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NationalSocial MarketingCentre

Effectively Engaging PeopleInterviews with social marketing experts

“Invest inresearch to seewhat people arethinking anddoing”

“Sounds likemaking socialchange fun, easyand popular”

“Know yourfootfall!”

“Should socialmarketers beaggressive andrisk-takers? YES”

Effectively Engaging People: Interviews with social marketing experts2

About the National Social Marketing Centre

The National Social Marketing Centre works with people to find solutions to behaviouralchallenges.

We focus on building capacity and developing tools and resources to assist organisations tomanage or commission their own social marketing programmes. Our work helps to address a widerange of social issues, from public health projects and sustainability programmes to addressinghealth inequalities.

CreditsEditing: Toby HopwoodDesign: Cheryl Westmacott

About Us

Introduction 4Nancy Lee 5Iain Potter 6Professor Gerard Hastings 7Bill Novelli 8Dr Rowena Merritt 9Dr William Smith 10Dr Stephen Dann 11Sameer Deshpande 12Professor Michael Rothschild 13Dr Sue Peattie 14Dr Jay Bernhardt 15Doug McKenzie-Mohr, PhD 16John Bromley 17James H. Mintz 18Professor Philip Kotler 19Francois Lagarde 20Professor Alan Andreasen 21Sudha Tewari 22Mike Newton-Ward 23Professor Jeff French 24Craig Lefebvre, PhD 25Resource Centre 26

Contents

Effectively Engaging People: Interviews with social marketing experts 3

Welcome to the new edition of ‘Effectively Engaging People’.

The original version, produced to celebrate the first World Social Marketing Conference inSeptember 2008, showcased a diverse range of social marketing opinion. But while manyof the world’s top social marketers took part in the conference, there were some notableabsences.

In this new edition, we present a wealth of social marketing expertise. Luminaries such as Philip Kotler arejoined by a host of expert voices from the social marketing world. We are delighted to bring you interviewswith Bill Novelli, Jay Bernhardt, Sue Peattie and Iain Potter, among many others. We have also givenexisting contributors the chance to update their original interviews and explore the issues in greater depth.

Also included in this new edition is a resource centre, where you can find details of all publications, articlesand resources referred to by our contributors.

So far, 2009 has been a challenging year for social marketers. Shrinking public funds prompt a renewedneed to emphasise the benefits of social marketing programmes. But progress is being made: in England,great examples of social marketing continue to expand the NSMC’s ShowCase database; and the firstNational Occupational Standards in social marketing have been launched. Meanwhile, 'Ambitions for Health',the Department of Health's strategic framework for social marketing - a global first - is transforming its use inpublic health.

We hope you will enjoy such diverse opinions as Iain Potter’s views on the challenge of collaboration,Stephen Dann’s call to arms to the marketing profession, Rowena Merritt on the dilution of social marketingin England – and Bill Novelli’s favourite haiku!

John BromleyDirector, National Social Marketing Centre

Introduction


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I read Philip Kotler’s book,‘Marketing Management’, ingraduate school. Itproclaimed that marketingcan contribute to the qualityof life - that it can be used

to influence public behaviours that will contributeto alleviating social issues. Then, as marketingdirector of our region’s children’s hospital, Ideveloped a campaign to increase use of lifevests among children. I fell in love with marketingbehaviours and decided that’s what I wanted to dowith the rest of my life.

What is social marketing?Social marketing is a distinct marketing discipline,one that has been labelled as such since the early1970s. It is focused on influencing behaviours forgood – ones that will improve health, preventinjuries, protect the environment, and contribute tocommunities. Fundamental principles at the coreof this practice have been used to help reducetobacco use; decrease infant mortality; stop thespread of HIV/AIDS; make wearing bike helmets asocial norm; decrease littering; increase recycling;and persuade pet owners to licence their pets and'scoop their poop’.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Focus on a single, simple, doable behaviour andunderstand what barriers your target audience hasto adopting it.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?Make it a required or core course for degrees inpublic health, social work, public administration,political science, environmental studies - maybeeven medical school.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from bothmarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?The challenge is that those without a marketingbackground are often not comfortable or familiarwith the other three crucial tools in the marketingmix: product, price and place. My experience hasbeen that many come with a bias againstcommercial marketing, primarily because they areequating marketing with sales and advertising,which they find annoying at best.

What advice would you give to anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?! Do a pilot! look for partners who do have funding andhave something in it for them to support theeffort

! use social media channels! before spending money on new creativedevelopment, consider existing campaignmaterials and branding that you might be ableto borrow or 'tweak', to make it your own.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?‘Fostering Sustainable Behavior’ by DougMcKenzie-Mohr and Bill Smith.

“Focus on a single, simple,doable behaviour andunderstand what barriers yourtarget audience has toadopting it”

Nancy LeePresident " Social Marketing Services, Inc. " USA " www.socialmarketingservice.com


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?As part of increasedcontrols on tobaccopromotions in NewZealand, the HSC wastasked, during the 1990s,with replacing tobacco

sponsorships and promoting health. In taking overa number of prominent tobacco sponsorships, mystaff and I gained considerable insight into howtobacco companies made the most ofsponsorships to market their products. This led usinto the marketing world and the discovery ofliterature on social marketing. From approximately1995, it became the way we frame our thinkingand programmes.

What is social marketing?It is the application of the skills, experience andpractices of the commercial sector to theachievement of social, environmental and healthbenefits. At its core is the necessity to provide‘offerings’ to consumers that meet their needs andexpectations and recognise their contexts. Thereis therefore a profound need to understand whatthose needs, expectations and contexts are.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?That money spent on research (and researchpersonnel) gaining consumer understanding is themost important part of your programme. It shouldnot be bypassed in favour of ‘doing’.

If you had to choose a single exampleof social marketing to highlight itspotential, what would it be?I am tempted to say tobacco control, but in realitythis has included many, many elements, includingcampaigns addressing quitting, second handsmoke, youth initiation, smokefree environmentsand so on. However, the total shift in attitudes andprevalence in New Zealand is a great example ofwhat can be achieved. For example, the 2006 to2007 New Zealand Health Survey shows that theprevalence of smoking has decreased – from 25.2per cent in 1996 to 1997 to 19.9 per cent in 2006to 2007. The decline over this period was evidentfor both men and women.

In alcohol moderation, I very much liked the ‘HostResponsibility’ campaign undertaken by AlcoholAdvisory Council in the mid-1990s. It’san example of positive change that linked to andinvolved the commercial sector.

What are the most challenging aspectsof creating a social marketingintervention?Developing the ‘offering’, or product. We tend tooffer a range of communications that providehope, a threat, support, information andpersuasion. But they are short on tangibleofferings - things like a quitline or making NRT(nicotine replacement treatments) available,walking buses (children walking to school ingroups), recycling bins and so on. These areactions that are enabled by providing something,as opposed to ‘don’t drink and drive’ and ‘eat morefruit and vegetables’, messages that onlyinform. We need to find better alternatives to theproblems we are aiming to counter, and findstrategic alliances that take us beyond the healthand social sectors.

