An effective communication plan for a social marketing program needs to consider any number of variables. The most important are the openings: those times, places and frames of mind when people are most likely to be receptive to and responsive to the message. Posts by Seth Godin and Nedra Weinreich brought me to think about openings and the problem of marketing the newly approved vaccine for cervical cancer.
Seth's take: So, let's try to imagine that conversation taking place across the dinner tables and examination rooms across America... The idea that parents can be reached and then persuaded to confront these issues, in our culture, is a little overwhelming.
Nedra responds to the bait - Seth's title of the post "A marketing gig that nobody wants" - and goes on to suggest how she would use social marketing to take it.
We would need to figure out what the key values are of the parents ... Position the vaccine as preventing cervical cancer... Get the CDC to add the vaccine to their recommended immunization schedule ... Get insurance companies to cover some of the costs of the vaccination.
At its core, the marketing problem is how to talk with your daughter about an immunization against an infection (HPV) that is transmitted through sexual intercourse. Well, how about when the parents decide it's time to talk about birth control? Her physician is prescribing birth control pills?
There are a number of other issues that the vaccine may face where social marketing would also be useful. I'm with Nedra that it is a marketing gig, Seth, worth taking. Lives depend on it.
Technorati Tags: Cervical Cancer, Cancer Vaccine, Gardasil, Marketing
This vaccine is one of the greatest things out there right now. Yes, it's for an STD that causes cancer but every girl/woman should be vaccinated with it in my opinion. As children and young teens they don't always know why they're getting the shots they get when they go to the doctors office many times they just know it's something that's required and necessary to be healthy.
Are parents going to hold back on getting their daughters vaccinated for fear this will give them the green light to have sex? That idea is crazy.....Children are now vaccinated for Hepatitis B which is contracted through bodily fluids and through IV drug use. Does giving our children the Hepatitis vaccine give them the green light to have sex and shoot up? Hell no, this is for their health and the safety of others.
I have been riddles with abnormal paps for the last two years and my doctor actually recommended I get vaccinated and I'm 26. I am definately doing it, it will be one less cancer I have to worry about.
Posted by: chicakms | 20 June 2006 at 07:20 PM