The Marketing Book 5th Edition

CHAPTER 27

Social marketing

LYNN MacFADYEN, MARTINE STEAD

and GERARD HASTINGS

Introduction

The term social marketing was first coined by
Kotler and Zaltman back in 1971 to refer to the
application of marketing to the solution of
social and health problems. Marketing has been
remarkably successful in encouraging people to
buy products such as Coca-Cola and Nike
trainers, so, the argument runs, it can also
encourage people to adopt behaviours that will
enhance their own – and their fellow citizens’ –
lives. In essence, social marketers argue that it
is possible, at least to some extent, to sell
brotherhood like soap.
This chapter will examine these ideas. It
begins by explaining why social marketing is
needed and how it has developed. It then
examines current definitions of social market-
ing, before identifying ways in which it differs
from its commercial counterpart. The chapter
then looks at how these differences impact on
the practice of social marketing, focusing on
segmentation and the marketing mix.

Why do social marketing?

Efforts to influence and improve the quality of
our lives can be traced back through history.

Chartists, parliamentary reformers, Luddites,

suffragettes, feminists and many others have

tried to change the social circumstances of

particular groups, as well as society as a whole,

with varying degrees of success. Today, health

promoters, government agencies and other

non-profit organizations use marketing expert-

ise to achieve similar goals. Social marketing is

a social change management technology which

offers a framework with which to change the

unhealthful or unsocial behaviour of others

(Kotler and Roberto, 1989).

Many social and health problems have

behavioural causes: the spread of AIDS, traffic

accidents and unwanted pregnancies are all the

result of everyday, voluntary human activity.

The most dramatic example of this is tobacco

use, which kills one in two smokers (Peto, 1994)

• an estimated 6 million people in the UK alone
  since the health consequences were first estab-
  lished in the early 1950s. Social marketing
  provides a mechanism for tackling these prob-
  lems by encouraging people to adopt healthier
  lifestyles.
  However, there are many instances where
  the individual finds it hard to change his or her
  behaviour: protecting oneself from HIV is
  challenging if condoms are difficult to obtain;
  traffic accidents may result from poor roads as
  well as bad driving; and the addicted smoker
  struggles to quit. Health problems have a