Social Marketing

In social marketing the design, implementation and evaluation of strategies is understood that aim to bring about a social change in awareness and influence of societal values ​​, attitudes and behaviors to maintain or to raise awareness. It is often used synonymously with social marketing and nonprofit marketing, marketing for non-profit organizations.

Social marketing relies on the systematic conviction for voluntary action where instruments such as pricing, regulatory action or state sanctions as a management tool are not adequate. Social marketing is not to be confused with social media marketing, a special form of online marketing.

Objectives

Through social marketing in a broader sense, the acceptance of socially desirable attitudes and behaviors to promote permanent, unwanted behavior should be outlawed.

Examples

• Marketing for educational and healthcare facilities ( "Save eyesight !")
• Environmental protection (energy saving; recycling "I was a can " )
• Health education ( " Do not give AIDS a chance ", " Smoking can kill " )
• Also "feel good " campaigns for positive thinking, without clearly defined behavioral appeal, be subsumed under the term social marketing ( " You are Germany ").
• But possibly also for example " Campaign for Real Beauty " ( Dove, Unilever), ie Commitment of companies
• The Occupy Wall Street movement, L. Gordon Crovitz fulfilled by, publisher of The Wall Street Journal all requirements for "social marketing" and astroturfing by the associated foundation Adbusters Media Foundation and its media.

Range

Communication and persuasion in the sense of social marketing is done at the global, national, regional and / or local level.

Actors

Social marketing relies on where the instruments of government, legislation and administration to their limits, and is therefore often driven by social interest groups, private companies and media in association with governmental or supranational institutions. Although so far little discussed, there are also opinions that social marketing is also suitable as a tool for companies ( Leuser, 2008).

Methods and instruments

Social marketing draws on the methods of commercial advertising and the insights of sociology, psychology and behavioral science, instead it seeks persuasion and seduction primarily argument based persuasion and the conscious and thus lasting the responsible citizen for the pro-social behavior decision on. Social marketing seeks to build intrinsic motivation, where external compulsion or external incentives do not apply and collective action can permanently only result from the internalization of appropriate values ​​. Social marketing is used for example in the context of health marketing used (eg anti- smoking campaigns ).

Since socially desirable behavioral changes are usually not directly related to an individual economic benefit and appeals to the financial self-interest thus fail, (rather than rational-economic ) non-financial motives are addressed:

• Individualistic motives, such as problem avoidance and expression of values
• Social motives; group identity
• Altruistic motives (eg, responsibility for future generations)

Awareness, conviction of the necessity of countermeasures and appropriate action incentive are based here mostly on a fear appeal (eg " lung cancer ", " greenhouse effect ", " danger for Germany ", etc.)

The success of social marketing programs largely depends on the effective use of the media. In general, a wide variety of orchestral arrangements (ie finely tuned, subtle interlocking and persuasive acting in their entirety ) communication methods is applied.

Campaigns and targeted measures

Effective product marketing takes place in the approach target groups and makes a market segmentation by type required (eg " disinterested materialists ", "Lust Stressed ", " frustrated ", " welfare -oriented ", " individualistic ", " politically educated / uneducated ," etc.). But social marketing often requires information campaigns that are principally addressed to all human populations ( undifferentiated marketing ) and to scattering losses and waste of resources, but also want to reach people whose interest is very pronounced for political issues in general.

Legitimation

Social marketing draws its justification from the demonstrable usefulness of the desired behavioral change for the common good and for the welfare of each individual. The great success of many social marketing campaigns leads but increasingly non-governmental organizations into temptation, their political values ​​and only them useful behaviors in ways to promote emotive and effective media campaigns and to bypass the traditional institutions of representative democracy.

Criticism

Organizations that are not democratically elected, but have the appropriate human and financial resources, so can abuse their position of power to enforce with social re-education actions their particular interests. Parliaments are ignored and democratically elected representatives are under pressure from the manipulated public -driven, which forced debates and solutions are dictated. To that extent, " social marketing " as " democracy -endangering co-regency of non-governmental organizations and as an indication of a decisive weakening of state sovereignty " ( Baringhorst ) and counted as " an addictive poison to liberal democracy " (Josef Joffe ) are criticized.

Sources and Literature

• "Handbook Social Marketing" by Ehrenfried Conta Gromberg; Cornelsen Verlag, 2006.
• " Social Marketing " by Philip Kotler & Roberto Eduardo; Econ Verlag 1990.
• " Social Marketing and Climate Change " by Friedemann Prose, Dirk copper & Gundula Hübner, from the Institute of Psychology, University of Kiel; In: Fischer, W. & Schütz, H. ( ed.): Social Aspects of Climate Change. KFA -Jülich, 1994, 132-144.
• "Social propaganda and social marketing: a critical difference? " O'Shaughnessy N., in: European Journal of Marketing, Vol 30, No. 1011, November 1996, p.54 -67.
• "At the mediatization of political protest. " Sigrid Baringhorst, in: Ulrich Sarcinelli (eds. ): Policy Mediation and Democracy in the media society. Bonn, 1998, p.326 - 342.
• Social Marketing or Marketing Markus Niederastroth in the Hamburg magazine
• " Social Marketing as a business opportunity - The Effect of Cause-related marketing " by Stephan Leuser, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008.