What other question should we haveasked?Amajor challenge in implementing socialmarketing campaigns is the general need to workin collaborative arrangements, where risk is not acomfortable concept. Unlike the commercialsector, we generally don’t have a network we cancommand. We instead rely on a series ofintermediaries and stakeholders, each of whomhas their own needs and expectations (and are inneed of being understood, just like the endconsumer). This makes the planning andimplementation of a programme a much longerand more difficult process than it is in a commandand control structure. When it works it producesgreat results, but it requires much facilitation,cooperation, negotiation and patience.

Related to this in terms of taking risks, thegovernment sector usually aims to reduce risk. Indoing so, it sometimes misses opportunities ordesigns something so risk-free that it has littlebenefit.

Iain PotterChief Executive " Health Sponsorship Council " New Zealand " www.hsc.org.nz


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?It goes back a long way -over 25 years - when I tooka research assistantposition at the University ofStrathclyde‘s advertisingresearch unit. It was then

funded by the Scottish Health and EducationGroup, a government agency doing healthpromotion. We pre-tested campaignadvertisements, everything from rickets to obesity,which gave me a very good insight. One thing thatwas very apparent at that time was thatcommunications alone were insufficient to effectbehaviour change: other levers were necessary.

At the end of the 1980s, the head of the unit,Douglas Leather, died. I took over and ended uprunning it by default. There was a lot ofreorganisation going on, and we had to create abusiness plan for the research centre whichresulted in a far wider range of clients. It was verybeneficial, because it made us think about whatwe were trying to achieve. We changed title to theCentre of Social Marketing in the early 1990s,broadening our client base.

What is social marketing?In the UK, I think we are trying to do the same jobas Tesco, but in the social sector. People are veryfamiliar with how marketing works in thecommercial sector. They now understand termslike ‘brands’. When I started, people in publichealth did not know what brands were. I would askthem to tell me about marketing and I would saythat is what social marketing is, but in a socialcontext. I would ask audiences to think about whatthey bought recently and think and talk about it. Itis a very engaging and lively topic of discussion.We are very much a consumer society.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from bothmarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?In reply, I’ll mention the old Churchill quote aboutthe British and Americans being divided by acommon language. People don’t mean the same

thing. There are land mines to be looked out for.For example, it could trigger a degree ofprofessional jealousy, particularly if people think itcould supersede public health. But what it does dois bring insights to interested practitioners, likeGPs. They have to be everything to everyone, andas they build relationships with people in thecommunity, they can be great social marketers.

If you were trapped in a lift for tenminutes with the Prime Minister, whatwould you ask him?I would tell him that there is a lot to learn fromTesco about influencing behaviour, and thatpartnerships are the way forward, the way to pullpeople together to get some action to improvepublic health. I would try and sell him the idea ofhaving a semi-independent organisation headedby someone like Sir John Krebbs, a key scientistand independent thinker. This would pull togetherkey stakeholders on an equal footing, like theBritish Heart Foundation and Cancer ResearchUK, on a ten- to 25-year basis, and with an agreedbudget. The aim would be to improve public healthby getting people more engaged.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?People are people. They are complex and dostupid things but this doesn’t mean they arestupid.

“One thing that was veryapparent at that time was thatcommunications alone wereinsufficient to effect behaviourchange: other levers werenecessary”

Professor Gerard HastingsDirector " Institute for Social Marketing " University of Stirling " Scotland

www.ism.stir.ac.uk/index.htm


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I co-founded Porter Novelli,a firm designed to applymarketing to health andsocial issues. This wasback in 1972, and we weremaking it up as we went

along. It wasn’t until I encountered Phil Kotler,Alan Andreasen and Paul Bloom that I discoveredthe new field of social marketing. They weredeveloping theories and frameworks for a new (orderivative) discipline, and I was an in-the-trenchespractitioner. It was a good combination.

What is social marketing?It is the application of marketing principles andpractices to positive social change, to improvesociety and enhance the health and/or socialstatus of individuals within society.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?Back then my focus was largely on individualbehaviour change. I also realised thatenvironmental change (especially of social norms)was necessary. But I did not appreciate the valueof social policy to both environmental andindividual change. Now I do.

Why should limited resources go tosocial marketing programmes, ratherthan to reducing a budget deficit or toother tools?It depends on the social problem and what isneeded to solve it. There are times when budgetdeficits must be addressed. But for the long term,social change is often necessary. For example, inthe U.S., our healthcare spending is unsustainableand our healthcare system is broken. If we don’tengage in comprehensive, strategic healthpromotion and disease prevention, anything elsewill just be stopgap measures and will postponethe inevitable.

If you had to choose a single exampleof social marketing to highlight itspotential, what would it be?Tobacco control in the U.S. It is working, andbrings into play all the components of marketing,plus legal, regulatory and legislative advocacy.

What are the most challenging aspectsof creating a social marketingintervention?There are many, including: insightful research;creative messages; dealing effectively withcoalitions and partnerships; organising resources;surviving the politics (often dealing withgovernments); and good evaluation. But thebiggest problem is usually resource acquisition, tobegin and sustain the intervention at theappropriate scale, over the needed timeframe.

What are you most proud to haveachieved in social marketing?I am proud of having contributed to the genesisand development of the discipline, to havingsucceeded with a number of programmes, andespecially to have mentored many outstandingindividuals who are successful practitioners today.

What other question should we haveasked?Should social marketers be aggressive and be risktakers? YES. There’s no other way to tackle thetough, intractable problems we face. My favouritehaiku is: ‘Problems worthy of attack, prove theirworth by attacking back’.

“But the biggest problem isusually resource acquisition,to begin and sustain theintervention at theappropriate scale, over theneeded timeframe”

Bill NovelliFormer Chief Executive " AARP and Distinguished Professor of the Practice

McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University " USA " www.aarp.org " msb.georgetown.edu


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?During the placement yearof my first degree, I workedas a Marketing Officer for amental health charity. I hadthe idea to use what I hadlearnt in my marketing

lectures to try and increase the number of peoplewith depression seeking treatment and complyingwith their treatment plans. In my final year ofuniversity, I wrote a proposal to further this idea atPhD level. During my PhD studies, Philip Kotlerbought out his book on social marketing – my‘green bible’, as I used to call it. After reading it, Isuddenly realised that my idea was in fact nothingnew! It was great to discover a whole group ofpeople in America doing the same work as me.

What is social marketing?I would say that it is just commercial marketingtechniques, but instead of making profit for acompany or increasing brand recognition, socialmarketing is done for ‘social good’. Of course, ‘fora social or public good’ raises ethical questions –who is defining the social good?

The model of social marketing we use in Englandseems more aligned to health promotion, whereasthe model I used to use was more aligned tocommercial marketing (the US model). Foranyone who has worked in the commercialmarketing world (and I don’t mean just in thecommunications and advertising side of things), Iam sure they would say that marketing is differentfrom health promotion. But in England, I feel wehave diluted social marketing and lost some of theelements that make it effective.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Marketing considers all the ‘four Ps’ – don’t eventhink about your promotional strategy until youhave a product that the target audience will value,at the correct price, and in a convenient place.Then promote that offering. Also, think about yoursupply chain. You would never have a commercialcompany selling their products in an outlet wherethey did not know how many of their targetaudience shopped there. Focus your efforts on theoutlets where your target audience go. Don’t

waste your efforts, say, training up a GP to screenyoung people for STIs if the GP only sees a fewyoung people a week; go to the GP who sees 100.Know your footfall!

