On Social Marketing and Social Change

Social Marketing in the News

Government of Canada's Domestic HIV/AIDS Role

… The Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS in Canada highlights the federal government's domestic role, and builds on lessons learned from past federal HIV/AIDS strategies, and consultations with stakeholders, provinces and territories... There are five areas of federal action: program and policy interventions; knowledge development; communications and social marketing; coordination, planning, evaluation and reporting; and global engagement.

Seeking Answers to Underage Drinking

…Parents can get involved at the community level with law enforcement efforts or campaigns to increase taxes on alcoholic beverages to try to deter purchases, Williams said.

"But kids in our focus groups tell us they want to know what their parents' expectations are," Williams said. "Drinking alcohol is so ingrained in the culture; it's a right of passage."

…Heritage Behavioral Health Center is working on a social marketing program in four targeted Decatur [Illinois] neighborhoods…said Vivian Goodman, a prevention team leader at the center.

"We're assessing the individual neighborhoods to find out what people there think the problems are," Goodman said. "Then we can work on what they see as solutions."

New Developments in Social Marketing Subject of Presentation to National Conference

“Viral campaigns, consumer interactivity, adver-gaming – they’re just a sample of the new opportunities and challenges for social marketers,” said Capstrat’s Billy Warden, who will make the presentation on Aug. 3 at the Asheville [North Carolina] Renaissance Hotel.  “But for all the new twists, marketing is still about who you’re talking to, where they are and what you say to them when you find them.  Keep America Beautiful has been doing its job well for decades, and part of its success has to do with getting the marketing message and mix right.”

It’s Cool to Eat Healthy Food

Wairarapa's [New Zealand] new Healthy Eating, Healthy Action plan took a big step forward yesterday as 90 people gathered to nut out ideas on how to promote healthy eating… These included encouraging supermarkets to think about how they display food and to possibly sell smaller packages of fruit and vegetables, a social marketing campaign to promote healthy eating as fun and fast, encouraging role models, in the Jamie Oliver mould, to push the "good food is cool" message and helping ensure people know the basics of how to prepare healthy meals.

Technorati Tags: Health Communications, Health Education, Healthy Nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Social Marketing, Underage Drinking

Obesity Prevention: Getting It

What do the private sector marketers know about obesity and ways to encourage it, prevent it, or just play around the edges with it? The Hartman Group gives us the benefit of their years of experience conducting research in this area in a new report. They begin with a clear-eyed perspective on current approaches to obesity management and prevention. Most public policy approaches, they state, fall into one of two buckets: teaching or tinkering. [click on image to enlarge]

Strangely, we find that none of the 10 suggestions listed above begin to directly address the pink elephant hovering in the corner. The root problem, of course, is that we simply consume far, far too many calories for our own good.

They go on to note the trend of more people eating alone and the decline in group or social settings for eating: The rule of thumb is that when others are around, we tend to eat less and when we are eating alone, we tend to eat much more.

Their recommendations include:

• Remove all vending machines in schools and restrict eating to the cafeteria.
• Encourage businesses and public institutions to remove vending machines, commissaries and, most importantly, stocked refrigerators from the workplace.
• Businesses and public institutions should rethink the need for any and all food served at meetings and conferences.
• Work toward policies and values that encourage eating together—both within the household as well as in public.

And herein lies the most significant and important challenge of all, namely, how to change not individual behavior but the parameters within which such behavior resides—how to change our culture.

The report, Understanding Obesity: Beyond Teaching, Tinkering and Blaming, is available from The Hartman Group for free for a limited time only (registration required).

The notion of opportunities as a primary driver for obesity is reinforced by a Unilever scientist in Food Navigator:

"The challenge in relation to weight control remains to improve the quality and attractiveness of lower energy foods, and ensure they are not just "liked", but also "wanted"."

Food marketers should also take responsibility to ensure that they are not unduly adding to the environmental stimulation to eat inappropriately.

Like introducing more competitive foods into the school environment and encouraging responsible use of food vending machines by students (as opposed to changes in school food policies).

