describe the nature of wicked problems and how they are different from other types of problems.
• Identify five actions that demonstrate an organization may have adopted a marketing orientation or approach.
• Distinguish the ways in which social marketing evolved differently in developing and developed country contexts.
• Discuss influences from the academic marketing discipline that have guided the development of social marketing practice.
• Explain how service-dominant logic can influence how we think about exchanges in social marketing practice.

THE CHANGE WE NEED: NEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT SOCIAL ISSUES

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. One of the key questions I will continually be asking you to think about in one way or another throughout this book is, can we continue thinking about and trying to solve social and public health issues using traditional paradigms and tools, or will applying a marketing orientation aimed at social innovation lead to original and improved solutions?

Coping with the many challenges confronting our own communities and countries, as well as those that transcend national boundaries, requires the development of new ways of thinking about and acting on them. Economic and policy initiatives are only partial solutions to issues as diverse as safer neighborhoods, childhood obesity, and poverty. Education and information campaigns can go only so far in reducing the use of tobacco products, increasing the use of preventive health services, and engaging parents in their children’s education. Laws and regulations improve the safety of our food supply, reduce environmental pollutants, and protect against unintentional injuries involving all types of consumer products—yet they too are only partial solutions.

You may just be learning about these and other types of environmental, health, and social problems. Or you may already be in a position to try to figure out what to do about one or more of them. Better yet, you may have been working in the social change arena for some time now and you may have a personal appreciation of the definition of insanity that makes you feel the need to innovate, to do something differently. Whatever your level of experience, this book is for all of you who are what Bill Easterly calls searchers: you want to understand what the reality is for people who experience a particular problem, find out what they demand rather than only what can be supplied, and discover things that work. You see adapting solutions to local conditions as more important than applying global blueprints, and you value people’s satisfaction with the offered solution, not how well crafted the plan was and whether it received all the necessary resources (Easterly, 2006, pp. 5–6). Most of all, you have a bottom-line philosophy that you want to experience results that make you feel your life has been well lived. You have a hunger for doing something creative, amazing—something that will make a difference and perhaps change the world—and for being able to enjoy your work and someday look back and say, “Yes, I did that!” (MacLeod, 2011, p. 9). I propose to each of you that by reading this book, studying it, and trying out some of the ideas in your own work, you will become a better searcher and be better able to satisfy some of that hunger.

The use of marketing principles and practices in the private sector has been demonstrated to be among the most important tools for solving the core business problem of achieving organizational success (generating profits) through satisfying consumer wants and needs. Marketing goes beyond advertising and sales. When applied as intended, it becomes a systematic way for management to structure its relationships with consumers and stakeholders, from the products and experiences it offers, the structure of the incentives and costs associated with those products and experiences, and their accessibility, to how they are promoted in the marketplace with an ever-expanding palette of communication tools. This same marketing management approach should be adopted in the analysis, planning, implementation, and sustaining of programs aimed at social problems. We need to consider our particular environmental, public health, or social issue as our core business issue, or passion if you like. To solve it we must consider how people we work with, and serve, will also be satisfied. Thus, unlike other social change approaches—and indeed, unlike the view some people have of social marketing that mischaracterizes it as a top-down (or command-and-control) approach to and philosophy of change—the core of the marketing discipline is achieving social goals by meeting people’s needs, helping them in solving problems, and enabling them to achieve their aspirations for themselves, their families, and their community.

Social marketing, the application of the marketing discipline to social issues and causes, provides a framework for developing innovative solutions to social problems that have long perplexed and frustrated society. It has emerged from business marketing practice as a social change tool uniquely suited to achieve social profits by designing integrated programs that meet individual needs for moving out of poverty, enabling health, improving social conditions, and having a safe and clean environment. Marketing principles are embedded in such success stories as the Positive Partnership Program’s work to enable poor people who are HIV positive in developing countries to earn a sustainable income (Melnick, 2007), the reduction in teenage smoking rates resulting from the truth® Campaign (Farrelly, Nonnemaker, Davis & Hussin, 2009), the improvement in children’s food choices and what they eat in schools through Team Nutrition (Lefebvre, Olander & Levine, 1999), and the reduction of childhood deaths from malaria through the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets in endemic countries (Schellenberg et al., 2001). Indeed, when we examine some of the better known and successful public health programs over the past three decades, the principles of social marketing are being applied by agencies around the world, including the US Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom, the Department of Health in England, KfW Entwicklungsbank in Germany, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in The Netherlands, the Ministry for Health and Ageing in Australia, and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, among others. Social marketing is embedded in national health promotion and disease prevention strategies in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2010), England (Department of Health, 2011), and the United States (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2010).

To begin to understand how marketing applies to any specific environmental, health, or social issue you can think of, consider that individuals in most societies do not live solely in an economic marketplace in which monetary transactions for goods and services reign supreme and rational decision making is believed to be the norm. Instead, people’s everyday lives include exposure to all types of ideas and behaviors, whether transacted directly with their family and friends or vicariously through television and the Internet. The recognition that these marketplaces of ideas and behaviors also exist, and that they are subject to such forces as proximity and access, incentives and costs, role models and social norms, health and digital literacy, and the quality of their communication environment, illuminates how programs that focus on only economic levers or education or laws and their enforcement fail to achieve all the social good that is intended. Similarly, understanding that both individual change and social change are the result of a marketplace of ideas and behaviors that are, in turn, constantly being shaped by the activities of public, private, and civil society actors means also understanding that all of these actors must become part of sustainable, long-term solutions and not merely minor players in short-term campaigns—if they are engaged at all.

