Social Marketing vs. Media Advocacy

Social Marketing vs. Media Advocacy Two Different Approaches Toward a Common Public Health Goal

Social Marketing • The use of marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify or abandon a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups or society as a whole. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Media Advocacy • Media advocacy is "the strategic use of mass media to support community organizing to advance a social or policy initiative," (Dorfman and Wallack, 1996). HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing • Focus is on the consumer • Begins with target audience • Public health professionals listen to needs and desires of the target audience and builds program from there. • Involves in-depth research and constant re-evaluation of every aspect of the program. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social marketing espouses that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes, and behaviors. • Seeks to influence social behaviors in order to benefit the target audience and the general society, not to benefit the marketer. • Social marketing has been utilized in health programs for such diverse topics as drug abuse, heart disease, and organ donation. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Marketing mix: The 5 “p’s” • Product • Price • Place • Promotion • Positioning • And in social marketing a few other “p’s” HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing “Product” • Not necessarily a physical offering. • Physical product – condom • Services – medical exams • Practices – breastfeeding; eating a heart-healthy diet • Ideas – environmental protection • What is the consumers’ perceptions of the problem and the product and how important to them is the ideal that they need to take action against the problem? HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing “Price” • "Price" refers to what the consumer must do in order to obtain the social marketing product. • This cost may be monetary, or it may instead require the consumer to give up intangibles, such as time or effort, or to risk embarrassment and disapproval. • If perceived cost is > perceived benefits, unlikely to be adopted. • If perceived benefits > perceived costs, chances of adoption of products is greater. • Cost can be neither to low, nor too high. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing “Place” • "Place" describes the way that the product reaches the consumer. • Intangible product • Doctors’ offices • Shopping malls • Mass media outlets • University health services • Idea is to insure accessibility to the target audience. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing “Promotion” • Promotion consists of the integrated use of advertising, public relations, promotions, media advocacy, personal selling and entertainment vehicles. • Positioning – make the case that the benefits of this product are more desirable than the competition. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Other Social Marketing “P’s” • Publics • Partnership • Policy • Purse Strings • Examples? HST 2200 JCD/REC

Health Campaigns Utilizing Social Marketing Principles • Australia: • Victoria Cancer Council developing its anti-tobacco campaign "Quit" (1988), and "SunSmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer which had the slogan Slip! Slap! Slop!. • Dancesafe followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices. • CDC campaign – “Why is this ulcer sufferer so happy?” • North Carolina – “Click It or Ticket!” Campaign • Florida – “Truth” campaign HST 2200 JCD/REC

MeetPat HST 2200 JCD/REC

Pat’s “Xtreme Makeover” • Pat’s goal is to shape up, lose weight, and “look fabulous.” HST 2200 JCD/REC

Pat’s “Xtreme Makeover” • Will Pat look like this? HST 2200 JCD/REC

Pat’s “Xtreme Makeover” • Or this? HST 2200 JCD/REC

Applying social marketing principles: • Product • Adoption of a behavior change involving regular exercise and making better food choices resulting in better cardiovascular health and healthier weight • Price • Costs in behavioral and/or monetary terms are acceptable HST 2200 JCD/REC

Place • Health club and dining establishments are appealing, accessible, and supportive • Promotion • Use e-mail, interpersonal, small group communication, and other appropriate techniques to advance the product HST 2200 JCD/REC

Positioning • Demonstrate that the benefits of this product are more enticing than the competition, e.g. physical activity is a form of relaxation, not grueling exercise and low-fat meals could be considered an act of love for oneself. HST 2200 JCD/REC

Media Advocacy • According to the Prevention Research Center, "media advocacy is the purposeful and planned use of mass media to bring problems and policy solutions to the attention of the community and local decision-makers.” HST 2200 JCD/REC

Media Advocacy • While media advocacy efforts may take many forms, often they involve organizing attention-getting events to stimulate news coverage of an issue. • One frequent goal of media advocacy is to refocus the framing of a problem and its solutions from an individual level to an environmental or policy level. • Drinking will be solved through educating individual students (individual level). • Change drinking patterns on campus by changing the environment in which the behavior occurs (environmental or policy level). HST 2200 JCD/REC

Brand X Media Individual Focus Informs person with the problem and informs the general population Health message Information & personal change Information gap as key Media Advocacy Group focus Pressures decision makers & mobilizes community activists Voice Power and social change Power gap as key Media Advocacy Comparison HST 2200 JCD/REC

Problem definition as the individual level Health as a personal concern Short-term focus on program development Using mass media to change health habits Problem definition at the policy level Health as a social issue Long-term focus on policy development Using mass media to influence policy-making Media Advocacy: shifting focus HST 2200 JCD/REC

References • Media Advocacy Toolkit.htm • “What is Social Marketing?,” Nedra Kline Weinreich HST 2200 JCD/REC

Social Marketing vs. Media Advocacy