On a related note: the McDonald's Corporation has announced that they are introducing cinnamon rolls and fruit snacks 'to expand sales during slow periods of the day.'

McDonald's is developing foods for consumers, including motorists, who want smaller portions between breakfast, lunch and dinner, [said] Ralph Alvarez, president of the company's North American operations.

Smaller portions BETWEEN meals. You can't make this stuff up and it all makes sense when you look at is as a social marketer.

Obesity prevention and control comes back to distribution and opportunities - AKA stimulus control and environmental cues - not knowledge, intentions and attitudes.

All sources via The Morning Cup [subscribe here].

Technorati Tags: Market Research, Obesity Prevention, School Food Policies

Ordering School Lunch In

Are you tired of what the schools are serving your kids, haggling with school boards and school lunch service providers and vendors over nutritious meals, or just think parents and their kids should have a say in what they eat for lunch each day? Here's an idea from The Netherlands, courtesy of Springwise.

Packaged like a McDonald's Happy Meal, each [Lunch4Kids] lunchbox contains sandwiches, a drink (milk or juice), a piece of fruit and a snack (yoghurt, a cookie, a baby cucumber, etc).

Parents order online, specifying which foods their youngsters will leave untouched, and anything they're allergic to. The lunchboxes are delivered to participating schools every morning, and invoices are sent directly to parents. This keeps things simple for schools: nothing to administrate or refrigerate.

Besides the obvious advantages of balanced meals and healthy variety, there's also a high convenience aspect to Lunch4Kids. Parents don't have to worry about what to pack, or panic if they've run out of fresh bread or juice boxes. According to parents who participated in the trial-run, this alleviates morning stress and makes breakfast a time to enjoy with their families.

Update (4 August 2006): File under "You can't make this stuff up."

Under the new debt collection plan, hundreds of students whose parents owe the school system money from last year's lunches will get a cheese sandwich, milk and fruit instead of more popular choices such as corn dogs, lasagna roll-up or peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a side.

Technorati Tags: School Lunch

A Vision for Public Health

...But I still think there is a vast untapped potential out there for still greater partnership between public, private and voluntary sectors. There is an industry out there in health and fitness, in improving lifestyle choices whose ideas and experience we could harness; there are huge amounts of community facilities, not least in schools, that are often under-used; and there is a public that, though it may not always know what to do, knows it should be doing something.

I have signalled our determination to act; our willingness to act with others; and our desire to do so in a way that empowers people to lead the healthy lives they want and the nation needs them to have.

In 10 years time, and if possible long before, I want the health debate in Britain not to be confined to the excellent NHS that treats people when they are sick; but to the broader national health service that is about prevention as much as cure, about personal responsibility as much as collective responsibility, about the quality of living as much as life expectancy. It is an ambitious goal. But one totally in tune with the times. It means changes in Government, business and people, but that is the way the modern state should work.

- Tony Blair

Technorati Tags: NHS, Public Health, Tony Blair

Newspapers and Social Media

I've been speaking about social media and social marketing to a variety of groups (more to come on that). Both in the talks, as well as in some posts here, I have been using corporate examples and the few nonprofit and government examples I can find to demonstrate that innovation in using social media is alive and thriving. The Bivings Report investigates the use of social media by the top 100 newspapers in the US. There is an assumption that newspapers have the most to fear from social media, a fear that is echoed by people in my audiences who work for government agencies. Yet, fear can either motivate or paralyze action.

What's interesting about the results for me [click on the image to enlarge it] are the variety of social media being experimented with by 'the old media', as well as their relative popularity. One constant question among the folks I talk with is 'where do I start with using social media?' I don't think there is a pat answer other than to ask and explore 'what are you trying to accomplish and how would adding one or more social media to your marketing or communications mix help your organization get closer with your audience and to that goal?' But here is another source for benchmarking the process for yourself. PIOs pay particular attention.

Read the full report [pdf file].

via BuzzMachine.

Technorati Tags: Newspapers. Public Information Officers, Social Media, Social Marketing