How I see social marketing:
I actually don’t have much of an opinion on social marketing: having come from a medical writing background, this is my first experience with this material. (In fact, I’d never heard the term “social marketing” until the first day of class.) But being the resourceful person that I am, I did a scour of the Internet to learn about it. I found that its purpose is to benefit individuals and society, whereas commercial marketing aims more to financially benefit the corporation. (I know we spoke of this in class today, but remember, it’s all new to me!) I also learned that it utilizes a conglomeration of materials (for example, best practices, audience (market segments), research, and partnership insight) to complete its task [1]. The National Social Marketing Centre in England defines social marketing as “an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behavior for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole” [2]. I wonder whether public service announcements are a method of social marketing; I would imagine that they are.
What are the benefits of using social marketing in the health realm?
Health promotion researcher Doug Evans states that “social marketing applies commercial marketing strategies to promote public health.” Particularly, he says that social marketing of health is effective on a population level (as opposed to an individual level—I’m not sure if I agree with that) and that healthcare providers can contribute to its effectiveness by reinforcing social marketing messages during their direct and indirect contact with patients [3]. (Notice that he counteracts his own statement by saying health social marketing is aimed at a society level but in practice is performed on patients themselves.)
Evans agrees with my top paragraph that social marketers utilize a wide range of health communication strategies including those based on mass media (as communication channels for health information have changed greatly in recent years), mediated and interpersonal communication, and marketing methods similar to those used in commercial marketing.
In relation to benefits, I found a lot of webpages that talked about resources you could use to track whether and how much your social marketing campaign was successful [4] [5] [6], but only one, from CDC, that actually stated specific results [7] (details were obtained from [8] and [9]). Researchers tested several areas of a social marketing campaign from 1980 to 2009 and found the following: the use of child safety seats increased 8.6 percent between 1980 and 2009; the use of condoms during sex increased 4.0 percent; smoking cessation increased 10.0 percent, and recreational safety helmet use increased 8.4 percent. So other than tracking the ways your specific social marketing campaign works, I don’t know how to find its benefits—and drawbacks—in relation to health.
Works Cited:
[1] International Social Marketing Association, Eastern Social Marketing Association, and Australian Association of Social Marketing. 2013. “Consensus definition of social marketing.” Accessed January 9, 2017 from http://www.i-socialmarketing.org/assets/social_marketing_definition.pdf.
[2] The National Social Marketing Centre. No date. “What is social marketing?” Accessed January 9, 2017 from http://www.thensmc.com/content/what-social-marketing-1.
[3] Evans, W. Douglas. 2006. “How social marketing works in health care.” BMJ. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1463924/.
[4] The Community Guide. 2014. “What Works to Promote Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.thecommunityguide.org/sites/default/files/assets/What-Works-Health-Communication-factsheet-and-insert.pdf.
[5] Health Communication Basics. 2016. “How do I know it works?” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/healthbasics/howdoiknow.html.
[6] CDCynergy “Lite”. 2016. “Gateway to health communication and social marketing practice.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/cdcynergy/evaluation.html.
[7] The Community Guide. No date. “New publications show health communication works.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.thecommunityguide.org/content/new-publications-show-health-communication-works.
[8] Robinson, Maren et al. 2014. “Mass media health communication campaigns combined with health-related product distribution: A community guide systematic review.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 47(3): 360–371. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.thecommunityguide.org/sites/default/files/publications/healthcomm-AJPM-evrev-campaigns.pdf.
[9] Verughese, Jacob et al. 2014. “Economics of mass media health campaigns with health-related product distribution.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 47(3): 348–359. Accessed January 9, 2017 from https://www.thecommunityguide.org/sites/default/files/publications/healthcomm-AJPM-econ-campaigns.pdf.