How can we promote social marketingto practitioners and decision-makers?I have lost count of the number of times I amasked to comment on ‘social marketinginterventions’ which are simply advertisingcampaigns aimed at raising awareness andincreasing knowledge. I think more training isdesperately needed at the workforce and seniormanagement levels, so people can fullyunderstand what social marketing is, but just asimportantly, what it is not!

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?For long-term sustainable capacity development, Ithink integrating social marketing modules intoacademic courses is vital. Social marketing shouldbe a key element on a variety of courses: publichealth masters, undergraduate and postgraduatebusiness and marketing courses, and medical andnursing degrees.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Kotler et al. 2002 – it is a fabulous book from theoriginal social marketing guru, and has greatexamples which illustrate social marketing clearly.

If you were trapped in a lift for tenminutes with the Prime Minister, whatwould you ask him?I would ask the Prime Minister to see thedifference between setting a strategic objectiveand the tactical means of achieving it. While theformer is the role of government, I believe thelatter is the province of the professional in therelevant field. I would also ask him not toconstantly set short term targets, since these candivert attention from the long term strategy, andthus interfere with the professionals in theirattempts to achieve the objective.

Dr Rowena MerrittDirector, Behaviour Change and Social Marketing " The Campaign Company " England

www.thecampaigncompany.co.uk


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I came from communityorganising and wasfrustrated by thedependence on charismaticleadership and the lack ofmeasurable success. And

yes, I needed a job. There was one available insocial marketing. I had never heard of socialmarketing until the job announcement. I wasyoung and inexperienced and thought I kneweverything, but social marketing was a wonderfulway to learn about people.

What is social marketing?I still think the ‘four Ps’ are the simplest and bestdescription. Social marketing is about creatingproducts and services that help people solvesocial problems. Then it prices, places andpromotes those products and services in waysthat motivate their widespread and correct use. It’sa practical and very effective way of tapping intopeople’s legitimate self-interest (not selfishness) toinfluence their behaviour for everyone’s benefit.You cannot understand social marketing unlessyou understand the difference between self-interest and selfishness. Self-interest is oftendefined in social marketing as consumerorientation.

Recognising that social marketing isunderstood (and misunderstood) in arange of ways, the NSMC developedthe 8-point Benchmark Criteria forsocial marketing, building on previouswork by Alan Andreasen. How usefuldo you find them?I think they are helpful as checklist forexperienced marketers. Marketing Mix isimportant because too often we focus onpromotion only. Insight seems a bit redundant withcustomer orientation, but helpful to stress thatpoint. I’m not crazy about the discussion ofbehaviour because it opens itself to this nonsenseabout 'individual behaviour versus socialbehaviour’. All behaviour is individual. There arepowerful social influences, but they still influenceindividual behaviour. I prefer to talk about this asinternal and external influences on behaviour. This

is so hard to get people to understand. Myfavourites in the list are exchange andcompetition, because I think they are new ideassocial marketing brings to the social change table.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from bothmarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?Social marketing, like commercial marketing, is aneclectic practice. It assimilates other professions.That is one of its greatest strengths. As long asthe goal is voluntary behaviour change on a largescale, I am very open about tactics. I worry moreabout missed opportunities, when people come tosocial marketing from long careers in advertising,health promotion or environmental education, oreven advocacy, and don’t understand what elsemarketing can bring to the table.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?There are so many. It depends on your goal. As anintroduction, I like the materials that the UKNational Social Marketing Centre has developed.If you’re looking for managerial insight, I like‘Reinventing Government’ by Osborn and Gaebler.If you want practical every day advice you can useon Monday, ‘Made to Stick’ by Heath and Heath isone of my favourites.

What other question should we haveasked?Why do the NSMC believe so deeply in self-interest as the key to voluntary behaviour change?Because I am an old-fashion populist whobelieves that people deserve what they want. Ihave great faith in the ability of people to knowwhat they need and in their right to have fun,choose the best course of action and enjoy thepraise of their family and friends. Sounds a littlelike making social change fun, easy and popularfor them.

Where can people find out more aboutyour work?Social Marketing Quarterly is a good place to look,and the AED website.

Dr William SmithEditor " Social Marketing Quarterly " USA

www.socialmarketingquarterly.com


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I inherited the teachingduties for social marketingat Griffith University afterthe subject’s founder, DrSusan Dann, moved to anew school. Since then,

I’ve been actively engaged in the teaching andresearch community on the SOC-MKTG socialmarketing listserver, and applying our principlesinto practice with DrinkWise Australia.

What is social marketing?The adaptation and adoption of commercialmarketing for social change. (For the morecomplex definition, see my paper ‘Redefiningsocial marketing with contemporary commercialmarketing definitions’ in the Journal of BusinessResearch).

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Don’t cheat. If the market won’t adopt voluntarily,ask why; assess the product’s benefits and value;and keep working on developing a viablealternative. Don’t automatically fall back onlegislation and force if the market rejects the offer.That’s cheating, and that’s disrespecting themarket.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from bothmarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?Convincing the outsiders to shut up about‘dropping the “m” word’. We’re one form ofchange, one that uses marketing. If there’s nomarketing, it’s not social marketing, and it’s notwhat we do.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?Thinking that budget equates to success. A worldof good can be done with time, effort andunderstanding, by one individual talking to anotherand getting genuine understanding between them.

If you have an online target market, the cost ofgoing online is internet access costs, plus time.Blogger and Wordpress, Twitter, Livejournal, Vox,Facebook and Myspace are free hosts where thetime you spend is worth more than the dollar valueof any purchase. If you have an offline targetmarket, go out to it in person. Use ethnographicresearch to learn about the needs and wants, thenco-create a product-solution with the people whoare most going to need it. Use local resources andtie into what local groups have at their disposal, orcould conceivably use themselves.

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people’sbehaviour?Every part of it. Social marketers are inherentlyprone to utilitarian ethics, based on the idea ofsocial marketing being about improving thewelfare of society and the target individual. Nosocial marketing campaign sets out to do evil, yetevil can easily be done in the name of improvingsociety.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?How effective a simple ‘hold the line’ strategy canbe for building the self-confidence of themarketing discipline to stand up, claim and reclaimthe name of marketing from the people who aremisusing, misapply or mismanaging it.

“Don’t automatically fallback on legislation andforce if the marketrejects the offer.That’s cheating, andthat’s disrespectingthe market”

Dr Stephen DannSenior Lecturer " Australian National University " Australia

Stephendann.net " Stephendann.com


www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V7S-4VS3P20-1/2/f667d667c15b808d34b5ef19f5eea58a%20



How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?During my previous careerin commercial marketing, Iliked the hammer called‘marketing’ but I wasunhappy promoting healthyhair. Once I discovered

social marketing, I felt both passionate andsatisfied. I guess it was this desire to use mypassion, marketing, to do something good that ledme to social marketing.

