On Social Marketing and Social Change

ISO Photos of Social Marketing and Social Change

The reason the blog posts have been slow in coming is that I have been focusing my time and words on a textbook for social marketing - nothing like you have seen before, trust me. We are in the production phase and my editor has suggested that we crowd source the picures that appear in the book.

SO here's the offer: Submit one or more images, high resolution please, to me before 9 August 2012 and your picture will be considered for publication in Social Marketing and Social Change: Strategies and Tools for Improving Health, Well-Being and the Environment (Jossey-Bass, publication in early 2013). Images will be reviewed by Jossey-Bass editors to select ones that exemplify or support major chapters and ideas in the book (see below for some guidance with what those will be, though don't feel constrained by them either if you have something that you think really works).

All submissions will have to sign a release giving the publisher nonexclusive right to use the photos in any/all ways related to the book, in print or electronic, for no fee, and in foreign as well as domestic editions. You can retain rights to the images for your own use. In exchange your work will be acknowledged in the book and every photographer whose image(s) are included will receive a copy of the book.

For more information to guide your planning and selection of images, here are the chapter titles and an illustrative idea from each one.

The history and domains of social marketing - The core of the marketing discipline is achieving social goals by meeting people’s needs, helping them in solving problems and enabling them to achieve their aspirations for themselves, family and community.

Principles for social marketing - People who receive value from each other through meeting or anticipating each other’s needs in the exchange of products, services, experiences and ideas with other people in their social network are a marketing system.

The determinants, context and consequences for individual and social change - Social change programs need to consider more than one scale of reality at a time, including individuals, social networks, formal and informal organizations, markets and government regulations and policies.

Segmentation and competition - Market segmentation helps marketers decide what types of behaviors,  products and services should be offered to various priority groups.

Moving from descriptions of people to understanding, empathy and insight - The challenge of developing effective social marketing programs is this: we need to have deep insights from our customers in order to apply disciplined imagination and creativity in collaboratively working with them to address their needs, problems and hopes.

The consumer experience as the marketer’s touchpoint - World-changing research sets a direction for the program, often one that nobody expects at the beginning.

Strategic positioning and brand - The challenge of creating a positioning strategy is finding one or more unique places where an organization’s strengths and abilities create more relevant value propositions to customers than what the competition can offer.

Marketing strategy development - What distinguishes a marketing approach from other ways of developing interventions and social change programs is the core focus on a strategy that delivers value or benefit as the person can experience it in their life.

Marketing mixes - If all one knows how to do is design and test messages, then everything becomes a communication problem.

Monitoring and evaluations - A social marketing program is, at its best, a series of well-informed experiments being conducted over time that are constantly checking, testing and refining elements of the marketing mix to meet the changing needs and realities of the priority groups as well as adjusting to the shifting contours of the physical, social, technological and political environments in which they are being implemented.

Personal and community engagement in change - Change agents need to be using marketing to improve services in our communities, not just designing messages and products, to initiate and sustain positive individual, community and social change.

Social technologies - The essence of social media lies in its intrinsic capability to facilitate collaborations and interactions among others.

Social marketing for dissemination and program sustainability - Stories can be a valuable way to communicate the social and human value of the social marketing programs and the experiences of staff, stakeholders and clients.

Innovation and management -  Innovation is a process for us to learn as individuals and organizations how to take risks that enable us to create more value for the people we serve and the communities in which we live.

If you want to get some more ideas and insight into what we will be looking for, you might read through The Change We Need,  An Integrative Model for Social Marketing and Transformative Social Marketing [pdf].

Yes, this is a real offer to have your photo published in a social marketing and social change textbook AND receive a free copy of the book when it is available. The deadline is 9 August 2012. I look forward to seeing your ideas about social marketing and social change come to life. Send each image to me at rcraig[dot]lefebvre[at]gmail[dot]com.

The Cost of Being Boring

"This is for the guys who still think that the only way to market is through explaining product benefits and price advantages. Because being more human and showing that you are different, with personality and purpose, is even more important."

That's the commentary attached to the message on this bottle by Hugh McLeod (aka @gapingvoid) -- Advertising is the cost of being boring.

I am extending that sentiment to all the public health and behavior change communicators who think social change is largely dependent on the size of their advertising budgets. Who still believe that if they design the right message, and address the cost-benefit trade-off for engaging in new behaviors in just the right way, people will change. That if they only had another multiple of their current budget, the world would be a better and safer place. I find this attitude in all types of contexts, from people working in a developing country, developed nations such as the the US and New Zealand, and more recently in social media (Facebook ads seem particularly interesting these days).

