Over the last two years, I have had the opportunity to discuss the tools of social marketing with over 200 participants at 10 different workshop events. What was common to these various discussions was the initial confusion regarding the definition of social marketing. While participants were able to relate social marketing with certain health promotion activities, few were able to see its wider scope. Fewer still were able to imagine the need for social marketing.
Social marketing is more than the application of marketing gimmickry to socially-desirable goals. Its true potential lies in bringing about individual behaviour change that leads ultimately to a vastly improved quality of life for all people. The means to achieve this end require the application of commercial marketing techniques including the concept that the beneficiary comes first. Borrowing from the highly-developed discipline of commercial marketing, social marketing is a powerful approach to address a broad range of health, environment and community issues such as drug abuse, road safety; racism and domestic violence.
EDUCATION IS OVERRATED
Public policy in this country has resorted to education as a panacea for all social problems. In the absence of viable alternatives, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) too are infected with this approach. In seminars, meetings and brain-storming sessions alike, the closing statement invariably includes a recommendation to launch an awareness campaign in the short term, coupled with changes in the school curriculum for long-term transformation. The issues in question might include anything from drunk driving to religious extremism, but the solution is always cited as education and more education. The fact of the matter, however, is that education alone does not bring development. A case in point is Sri Lanka, which has a literacy rate of more than 90% but is, nevertheless, a developing country.
Public-sector development agencies, NGOs and public-interest groups devote their energies to raising awareness and changing attitudes without being able to bring about real change. Ask any smoker and they are likely to rattle off the health risks of tobacco use as well as the dangers to passive smokers. Talk to wife beaters and you will find a significant number of remorseful souls. Talk to sex workers and they are well aware of the threat of HIV. But none of these individuals is able to act on their knowledge.
I recently conducted a show-of-hands survey of 30 men with Master's degrees, all of whom rode motorcycles. Although each of them knew the risks of driving without a helmet and could afford to buy one, not a single man chose to do so. Where the issue is about civic sense or environmental responsibility, a similar problem exists. Why, for instance, do we continue to see even well-educated people throwing litter in the streets? Clearly, these are glaring examples of the failure of awareness. In other words, knowledge and information about the dangers or ill effects of a particular behaviour does not necessarily lead to behaviour change.
The solution to this problem lies in changing the focus of programme activities. Instead of aiming to ensure that people know more about an issue, we should aim to change what people do. The task of altering individual behaviour is likely to be difficult, but at least the goals are clearly defined.
The real barrier to social change is not ignorance, but the inability to act. It is here that social marketing can make a difference, borrowing from commercial marketing concepts about the customer's psyche as it relates to changing customer preferences. The true power of social marketing can be harnessed by using it in collaboration with education, law, economic measures and technological innovations.
It is worth pointing out that social marketing is not advertising. In most cases, advertising aims to persuade consumers to switch from one brand to another. Similarly, social marketing should not be confused with public relations, the latter is limited for the most part to securing publicity in the media. Social marketing aims to bring about lasting change by changing individual behaviour.
CONVERGENCE
Despite the differences in various behaviour change models and social change theories, it is possible to identify certain points of convergence between various models in use today. The first is the concern with the process and not merely the ends. For social change to be permanent, the change has to be bottom-up and participatory, and must empower communities.
Another point of convergence is the use of a tool kit, with various tactics deployed depending on the situation. For instance, traditional awareness campaigns may be useful in a crisis, when large numbers of people must be reached urgently. Structural changes, however, are not likely to be influenced by such strategies. Similarly, social marketing may be useful in addressing behaviour change issues, but for change to be permanent, social mobilisation techniques will also have to be built into the programme.
According to a 1997 study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, approximately 50 percent of all deaths in the world are premature, caused by preventable factors such as smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, firearms, drug abuse and high-risk sexual behaviour. This information serves as one of the most precise descriptions of the application and scope of social marketing, which aims to influence individual behaviours. If commercial marketing has changed the way we live, work and play, social marketing has the power to change the quality of our lives.
IS IT WORTH APPROACHING THE POOR?
Dr Zafar Mirza of The Network for Consumer Protection has been at the forefront of many social change initiatives in Pakistan. In his opinion, the selection of the target audience is more critical than the message. He admits that after years of trying to address the poor, he has learned that addressing the middle class is the most effective way to bringing about lasting change.
It is a classic case of what Maslow (1943) described as a 'hierarchy of needs'. The poor are primarily occupied with meeting physiological and security needs. The middle class, meanwhile, has attained a certain level of comfort as well as self-esteem, and is more able to take action.
Of the various media vehicles available, Mirza considers the print media to be the most utilised and least effective. There is some truth to this assertion. To judge for yourself pick up a newsletter, press release, annual report or other publication produced by a non-profit organisation. More likely than not, it will be self congratulatory in tone, glamorising the activities of the organisation. These publications are produced and distributed at high cost but have little or no readership. Developing such ego-boosting materials is a resource-intensive job but has little impact on furthering the mission of the organisation.
(Ahson Rabbani is the Marketing and Operations Specialist for the Development Management Education programme at the NGO Resource Centre.)