What is social marketing?Social marketing is a behaviour-transformingframework with which a manager offers benefitsthat supersede barriers. Managers addressprimarily those benefits and barriers that theiraudience really cares for. While this may soundtoo rational and boring, the execution of thisexchange offer is infused with positive and highemotionality.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?I consider the marketing mix as a bouquet offlowers. As a student, I received only a couple offlowers (promotion mix) rather than learning theentire bouquet. Ideally, I should have beeninitiated with the importance of the‘comprehensive exchange’ in social marketing,followed by exposure to the individual concepts ofproduct, price, and distribution management.

What example of social marketingwould you choose to highlight itspotential?The microcredit lending service offered byMuhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank (GB).Although Dr. Yunus does not call himself a socialmarketer, his work utilises many of the tools thatsocial marketers employ. GB offers credit to therural poor, primarily women, without collateral,thereby reducing barriers. Borrowers use theseloans to finance enterprises, education, housing,and so on. This service is available in every villageand town of Bangladesh. GB emphasises thepromotion of this microcredit service overcommunication on financial independence. Privatemoney lenders exploit the rural poor with highinterest and commercial banks refuse to offer anycredit. On the other hand, GB makes them

bankable, financially independent and self-confident. This movement is innovative, home-grown and community-backed. GB works. It hasexperienced high recovery rates and delivered apositive impact on development indicators andpsychological health. This is business at work, not‘free’ financial aid.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing a socialmarketing initiative?Total commitment to audience orientation. Thiswould force managers to carry out research atevery stage and produce strategies that remainconsistent with what the audience desiresor what moves them.

Why should limited resources go tosocial marketing programmes, ratherthan to reducing a budget deficit or toother tools?Previously, when times were good, our argumentwas centred on adding social marketing to thearsenal of social change tools. We claimed thatprevious efforts had educated, and scared, largesections of society on negative healthconsequences and legal penalties. These effortsinfluenced few, and the majority remainedindifferent. We felt there was an extra room in thehouse of ‘funds available for social change’, andsocial marketing deserved that space.

In the current climate, we should replace theeducation-only approach with social marketing.The house has shrunk a bit, the extra room is lost,but social problems have not disappeared, andindividuals’ motivations and abilities have notimproved.

Social marketing is committed to deliveringbehaviour change results, and it iscomprehensive, multi-faceted and flexible. First, inthe initial phase of implementation, the socialmarketing framework attempts to createawareness and change attitudes in the samemanner as education, but later it goes further.Second, it employs marketing principles toconvince an upstream audience as well. Third, theframework is flexible enough to work with bothcommunity and media. Most importantly, thisflexibility allows social marketers to implementcampaigns within a reasonable budget. These aredollars/pounds/euros/rupees well spent!

Sameer DeshpandeAssociate Professor of Marketing " Centre for Socially Responsible Marketing

University of Lethbridge " Canadawww.uleth.ca/management/faculty-research/research-centres/centre-socially-responsible-marketing


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?Back in the early 1970s, Iwas working in commercialadvertising and thoughtthere should be betterthings to do with marketingthan merely selling another

pair of shoes or another bottle of beer. When I gotto Stanford for my PhD, I discovered socialmarketing and began to work with ChuckWeinberg, who was developing one of the firstsocial marketing courses.

What is social marketing?It’s the use of commercial marketing techniques tomanage behaviour with respect to non-businessissues, such as public health. It’s also theapplication of the theories of behaviouraleconomics.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?We need to do more training. This can be throughuniversity courses, and workshops for those whoare beyond university. We also need to showcommercial practitioners that they can have aricher life by working with us. We need to showthem they can ‘do well by doing good’.

What advice would you give tosomeone trying to make a businesscase for developing a social marketingstrategy?It is generally much cheaper to prevent a badoutcome than it is to fix one. For example, in RoadCrew, we have data showing that it is more than30 times as costly to clean up after an impaireddriving crash than it is to implement a crashprevention programme. We can document that wehelp avoid crashes and save lives. If we carefullycollect data, we should be able to show the costsand benefits of our programmes. To do this, weneed to define our targets and our behaviourgoals specifically, and then measure outcomesagainst those goals.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?The challenge is to find funds. We must findpartners with self-interested goals that overlapwith ours. We need to convince them that the bestuse of their discretionary funds is to become ourpartners. To do this, the challenge is to convincethem that we are a better choice than any otheroption competing for these resources. Thisrequires us to market to prospective partners inthe same way that we market to our targetaudiences.

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people’sbehaviour?The key issue is that we have an ethical obligationto try to change behaviours that impose largecosts on others, but we have no right to changebehaviours that do not harm others. To me, it istherefore ethical to reduce obesity, which leads toincreased costs for the healthcare system andtaxpayers.

I also try to be utilitarian in my evaluations, so thatI look for the strategy that provides the greatestgood for the greatest number of people. In thisway, Road Crew can accept allowing a few peopleto drink more, if the roadways become saferbecause we are giving them rides.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?‘Nudge’, by Thaler and Sunstein, is an easy butimportant book about behavioural economics thatcan profoundly inform our views of socialmarketing.

If you were trapped in a lift for tenminutes with the U.S. President, whatwould you ask him?We are fortunate to now have a U.S. Presidentwith a senior staff who understand and practicebehavioural economics. I would first describesocial marketing as applied behaviouraleconomics, and then ask how we as practitionersof social marketing can help him further hisagenda.

Prof. Michael RothschildEmeritus Professor " University of Wisconsin " USA " [email protected]


What is socialmarketing?It is about using the best ofcommercial marketing totackle social issues such ashealth and theenvironment. It is aboutrecognising thatsometimes education oreven law are insufficient

alone to change behaviour. It is about discoveringhow to offer something that would be moreappealing to the target audience than their currentbehaviour.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Stand in the ‘shoes’ of your target audience, toreally understand the costs and benefits ofalternative behaviours as they see them.Something that may seem logical and rationalfrom your perspective may be perceived verydifferently by your target audience. Do not assumeanything!

How we can build capacity in socialmarketing?We must create more awareness in businessschools of this untapped demand for socialmarketing education and training. In the UK, someuniversities are struggling for student recruitmenton traditional courses like the MBA. There isexpertise in many of the essential skills that needto be taught in social marketing which could beused to build capacity. We should organise workplacements for social marketing or businessstudents to gain practical experience, andfacilitate ‘sabbaticals’ for those incommercial marketing or academia who would liketo lend their skills to real life social marketinginterventions.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from bothmarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?A common perception of non-marketers is thatmarketing is often manipulative and primarilyinvolves just ‘promotion’, such as advertising.Similarly, there is a misperception by some

marketers that those in other disciplines do notinvolve the target audience or conduct research,but simply ‘tell’ the target audience how theyshould behave. Forums that bring together thosein marketing and those from other relevantdisciplines to discuss ideas and develop holisticsolutions would be invaluable.

How can we better engage high leveldecision-makers in understanding thebenefits of social marketing?Use examples to illustrate the power of socialmarketing. We need to celebrate, highlight anddisseminate best practise at every occasion.ShowCase, the new NSMC case exampledatabase, is a fantastic resource to demonstratenot only the process of social marketinginterventions, but also the outcomes that can beachieved by using a social marketing-informedapproach.

What is the best way to coordinateeffective partnerships between thepublic and private sector?The private sector often has the skills andresources that we need to be successful, but weneed to use an ‘upstream’ social marketingapproach and uncover their perceived barriersand benefits for entering into a partnership. Do notbe over-suspicious of commercial companies’motives – many do want to ‘do good’, althoughsome of course just want the PR!