I use to think that people resorted to advertising campaigns because they believed they worked; more often now it seems advertising campaigns are used more to satisfy stakeholders and politicians. And in the event where neither of these may be the true cause, I think Hugh nails it here: using advertising campaigns for social change is the cost of being boring, of not finding what excites people, of not being appealing to people because…well, we don't know how to, or can't...or won't.

Too many people think of mass media campaigns and paid advertising as the road to success. But Larry Wallach, a pioneer of media advocacy, talked about the 'mass media fallacy' of believing that any social or health problem can be adequately addressed so long as the right message is delivered to the right people in the right way and at the right time.

To all of those believers, I raise this bottle…

On Facts and Theories

"A fact without a theory is like a ship without a sail.

Is like a boat without a rudder.

Is like a kite without a tail.

A fact without a theory is as sad as sad can be.

But if there's one thing worse in this universe, it's a theory . . . without a fact."

So goes the lyrics to a song George Schultz recently reprised in an interview in the WSJ.

These words sum up how important it is for us to have ways to explain facts and make sense out of them. But even more so, the lyric reiminds us of why it so important to have facts to back up one's theory. For social marketers, social innovators and people who are working with social and mobile technologies for health and social change, the song should become a chant.

All social change efforts involve different actors known by various labels such as audiences, influencers, stakeholders, consumers, suppliers, partners and policymakers. Depending on the actor and the objective of the program, social marketers and change agents may be trying to increase some behaviors (healthy eating, physical activity, recycling), decrease others (tobacco use, risky sexual behaviors, energy use), encourage participation in social change activities (citizen engagement, social mobilization) or gain support for environmental change (adopt policies, redesign physical entities such as automobile safety features or entertainment content). Who is the focus of these activities, and what they are asked to do is largely a function of the framework (or theory of change) that we bring to the task.

Everyone has assumptions and explanations for how and why people think and behave the way they do; these are often referred to as naïve theory or folk psychology. These theories are often rooted in one's culture, and might, for example, present themselves in discussions of whether people will accept voluntary counseling and testing and the provision of antiretroviral therapies for HIV/AIDS, the types of foods they will eat - or not, or how they will conserve energy. Too often these common-sense theories - often posed as 'stories' - lead to program actions rather than a search for the facts. This fact searching or checking may be simply to go out and talk with the people we wish to serve, collect some data in more stuctured ways or run an experiment and see what happens before committing all the time and budget to the 'obvious' approach.

Many social change agents are familiar with the challenges of addressing other people’s cultural beliefs as they relate to health and social behaviors. We need to remind ourselves that we are just as susceptible to the influence of our own 'tribal' and folk theories as we design social change programs and work with partners who may not be of the same ‘tribe.’

This is why many social marketers stress the need to base programs to improve health, social welfare and the environment on empirically-validated models and theories. Stories and case studies have a limited place in moving us closer to understanding and solutions. Data, or facts, is what separates theories from stories and anecdotes. Theories, whether based on common sense, past experience or empirical evidence, create frameworks for our work. Specifically, they serve to:

• explain how or why things are related
• guide us as to what is important to focus on
• suggest what questions we ask
• lead to assumptions about what we should do about the problem
• what types of outcomes we should set
• determine how we measure success

Some people brush aside discussions of theory as something best left to academics. Yet, agreeing on a common approach to thinking about and addressing wicked social and public health problems is a major point of contention when working with partners. Because people often only have only one or two frameworks or theories they use for problem solving, these conversations quickly devolve into the city of Babel or attempts to convince the other side that our POV is the correct one. And the use of the wrong theory to understand a problem and develop strategies to address it is one of the primary sources of program failures.

Those are some of the reasons I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about theory.

So if you want to tell me a story, I prefer one with at least a sprinkling of data on top.

 

 

Learning from Mass Media Campaigns for HIV/AIDS Prevention

Reviews of mass media campaigns have a special interest for me. They demonstrate what can be done, and as importantly, what cannot be done, by relying on a 1P approach. I have talked about the 5% Solution before, and noted another review of mass media campaigns for changing health behaviors. This post focuses on the findings from a review of recent campaigns to prevent HIV/AIDS. What is interesting in this report are the comparisons it draws to reviews of earlier campaigns in this area as well as the current state of the art and science. The authors used seven principles to guide their analysis: (1) conducting formative research on and about the target audience; (2) using theory as a conceptual foundation; (3) segmenting one’s audience into meaningful subgroups; (4) using a message design approach that is targeted to the audience segment(s); (5) utilizing effective channels widely viewed by and persuasive with the target audience; (6) conducting process evaluation and ensuring high message exposure; and (7) using a sensitive outcome evaluation design that reduces threats to internal validity and allows causal inferences about campaign impact to be made. The question they explore is: to what extent have recent HIV/AIDS campaigns in the literature adhered to these principles?

