We began the first class with an overview of the public health context in which social marketing is often practiced, and a variety of definitions of social marketing that have appeared over the past 35 years. Some of the reactions and thoughts of the class: the student voices.
The first class completely changed my view of what I thought social marketing was. I thought it was just using advertising to market social or health ideas. I realize it is much more than that and really about initiating social change.
I’m impressed to learn that marketing’s actually more methodical and analytical than I’d initially imagined.
Social marketing is not just behavior change; it includes structural and policy development.
Do not put social marketing in a box. Social marketing is about finding innovative strategies and solutions to a societal or population problem.
What is the difference between social marketing and social change? Is social marketing the business of social change?
• There is no one concrete definition of social marketing
• This lack of clarity is not helping the discipline gain credibility among other disciplines
• A variety of fields can benefit from understanding social marketing theories – but many are not currently open to it.
We aren’t learning the cookbook we are learning to be chefs.
Programs fail because of insufficient intervention resources, non-supportive social and political environment, because of flaws in the measurement and evaluation design, and use of the wrong theory to understand problem and development strategies.
Still confused of what exactly social marketing is….I thought I knew.
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What I consider to be some of the takeaways from my presentation are captured here:
I believe that social marketing is a disciplined approach to engaging with and solving problems, not a series of recipes that are applied unconsciously or in some rote fashion to whatever is in front of you.
Social marketing is much broader and focuses on bigger issues than simply helping individuals manage their own behaviors. It is a true public health, or population-based, perspective and systematic approach for change (one of the only ones).
The core of a definition of social marketing is fairly consistent across authors. What often gets lost is its soul.
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