What are the most challenging aspectsof creating a social marketingintervention?I am currently involved in developing a socialmarketing intervention to reduce the incidence ofdeliberate grass fires in the Welsh Valleys. One ofthe most challenging aspects is the projectmanagement – getting all parties involved to keepto timescales and meet deadlines.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Gerard Hastings, ‘Why should the devil have allthe best tunes?’. It is insightful and very readable,with lots of examples.

Dr Sue PeattieLecturer in Marketing " Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University "Wales

www.cf.ac.uk/carbs/mark/speattie.html


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?Social marketing, like publichealth, is a discoveryprofession. Many people,like me, start of on differentpaths, only to discover thepower and promise of

social marketing. After serving as a peer healtheducator at Rutgers University, I was hired to workin student health. During this time, I developed aprint media campaign about preventingacquaintance rape, before I had ever heard ofhealth communication or social marketing. I thenwent back to school to complete master’s anddoctoral degrees, but these early experiencescoalesced my interests around social marketingand health communication, including teaching,research, practice – and links into government.

What is social marketing?Put simply, social marketing is the application ofthe sciences and strategies of commercialmarketing in order to help people andcommunities. ‘Marketing for the Greater Good’ ismy bumper sticker version. I would also stress theneed to focus on the principles of being customer-centred, working for both individual andcommunity level impact, and focusing onbehaviour change.

How can we promote social marketingto practitioners and decision-makers?Social marketing is still very much hidden, even inthe health field. Awareness and understandingamong health professionals and otherstakeholders can be very low. People oftendismiss it because they don’t really understand it.We need to do a better job of communicating whatsocial marketing is, and what it can and can’t do.We have to deliver and demonstrate results everytime we get a chance. And we have to bepersistent and patient in these efforts.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with significant funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?Unrealistic expectations: the sense that if youhave more money, you should have acorrespondingly greater impact. Commercialmarketers spend billions to move the needle a fewpercentage points, to achieve a very small changein market share, but they still see this as anenormous success. Social marketers spend farless, but are expected to deliver much more.

The other key challenge is to institutionalise work.Just because you have money at the outset, itdoesn’t mean it will always be there. It is importantfrom day one to work towards mainstreaming andinstitutionalising the work.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Fortunately, there are many excellent books fromwhich to choose so I’ll leave it up the reader tomake a selection. I prefer the scientific journals,such as Social Marketing Quarterly and theJournal of Health Communication, as valuableresources for the latest in research and practicefindings.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?Interpersonal relationships and employeedevelopment are the most importantcharacteristics for a successful organisation.

Where can people find out more aboutyour work?You can search for my academic writings throughPubMed or Google Scholar by searching for'J.M. Bernhardt', or go to www.jaybernhardt.com

Dr Jay BernhardtUS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) " USA " www.cdc.gov/healthmarketing


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I wrote a book, ‘FosteringSustainable Behavior’, inthe early 90s, that mergedknowledge from socialmarketing with knowledgefrom psychology.

What is social marketing?From my perspective, social marketing involvesfive steps: selecting behaviours; uncovering thebarriers and benefits to the selected behaviours;developing strategies that address these barriersand benefits; piloting the strategy; and then, whenthe strategy is found to be cost-effective,implementing it broadly. This process can beutilised to foster a wide range of behaviours.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Carefully select which behaviour(s) to target andconduct formative research regarding the barriersand benefits to these behaviours. If these first twosteps of community-based social marketing areskipped, programmes have a low likelihood ofsuccess.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?Demand that governmental behavioural changeprogrammes use social marketing approaches.

What needs to be done to build theworkforce in social marketing?Encourage governmental and nongovernmentalagencies to hire social marketing staff, andpromote those who develop their social marketingskill base.

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people's behaviour?Knowledge on the part of the recipient that theytheir behaviour is being shaped.

What should we be doing to supportthe development of a robust sharedevidence base?Please see my website for an example of anattempt to do this with respect to environmentalbehavioural change. The new site combines fiveresources (our book; over 1,000 articles related toenvironmental behavioural change; case studies;discussion forums, which include a daily digestthat reaches over 6,000 practitioners; and anonline journal, ‘Journal of Fostering SustainableBehavior’). We need a similar effort on the broadset of behaviours addressed by social marketing.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?The challenge of doing formative research with asmall budget. We need to see state and federalefforts to provide barrier and benefit research tothose who are unable to do this work themselves.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Kotler and Lee’s recent edition of ‘SocialMarketing’.

What other question should we haveasked you?It is useful to consider the level of penetration thatsocial marketing has reached within differentdomains. While social marketing is fairly broadlyused - for example, to foster health-relatedbehavioural changes - it is rarely used to fosterenvironment-related behavioural changes.

“Carefully select whichbehaviour(s) to targetand conduct formativeresearch regardingthe barriers and benefits tothese behaviours”

Doug McKenzie-Mohr, PhDPresident " McKenzie-Mohr & Associates " Canada " www.cbsm.com


What got youinvolved in socialmarketing?In my first role in the PublicHealth Directorate inEngland’s Department ofHealth, the Deputy ChiefMedical Officer asked me toinvestigate whether social

marketing would be an effective tool in helpingpeople to make healthy lifestyle choices. I rapidlycame to the conclusion that it could, and weshould be involved in developing and sponsoringthe development of social marketing throughout allparts of the public sector.

What is social marketing?There are many definitions of what socialmarketing is. The NSMC’s formal definition is thatit is the application of marketing, alongside otherconcepts and techniques, to achieve specificbehavioural goals for a social good. For me, at itscore, social marketing is all about listening andunderstanding the people you want to help, andthen working with them to build programmes thatreflect the realities of their lives.

Why should limited resources go tosocial marketing programmes, ratherthan to reducing a budget deficit or toother tools?If social marketing tools and processes are usedwidely and effectively in the public sector, we willbe able to target public resources where they areneeded most. For example, the NSMC estimatesthat preventable illness, caused by things likealcohol misuse and smoking, cost the Englishtaxpayer £187 billion in 20051 – that’sapproximately 19 per cent of GDP. The figurespeaks for itself.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?By ensuring that all levels in public serviceunderstand the benefits that social marketing canbring to their work area. The NSMC has workedhard over the last three years to train and developpeople in the health sector. However, we nowneed to look past health and into other sectorssuch as finance, environment, transport and socialissues.

How can social marketing enhancegovernment policy and strategy?There are still too many government deliveryprogrammes that are developed in isolation fromthe communities they are trying to help. Socialmarketing provides a methodology that ensuresthat people are involved in the development ofprogrammes throughout the whole planning andimplementation process. This works at all levels,from local to national.

How can we promote social marketingto practitioners and decision-makers?We need to ensure that social marketing projectsthat are currently being developed areimplemented effectively and achieve the desiredresults. The best form of promotion is to prove thatsocial marketing works!

Where will social marketing be in 20year’s time?Hopefully, the majority of our work at the NSMCwill be done, and social marketing tools andprocesses will be embedded in the developmentand delivery of all government public-facingprogrammes. It would also be great to see a largeand successful trade association, made up ofclients and companies delivering social marketingprojects to all sectors.