Social marketing was developed as a method to achieve broad change among populations and to have a positive impact on people’s health and well-being. It is aimed at achieving social impact through the application of marketing concepts and techniques to social issues ranging from the prevention, detection, and treatment of diseases to environmental sustainability and social justice. It is not a theory of behavior change but rather a systematic approach to thinking about and solving the wicked problems our world faces. This chapter considers the question of why organizations might use social marketing. It then traces the development of the discipline as it evolved in developing countries as a practical approach to solving public health issues, and in developed countries as an academic discipline that grew around an interest in the intersection of marketing and society and in a practice aimed at different types of public health concerns. The chapter ends with a discussion of some of the latest developments in the marketing discipline and the new ways they offer to think about how we can use marketing for improving the welfare of people and advancing social good.

WICKED PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTION

In many disciplines the dominant model for defining and solving problems features a scientific-rational approach that assumes every problem is definable, understandable, and consensual (that is, everyone can agree on the causes and proposed solutions). This approach has worked quite well in many cases involving developing mass transportation, preventing infectious diseases, providing clean water and sanitation, and improving access to health services (though there is clearly a need to further improve access and equity for all people everywhere). Rittell and Webber (1973) distinguished between these tame problems, with clear causes and solutions that can be achieved by these deductive approaches, and wicked problems, which are diabolical in their ability to resist the usual ways of resolving problems. A wicked problem involves complex issues and defies complete definition, its stakeholders have different ideas about what the real problem is and what the solution is, there is no final solution, and given that any solution will generate further issues, that solution is merely the best that can be done at that time. For example, the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) (2007) notes in its publication Tackling Wicked Problems: A Public Policy Perspective, that issues as diverse as climate change, obesity, indigenous disadvantage (disparities between native populations and majorities), and land degradation are complex, or “wicked,” policy problems (see also Batie, 2008; Brown, Harris & Russell, 2010; Kreuter, De Rosa, Howze & Baldwin, 2004): “Usually,” the commission says, “part of the solution to wicked problems involves changing the behaviour of groups of citizens or all citizens. Other key ingredients in solving or at least managing complex policy problems include successfully working across both internal and external organizational boundaries and engaging citizens and stakeholders in policy making and implementation. Wicked problems require innovative, comprehensive solutions that can be modified in the light of experience and on-the-ground feedback. All of the above can pose challenges to traditional approaches to policy making and programme implementation” (p. 1).

From my perspective this statement offers a compelling rationale for using social marketing approaches: they are important for improving social welfare, the well-being of people, and the health of our planet. It also propels the idea that social marketing can and should look beyond behavior change because this is not its only contribution to social change (whether achieved through communication, incentives, or policy). This statement also underscores that single solutions will not form foundations for true and lasting solutions (if indeed such solutions are even possible).

The APSC identified three ways to address wicked problems. The first is through authoritative (or top-down) strategies in which a group or individual takes on the problem and all other stakeholders agree to abide by its decisions. This group or individual may be an expert, be significantly positioned in a bureaucracy or hierarchy, or have coercive powers (such as a court or regulatory agency does). While these solutions might be efficient and timely, this group or individual may not bring a broad perspective to the issue and its proposals might alienate stakeholders, who then offer only tepid commitment to implementing the proposed solutions.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF WICKED PROBLEMS

• Wicked problems are difficult to clearly define.
• They have many interdependencies and are often multi-causal.
• Attempts to address wicked problems often lead to unforeseen consequences.
• Wicked problems are often not stable (they are often continually moving targets).
• They usually have no clear solution (since the problem itself is not definitive or stable).
• They are socially complex.
• Wicked problems hardly ever sit conveniently within the responsibility of any one organization.
• Wicked problems involve changing behavior.
• Some wicked problems seem intractable and are characterized by chronic policy failure (that is, they continue to present themselves despite many attempts to address them, sometimes over decades).

Source: Adapted from the Australian Public Service Commission, 2007.

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The second approach to addressing wicked problems is through competitive strategies in which stakeholders follow a win-lose search for power, influence, and market share. Though such competition can result in innovative approaches to solving wicked problems, excessive consumption of resources in the struggle and a stalemate if no group emerges a clear winner are significant disadvantages.

The third solution, the one supported and endorsed by the commission in its report, as well as by social change agents around the world, is the collaborative model. This model has been found to be the most effective in dealing with wicked problems. In the collaborative model, power is dispersed among many stakeholders, part of the solution lies in behavior changes made by stakeholders and citizens, and there is a win-win view of problem solving (in contrast to the competitive win-lose view). The collaborative approach will increase transaction costs and can sometimes lead to conflict and stalemate as well. But the advantages are that more comprehensive and effective solutions are generated with broader support for their implementation.

These three approaches are not mutually exclusive, nor is the finding that the collaborative approach is often better meant to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Dedication
• The Author
• Chapter 1: The History and Domains of Social Marketing
• Chapter 2: Principles of Social Marketing
• Chapter 3: Determinants, Context, and Consequences for Individual and Social Change
• Chapter 4: Segmentation and Competition
• Chapter 5: Moving from Descriptions of People to Understanding, Empathy, and Insight
• Chapter 6: The Consumer Experience as the Marketer’s Touchpoint
• Chapter 7: Strategic Positioning and Brands
• Chapter 8: Embedding Marketing in Programs and Organizations: Developing Strategy
• Chapter 9: Using Marketing Mix Components for Program Development
• Chapter 10: Monitoring and Evaluation
• Chapter 11: Personal and Community Engagement in Change
• Chapter 12: Social Technologies for Social Marketing and Social Change
• Chapter 13: Social Marketing for Dissemination and Program Sustainability
• Chapter 14: Management and Innovation
• References
• Index