Noar et al (2009) began with a search of peer-reviewed articles appearing from late 1998 through October 2007. Mass media had to be a central or prominent part of a campaign that focused on increasing safer sexual behaviors, reducing risky sexual behaviors, or encouraging HIV testing. At least one outcome measure had to be reported; 38 articles were identified that met these criteria, representing 34 different campaigns. The results on the variables of interest were:

Formative research - 16 of the 34 studies (47%) reported any type of research with the audience or pretesting of messages. the most commonly reported activity was research about campaign messages, including pretesting messages or examining message preferences of members of the target audience. Only two studies used formative research to develop or test their outcome measures (a neglected part of the research process in too many studies).

Using theory - 44% reported using theory, most often the Health Belief Model, Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior, Social Cognitive Theory, the Transtheoretical Model and Stages of Change and the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model.

Audience segmentation - 94% (all but 2) described an approach to audience segmentation.

Message design – very few campaigns used theory to guide development of persuasive messages. The authors note that while behavioral theories can suggest the type of content to include, HOW that content is formed into messages is often approached without explicit reference to relevant theoretical models such as message framing, emotional appeals, sensation-seeking, elaboration likelihood model and the use of narratives.

Channels – 21% used a single media channel with television, radio and print media being the channel of choice. The remaining campaigns used other channels (billboards, brochures, Internet, newsletters) and a variety of promotional materials such as baseball cards, postcards, condom packs; a variety of interpersonal strategies including peer education and skill-building workshops and hotlines; and some also included community partners, coalitions and community mobilization in their activities.

Process Monitoring – 82% of the campaigns reported audience exposure to messages, with a mean exposure of 77% of the targeted audience (a range of 35% - 100%). There was little reporting of frequency of exposure to campaign messages, and when those data were reported, it was difficult to make comparisons across studies.

Outcomes – Pre-Post test designs using independent sampling were employed by a plurality of the campaigns (13 of the 34, or 38%). Eleven studies used only a post-test measure. The authors note that this means that 70% of the campaigns used weak outcome evaluation designs. In 24 of the campaigns (71%) behavioral outcomes were reported, most often either condom use or HIV/STD testing. Among the studies that used stronger designs (the other 30%), only 2 of the 10 found no statistically significant effects. Six studies reported significant changes in outcomes including talked with others about safer sex, continued abstinence, initiated condom use, increased condom use, reduced number of sexual partners, or were tested for HIV. The other two reported changes in behavioral intentions (for example, to use condoms and shifts in stages of change).

The authors conclude that, when compared to another review of this literature in 2000, HIV/AIDS mass communication campaigns are increasingly: (1) targeting defined audiences developed through audience segmentation procedures; (2) designing campaign themes around behavior change (rather than solely knowledge or attitude change – though given their selection criteria, this is hardly surprising); (3) using behavioral theories to inform campaign design; (4) achieving higher message exposure to campaign messages; (5) using stronger quasi-experimental designs with control groups for outcome evaluation (although still far too few studies use these stronger designs); and (6) including measures of behavior change (or behavioral intentions) in outcome assessments.

This review highlights how mass communication efforts for HIV/AIDS prevention have shifted from general awareness and knowledge outcomes to ones more tightly focused on achieving behavioral changes among defined segments of the population. While formative research has become commonplace, there are relatively few studies that use research designs that allow for drawing strong conclusions from their findings. This latter point does not mean that research designs must be randomized controlled studies, but as the authors note, even the addition of control groups or using time-series with control communities help address the question of whether there are alternative explanations for the observed effects (for example, that the respondents are not simply placating researchers with favorable or socially desirable responses to their questions).

Social marketing is more than mass communication campaigns, but we often use mass media in conjunction with products and services, providing incentives and reducing costs of engaging in new behaviors, and increasing access and opportunities to perform these behaviors. Learning what works with mass media is important, but as other reviews have pointed out, it is not enough to achieve public health outcomes. Some marketers will note that health communication planners have adopted our practices of segmentation, targeting behavior change and using formative research. However, the importance of using theories that fit the problem of designing persuasive messages is one important takeaway. The other takeaway is the challenge of designing better studies to assess outcomes. Thinking about using comparison populations, or simply delaying intervention among some priority groups while continuing to assess important outcomes, can help us demonstrate that we have more than a very elaborate, and perhaps even effective, placebo.

Reference:

Noar, S.M., Palmgreen, P., Chabot, M., Dobransky, N. & Zimmerman, R.S. (2009). A 10-year systematic review of HIV/AIDS mass communication campaigns: Have we made progress. Journal of Health Communication, 14: 15-42. [free download]