John BromleyDirector " National Social Marketing Centre " England " www.nsmcentre.org.uk


1. Source: ‘It’s our health!’, NSMC, 2006

How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I was hired to bring amarketing approach to thefederal health departmentin the early 1980s. I had theopportunity to read articlesfrom Jack Porter, Bill

Novelli and later Phil Kotler, and was convincedthat the social marketing approach was just whatthe doctor ordered. At the time, no one in Canadawas involved in social marketing in any major way,so my information came from the USA. I startedup a social marketing division at Health andWelfare Canada 28 years ago, and after runninghundreds of campaigns, the organisation stillexists today. It is a legacy of which I am veryproud. Before leaving the government, Ideveloped a social marketing e-learning toolbased on our many years of experience.

I have recently developed a social marketingworkbook which is available on our website.

What is social marketing?Social marketing uses marketing principles andtechniques to influence a target group to changetheir behaviour to improve health, prevent injuries,protect the environment and so on. Socialmarketing is not only used to change behavioursfor the benefit of individuals, but for groups and,more importantly, society as a whole.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Do your homework. Too often, social marketinginterventions are developed with insufficientprimary and secondary research. This is a bigmistake. We still see campaigns developed withpoor research and intelligence, and when theydon’t have much impact, an organisation’smanagement blames the social marketing, ratherthan the fact that the campaign was poorlyconceived.

What needs to be done to build theworkforce in social marketing?We need to start with universities and encouragestudents, especially in marketing, to get involvedin social marketing. We need to convince senior

management, and in the case of government,political masters of the merits of the socialmarketing approach. Many still think it is ‘fluff’.Finally, we need to retrain many existing socialmarketers who are running social communicationsor public relations campaigns and think they arerunning social marketing programmes.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?There is tendency by managers to hire peoplewith similar backgrounds to themselves. If I coulddo it all over again, I would probably hire peoplewith very different backgrounds than mine, as theybring a tremendous ‘value added’ to yourorganisation. I did learn this eventually, but wish Ihad started earlier.

What are the most challenging aspectsof creating a social marketingintervention?" The biggest challenge is to secure sufficientfunds to create and implement the intervention.

" The promotional tactical options are verycomplex these days, with 300 televisionchannels and over 1000 radio stations inCanada. Also, social, digital media, and onlinemarketing tactical options, are very difficult tomaster.

" Reaching hard-to-reach groups, such asaboriginal people, people who live in isolatedcommunities, and of course lowsocio-economic status people.

" In Canada, creating campaigns in at least twoofficial languages (French and English), andsometimes more.

" Working with communications suppliers(especially advertising agencies) who tend torecommend high cost tactics such asadvertising, when there are much morecost-effective and efficient options for runningtargeted campaigns, such as digital and face-to-face marketing, strategic alliances with othersectors, database marketing, public relationsand publicity, and so on.

What other question should we haveasked?If you look into the future, what do you believe willbe the state of social marketing in 20 yearsfrom now?

James H. MintzDirector " Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing " Canada

www.publicsectormarketing.ca " wwww.twitter.com/jimmintzwww.jimmintz.ca


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?In the early 1970s, Irealised that marketingconcepts and tools couldbe applied to areas beyondgoods and services.Marketing could be applied

to market any organisation, person, place, causeor idea. My colleague Gerald Zaltman and I wrotean article called ‘social marketing’. We chose thename to show that not all marketing iscommercial. Marketers could address publicconcerns and contribute to their resolution.Subsequently, I published the first book on socialmarketing with Ned Roberto. Some years later,Nancy Lee, Ned Roberto and I published a much-updated version, with new theory and caseexamples. The book is now in its third edition.

What is social marketing?Social marketing is the application of marketingconcepts and tools to influence the behaviourchange of a target audience in ways that createnet benefits for the individual, community, andsociety at large. Typically, social marketing centreson such problem areas as health, environmentalprotection, better education, family planning andothers.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Frame the problem carefully and be realistic in theresults that you are seeking. Conduct theintervention with clear performancemeasurements so that cause and effect can beeasily identified, and the impact can be measuredin financial terms and/or other metrics.

What needs to be done to build theworkforce in social marketing?We need to educate business managers and non-profit managers and politicians in the meaning ofsocial marketing and the major steps andprocesses it uses. We must avoid confusing it withsocial advertising or corporate socialresponsibility. We have formulated a distinct set often steps which has received high agreement on

how to develop a social marketing plan. If we caneducate social marketing users in social marketingmethodology, the interventions are likely to besuccessful.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?In addition to our third edition of Social Marketing(Sage, 2008), I would recommend AlanAndreasen’s book, ‘Social Marketing in the 21stCentury’.

If you were trapped in a lift for tenminutes with the U.S. President, whatwould you ask him?We are at that stage in time, Mr President, wherewe are beginning to have a methodology which iscost effective and could help us resolve many ofthe social problems that have plagued society.That tool is social marketing.

“We need to educatebusiness managers andnon-profit managers andpoliticians in themeaning of social marketingand the major steps andprocesses it uses”

Philip KotlerS.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing

Northwestern University " USA " www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Faculty.aspx


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?Through my work in publichealth – I was looking for apragmatic and non-traditional framework toencompass the manyfacets of issues with rigour,creativity and ethics.

What is social marketing?Social marketing is about encouraging people toadopt behaviours for their personal benefit and forthat of society in general. You will have a muchbetter chance of influencing people to voluntarilyadopt a behaviour if you:" know more about them;" understand that not all are likely to be at thesame starting point;

" consider your competition;" actually make it attractive and easy for people;" partner with influential people;" communicate effectively; and" are in it for the long run.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Invest in formative research and audienceanalysis to see what people are thinking anddoing.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?Through training and ongoing coaching for thoseinterested in it. Also, by providing regularsummaries of insights on a variety of audiencesand subjects, and highlighting possibleimplications for strategies.

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people's behaviour?The legitimacy of the social change agent andagenda; how the ends being pursued and priorityaudiences have been selected; raising anxietyunnecessarily with messages that use ‘scaretactics’; what is ‘not’ said; the use of resources;and unintended consequences.

What should we be doing to supportthe development of a robust sharedevidence base?Evaluate initiatives that have used socialmarketing as a framework (for a variety of issuesin a variety of settings) and publish them in themost credible journals.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?If an organisation sees social marketing as anisolated budget item or intervention, it faces asignificant challenge! If it sees social marketing asa framework for planned change, it will see itswhole budget as a social marketing budget.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Kotler, P. & Lee, N.R. (2008), ‘Social marketing:Influencing behaviors for good’.

“If an organisation sees socialmarketing as an isolatedbudget item or intervention, itfaces a significant challenge!If it sees social marketing as aframework for plannedchange, it will see its wholebudget as a social marketingbudget”

Francois LagardeSocial Marketing Consultant and Trainer " University of Montreal " Canada

www.francoislagarde.com


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?It was some years ago, andit was the opportunity to getinvolved with the FuturesGroup and Porter Novelli.Both faced social marketingchallenges. With the

Futures Group it was family planning in thedeveloping world, and with Porter Novelli it wasthe high blood pressure challenge in the US.

