Social marketing campaigns: positive and powerful

Every single day, millions of people all over the world are exposed to a barrage of media campaigns that promote a specific product or service that promise to make them feel younger, happier, healthier or even sexier than most people. From beauty products to massage services, the media asserts the belief that having or owning such products would make life better. However, there are also more urgent issues that need more attention from NGOS, government sectors and other institutions like sustainability, global warming, increased prevalence of diseases like AIDS, negative habits like drunk driving and many more. Social marketing campaigns are efficient in getting their message to the public particularly when it’s a community based social marketing campaigns.

The roots of social marketing campaigns comes from the social marketing theory. Social marketing as defined by the National Social Marketing Centre 2006 is “systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good”. So if statistics reveal that smoking cause respiratory diseases that cuts productivity, then health agencies can launch social marketing campaigns that would eventually discourage the public from smoking. This has been currently practiced in some Asian countries where packs of cigarettes contain vivid images of sick lungs.

Social marketing campaigns are very effective in relaying messages and promoting awareness to the public especially when the media used presents high-impact promotions. As an example, London’s media ad using social marketing campaigns directed towards use of seatbelt was very effective. This was a result of a good campaign since they showed gruesome accidents that can create behavioral change among drivers. However launching social marketing campaigns are also challenging since people do not usually change behavior especially when an act has become a habit like smoking, drinking or reckless driving.

It is very important then for social marketing campaigns to know barriers to behavior so the public can be influenced to exhibit behavioral changes. Statistical research for social marketing campaigns are also necessary for data increase validity of reports. Also, using community based social marketing campaigns are quite efficient since they reach out to the people on a more personal level. Cost is another important factor since people compare the price of giving up or starting a habit. Technology like the Internet has also been popularly used for creating social marketing campaigns. Nevertheless, no matter what strategy one may adopt, social marketing campaigns benefit the society in general.

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