12 BANDT.COM.AU OCTOBER 30 2009

We’re about to renovate the office, and it has got methinking. Agencies spend a lot of time and cashmaking sure their physical environments look, feeland are creative. We all want our offices to be spacesthat feed the inquiring mind, inspire thought andinnovation and encourage collaboration.

But as I sat contemplating carpet samples, paintswatches and schematics to reshape our newenvironment around the organic flow of a lotus leaf, I started to think about the shape of a couple ofother things. Namely creative teams.

In the beginning they were teams of one. Thewriters cracked the idea solo then slipped the copyunder the door of the art department and had a fagwhile they waited for the ad to spit out. Bill Bernbachrevolutionised all that, bringing writers and artdirectors together some 50 or so years ago. Andthat’s how it’s pretty much stayed. Teams ‘owned’clients or jobs. That’s how they built their reps. Builttheir agencies. Got famous. Some specialised ingenerating ideas above-the-line, some below, and –more recently – some in the digital space.

Now it’s time for things to change. And it’sprobably going to scare the crap out of lesser teams.Because now, once a team gets a great idea, theyhave to share it round. And where two has alwaysbeen company, now we need a crowd. The reason? Nosurprises here. Category defining ideas aren’t justads any more. They’re not websites. And (despitewhat many award entry films in the last year wouldhave you believe) they’re not a few mentions onFacebook or Twitter either.

The ideas that are going to generate paradigmshifts in consumer behaviour tomorrow require thehighest levels of expertise and understanding in allof the above. And probably a lot more new channelswe don’t even know about yet. For great ideas toachieve their potential and truly surround theirtargets, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’smore than a two-person job. A quick look at the longlist of credits next to benchmark campaigns in awardannuals will show you want I mean.

Amazing ideas will still spring from the individualbrilliance of unique creative minds. It’s been that wayin every human endeavour since time immemorial.And it’s why we do what we do, and clients don’t. Butit’s what happens next that will define amazingcampaigns – and agencies.

Truly creative people have always understoodthat the more ideas you give away, the more you getback. Well, their time is here. The age of true, selflesscreative collaboration has arrived.

Generally speaking, the term ‘social marketing’refers to the application of commercial marketingpractices to the not-for-profit world of government,trusts and charities. A core objective is changingbehaviour for the social good, and practitioners haveenviable marketing metrics to work with.

How many of us in the commercial sector canboast that our marketing efforts have actuallyhelped save lives or make the world a nicer place?There’s a good deal of documentation on theeffectiveness of campaigns encouraging Australiansto give up smoking, stop drink-driving and so on.

Social marketers get to play with the 4Ps of theold-school marketing mix.

Their Product is behaviour – what they’re ‘selling’is a behaviour change, like slowing down whendriving, covering up in the sun, or making a donation.

Price is the cost to the citizen of changing (or notchanging) behaviour, and this can range from painfuldeath to mild guilt, depending on the issue.

Place is about the influence of physical locationon behaviour, as anyone living in a bushfire zonewould be able to articulate very clearly.

And Promotion comes down to classic marketingpractices. Nielsen’s latest report on top advertisershas government as the biggest spender ontraditional media, once federal and stategovernment spends are combined.

So that’s how social marketers roll with thetraditional 4Ps. But social marketing is special – theyhave a marketing mix with two extra 6Ps, namelyPartnerships and Policy. Partnerships is aboutworking collaboratively with other organisations.With limited budgets and resources, partnershipscan be critical to success. The other extra P of thesocial marketing mix is Policy.

This is where politics comes in and whereconnecting different policy agendas can maximisethe overall impact of a social marketing campaign.

World Vision is Australia’s largest charitableorganisation and its core mission is to tackle globalpoverty. Poverty has many different causes and theyall link into different aspects of the policy agenda –employment, education, health, housing.

In recent years World Vision has connected thepolicy areas of climate change and global poverty,and in doing so has been able to increase financialdonations from individuals and governments to fundnew projects.

So they are the 6Ps of the social marketing mix.If you disagree or think there should be other Ps,please comment on the B&T Blog.

comm

ent

CREATIVE FENG SHUINOT A SOLO EFFORT

THE SIX Ps OF SOCIALMARKETING

TO MAKE A COMMENT EMAIL EDITORIAL@BANDT.COM.AU

Nick CondonManaging director,DDB Melbourne

Adam JosephInsights manager,Herald Sun

BT.OCT30.PG012.pdf Page 12 22/10/09, 2:04 PM