What is social marketing?My short answer would be the application ofmarketing concepts, many of them drawn from theprivate sector, that can be helpful in developingprogrammes to influence target audiences toadopt socially desirable behaviours.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?My one piece of advice would be to make surethat you are trying to influence a very precisebehaviour or set of behaviours, and know exactlywho your target audience is and what they thinkabout the behaviour. Why? Because a lot ofcampaigns tend to try to tackle too much or try toworry about attitude change or influence. Theycreate what are really education programmes,rather than focusing on things that actuallyinfluence behaviour.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?I think that the more we can develop, and be seento have developed, good off-the-shelf tools,checklists, examples, frameworks and so on, thatpeople can easily use, the more success we willhave. Also, providing methods for social marketersto communicate with each other, through blogs,listservers and other media, can be very helpful inadvancing the field.

What needs to be done to build theworkforce in social marketing?I am frustrated by the dearth of academic trainingin social marketing. At the very least, I would liketo see more courses or interesting programmes in

schools of public health; in programmes involvingthe environment; and in business schools, in orderto develop a future workforce.

What are the challenges faced by anorganisation with limited funds toinvest in a social marketingintervention?Try to find allies to work with so you can developsome level of scale. Another solution is to be asnarrow as possible in your behaviour objectivesand in your selected target market. You have torecognise that you can’t go after everyone. Themore ‘micro’ you can be in your objectives andtarget audience, the more likely the budget will bewell spent.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?There’s a very good one by Rob Donovan andHenley based on their work in Australia. The bookby Kotler and Lee gives lots of examples and isvaluable for that. Gerard Hastings’ book is veryrecent and especially good at giving examplesfrom a European perspective.

What other question should we haveasked?One question I don’t know the answer to is howconsistent we all need to be in using the samebasic approach right now; we don’t have the sameframeworks. If a client was to hire me or someonefrom the NSMC, we would come at it in differentways. This may lead to confusion.

“My one piece of advice wouldbe to make sure that you aretrying to influence a veryprecise behaviour or set ofbehaviours, and know exactlywho your target audience isand what they think about thebehaviour”

Professor Alan AndreasenMcDonough School of Business " Georgetown University " USA

msb.georgetown.edu


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?After a managementdegree and a few yearsmarketing industrialprojects, I began to feeluneasy - I wanted to dosomething more

meaningful. With an unmanageable population,widespread poverty, high maternal mortality andmillions of unwanted children in my country, familyplanning was close to my heart. It was alsoevident to me that there was a lack of professionalmanagement in development projects.Opportunity came my way 28 years ago, when Iwas selected by a non-profit organisation in itsinfancy to design and develop its family planningprogramme. It was an immense opportunity toapply my management skills and knowledge for'social dividends', instead of just profits. I was notaware then that I was using the ‘social marketing’route!

What advice would you give tosomeone developing a socialmarketing initiative?The cost effectiveness of different approachesmust be carefully analysed at the design stageitself, and strong monitoring systems set up at theplanning stage. This will enhance the project’seffectiveness, besides making it possible for theproject to sustain itself beyond funding. Servicescan continue to be delivered to the people, insteadof abandoning them at a critical juncture, whenattitudinal change has begun and they are readyto practice a different behaviour.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?All books on marketing and the principles ofmarketing are relevant. Personally, I have beengreatly influenced by the writings ofProf. Philip Kotler.

What are the most challenging parts ofdeveloping a social marketingintervention?Keeping it focused on meeting the objectives,without getting lost on the ‘packaging’ of it to meetthe requirements of different donors andgovernments.

What should those with few resourcesdo to create an effective socialmarketing intervention?Keep it small and simple, do whatever is possible,but be result-oriented. This will give you immensepersonal satisfaction. Your commitment and asuccessful model will eventually lead to itsexpansion.

What one thing have you learnt thatyou wish you knew 20 years ago?An organisation with a long-term developmentmission must not be donor-driven.

Where do you feel social marketingwill be in 20 years time?My assessment is that the gap between 'haves'and 'have nots' will further widen. To improve thequality of lives of people, social marketingapproaches should assume more importance.However, the fillip given to social marketing woulddepend on the policy environment of governmentsand donors as well as advocacy by institutionscommitted to social marketing.

“An organisation with along-term developmentmission must not bedonor-driven”

Sudha TewariPresident " Parivar Seva Sanstha " India " www.parivarseva.org


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I realised that the healtheducation materials I wascreating did not lead to thebehaviour change that myorganisation desired. Evenafter people were

‘educated’, they still faced barriers to acting ontheir knowledge. Social marketing gave me a wayto address these barriers and offer peoplesomething that they valued.

What is social marketing?Social marketing is about reducing the barrierspeople experience to changing their behaviour,and making the behaviour ‘fun, easy and popular’.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Forget communication: think barriers to andbenefits of behaviour, and address them.

How can we build capacity in socialmarketing?First, we need to talk about it—everywhere! Then,see who’s eyes light up, and provide or link thesepeople with opportunities to learn how to do socialmarketing. If people cannot do all of the process,encourage them to start where they are, and dowhat they can. Encourage them to develop amarketing mindset.

Social marketing increasinglyencompasses people from both amarketing and the social sciences.What are the challenges in bringingtogether the expertise?" An appreciation that social marketing oftenasks people to give up something that hasbenefits now for the promise of benefits in thefuture.

" A visceral aversion by some in social sciencesto the idea of marketing health.

" An appreciation from those with a marketingbackground that those in health and humanservice have much smaller budgets with whichto effect behaviour change.

" Making sure that those with a marketingbackground know that marketing is more thanjust promotion!

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people’sbehaviour?Ensuring that one honours the dignity and right toindividual self-determination. Balancing the right ofpeople to make ‘bad’ choices (in our eyes), withthe interests of the state to mitigate the impactthese choices have on the larger whole.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Kotler and Lee’s ‘Social Marketing: InfluencingBehaviours for Good’.

What other question should we haveasked?How do we best fight the growing onslaught ofmis-definition and misunderstanding of what socialmarketing really is?

“Social marketing is aboutreducing the barriers peopleexperience to changing theirbehaviour, and making thebehaviour ‘fun, easy andpopular’”

Mike Newton-WardSocial Marketing Consultant " North Carolina Division of Public Health and Turning Point

Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative " USAwww.socialmarketingcollaborative.org/smc/


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I first got into socialmarketing in 1988 after along career in both theprivate and public sectors.I was working in the healthsector at the time with a

management role in public health, which also wasresponsible for corporate communications andpublic involvement. When I discovered there wassomething called social marketing I had a ‘eureka’moment: this is what I’d been looking for!

What is social marketing?For me, social marketing is about being ledaround by the nose by the people you are seekingto serve. It's about applying best practice evidencefor what we know works in helping people tochange. It's a systematic process that rigorouslybuilds evidence and data-driven solutions thatpeople will buy into. I would also want to saysomething about what social marketing is not, asthere are many misconceptions. Social marketingis not about developing smart communicationsprogrammes. It's about developing services andproducts that people want, and making thebenefits of socially responsible behavioursoutweigh the costs of not changing.

What should we be doing to develop arobust shared evidence base?We all have a responsibility to record and learnfrom what we are doing. In social marketing this iskey, so that we can reflect on what has workedand what hasn’t, and build better interventions.Everyone has a responsibility to share as widelyas possible what they have learned, especiallywhen things do not go as planned.

