Social Marketing in the News

A Red Bandwagon

Last week in Davos, Switzerland, the U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist used the occasion of the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of the global business and political elite, to announce a remarkable new product line. The Gap, Converse, Giorgio Armani and American Express have agreed to offer products under the Red brand, with a share of the proceeds going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Bono is noted for taking unusual and savvy approaches to tackling Africa's vast poverty and disease problems, and the Red line is no exception. The project simultaneously offers big corporations a valuable "social marketing" opportunity — generating goodwill for their brands by positioning themselves as do-gooders — while raising money for one of the most worthwhile organizations on the planet.

College Drinking Cliches Bunk

Unlike college students portrayed in movies and on TV, Northern Illinois University (NIU) students may not be as apt to blow off school to consume alcohol. Davey says he has never gotten intoxicated in order to avoid responsibilities and he can't even remember the last time he got drunk.

NIU works with students to help them drink in moderation. In the 1989-90 school year, Health Enhancement Services started to use social marketing methods to show students that the majority of their peers are, in fact, moderate alcohol drinkers. As a result, NIU saw a 44 percent reduction of heavy student drinkers in only 10 years.

Getting to Know Us With Census

When it pitched Statistics New Zealand for the work last year, the agency went to Wellington armed with an ethnographic study into how Kiwis think and a portfolio of previous "social marketing" campaigns it had worked on.

After winning the account, FCB pulled together focus groups to find out "what people really felt about the Census and what role it could play in their lives". "The overall concept is to engage all people on the importance of the Census for all of us in terms of the information it provides to help create and develop a better New Zealand for all of us," says Van den Hurk.

LA HIV Prevention Ads Pull No Punches

It’s hard to ignore a billboard of a grown man in a diaper, and that’s what the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the country’s largest AIDS organization, headquartered in Los Angeles,is counting on. Beginning last December AHF began rolling out a new HIV prevention social marketing campaign called “HIV — Not Fabulous” consisting of mobile billboards and ads in local LGBT media that show, in graphic detail, some of the less appealing health problems experienced by people living with HIV, both from the virus and from side-effects from AIDS medications. The campaign is also featured on a Web site, www.staynegative.org.

“It is difficult. How do you stigmatize the disease and not stigmatize the community? We’re trying to show the consequences of HIV, and I don’t think it’s fair not to tell that story to the community, people who are negative, just because it might hurt people’s feelings,” said Hall. She said the campaign has drawn both praise and criticism from members of the HIV positive community.

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