What are the key ethical issues intrying to influence people's behaviour?It seems to me that the key issue is who defineswhat a particular socially positive behaviour oroutcome is. If you are lucky, as we are, to live in ademocracy, people vote for administrations thatset out policies that have political support. So Ithink a collective decision about what issues needto be addressed and how they should beaddressed, is probably the best way of ensuringthat people are not manipulated or forced intobehaviours that, as a collective, we would oppose.This does mean that some people will havecertain freedoms curtailed, or may be penalised ifthey behave in certain ways. For example,smokers’ rights to smoke may be restricted incertain places. Personally, I include interventionssuch as legal restrictions and financial incentivesas part of social marketing. They can be used togreat effect to encourage or discourage behaviour,and providing there is popular support for thesemeasures, arrived at through democratic meansand good evidence, such restrictions or incentivesshould be used.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?I would recommend Max DePree's 'Leadership isan art'. It’s not about social marketing, but it is agreat little book, that I first read many years ago,that convinced me that if you want to help peopleyou need to first understand them and then servethem.

“Everyone has a responsibilityto share as widely as possiblewhat they have learned,especially when things do notgo as planned”

Professor Jeff FrenchCo-founder and Consultant " National Social Marketing Centre " England

www.strategic-social marketing.org


How did you becomeinvolved in socialmarketing?I came into this area with aPhD in clinical psychologyand post-doctoral work inbehavioural medicine. Myfirst position was with thePawtucket Heart Health

Programme, a National Institutes of Health-fundedheart disease prevention programme in RhodeIsland, that brought together the worlds of publichealth and behavioural health. This very quicklyled to me exploring the world of marketing forpopulation behavioural change. From there, it wastripping over the early social marketing writing,and thinking that it sounded similar to what I wastrying to do. I started talking about socialmarketing with June Flora at Stanford University,who was already using social marketing principlesin the Five-City Project. We worked together,doing some thinking and exploring andexperimenting with different ways of usingmarketing principles in community-based heartdisease prevention programmes.

What is social marketing?Using the techniques of marketing to improvepeople’s health and social conditions. And by that Iwould also say that the everyday examples ofmarketing (such as product innovations; pricingand distribution strategies; and advertising andpromotions) that help and encourage people tobuy various products and services, are the sametypes of techniques we can use to encouragepeople to adopt healthy and environmentally-friendly behaviours.

What advice would you give tosomeone developing their first socialmarketing intervention?Listen to the audience. Don’t assume you knowwhat is best for solving or addressing a problem –listen to and talk with a lot of people.

How can we promote social marketingto practitioners and decision-makers?This is not so much an empirical or evidence-based question of highlighting to them whatstudies have shown social marketing to beeffective at doing, although that is important. For

practitioners and decision makers, it’s about beingable to tell stories about how social marketing wasadopted in a programme in significant and verybasic ways and the improvements in reach,service and benefits that resulted. It’s that kind ofnarrative of before and after, helping people seeand understand how social marketing approachesapply to and change practice and policydevelopment.

What needs to be done to build theworkforce in social marketing?It’s open to everybody. Right now, a short historyof social marketing would show it has lived andthrived with the links to public health – and there ismuch that needs to be done to bring it into publichealth as a discipline, not just a practice. One ofthe frustrations I have is that it doesn’t earn muchvalue in academia. We need to give it more valueas an academic discipline in both marketing andpublic health. I want to see incentives toencourage more people to enter and pursue anacademic career in social marketing within thepublic health and marketing fields.

What book would you recommend topeople to help them understand socialmarketing?Text books are all probably equally as good – theyall have their own strengths. I like ‘Truth, Lies andAdvertising’ by Jon Steele. It is good at developingthe audience insight and translating that intopractice, which I think is the essence of goodsocial marketing. If you don’t understand the corevalue of listening, use what you learn to generatethe insight and then translate this into practice, theother marketing skills will do you very little good.This is missing from most work I review.

“Don’t assume you knowwhat is best for solving oraddressing a problem –listen to and talk with a lotof people”

Craig Lefebvre, PhDResearch Professor in preventive and community health at GWU School of Public Health

and Health Services; chief maven, socialShiftingSocial Marketing Services, Inc. " USA " socialmarketing.blogs.com


Books and Reports" Alan Andreasen, ‘Social Marketing in the 21st Century’, Sage Publications, 2005" Max DePree, 'Leadership is an art', Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1990" Robert J. Donovan and Nadine Henley, ‘Social Marketing: Principles and Practice’, IP Communications,IP Communications, 2003

" Gerard Hastings: ‘Social Marketing: Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?’, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007

" Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Marketing, 'Social Marketing Workbook', CEPSM, 2007 (availableat www.publicsectormarketing.ca/rs/rs_workbook_sm_e.html)

" Chip Heath and Dan Heath, ‘Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die’, Random House,2007

" Jeff French, Clive Blair-Stevens, Dominic McVey and Rowena Merritt, ‘Social Marketing and PublicHealth’, Oxford University Press, 2009

" National Social Marketing Centre, ‘It’s our health!’, NSMC, 2006" Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, ‘Marketing Management (13th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2008" Philip Kotler and Nancy Lee, ’Social marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good’, Sage Publications, 2008" Philip Kotler, Ned Roberto and Nancy Lee, ‘Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life’, SagePublications, 2002

" Doug McKenzie-Mohr and Bill Smith, ‘Fostering Sustainable Behavior’, New Society Publishers, 1999" David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, ‘Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit isTransforming the Public Sector’, Addison-Wesley, 1992

" Jon Steel, ‘Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning’, John Wiley & Sons, 1998" Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, ‘Nudge’, Yale University Press, 2008

Journals" Bill Smith and Lynne Doner Lorenber (ed) Social Marketing Quarterly, www.socialmarketingquarterly.com" Scott Ratzan (ed) ‘Journal of Health Communication’, www.gwu.edu/~cih/journal/

Articles" Stephen Dann, ‘Redefining social marketing with contemporary commercial marketing definitions ’,Journal of Business Research, 2009 doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.02.013

" Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, ‘Social marketing: an approach to planned social change’, Journal ofMarketing, 35(3): 3-12, 1971

" Mike Newton-Ward, ‘Building social marketing capacity at the state level: North Carolina’s SocialMarketing Matrix Team’, Eta Sigma Gamma Health Education Monograph Series 2004 on SocialMarketing, 21, 1, 2004

" Mike Newton-Ward, ‘Carolina’s Social Marketing Matrix Team: Using social marketing concepts toinstitutionalize social marketing capacity in a state health department’, Journal of Nonprofit and PublicSector Marketing, 17, 1-2, 2007

Resources" Health Canada social marketing e-learning tool(available at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/activit/marketsoc/tools-outils/index-eng.php)

" PubMed, U.S. government database of over 19 million citations for biomedical articles(www.pubmed.gov)

" ShowCase, the NSMC's social marketing case example database(available at www.nsmcentre.org.uk/showcase-case-studies.htm)

" Social Marketing ListServer, run by Alan Andreasen at Georgetown(send an email to [email protected] with a message saying ‘subscribe soc-mktg yourname’ with your own name in place of ‘your name’)

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