Social Marketing Theory

Social Marketing Theory

Originators

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the social marketing approach was introduced. Although this approach was taken over soon after, it was first introduced by two people, Kotler and Zaltman. This approach has been used broadly with health behavior change efforts internationally and in the United States. This theory predominantly dealt with the respect to reproductive health and HIV and AIDS programs.

Overview and Purpose of the Social Marketing Theory

The social marketing theory is an approach that is particular to health communications and behavior change in different populations or groups. These different groups or populations incorporated principles of marketing to help achieve health aims. It is important to understand the difference in market and marketing. Market is a set of all individuals who have a concrete or potential interest in a product or service. Marketing is the design, analysis, implementation and control of carefully formulated programs planned to facilitate voluntary exchanges of values with the target markets for the reason on achieving an organizational goal. To apply it, this model uses an individual’s behavior as a “product” that is trying to be marketed. The goal of the social marketing theory is to influence consumers to buy a behavior change or health related product or technology. The social marketing theory has an approach that is built around the “four-Ps”. The four-Ps are product, price, place and promotion. Product is the behavior, program, or technology. With product, an individual wants to make sure that he or she knows what the behavior or technology is that is being offered. An individual also wants to look at it and find out what the benefits are. It is key to find the most important benefits of a product among the actual target population. The second P is price. Price is the cost of the adoption but not necessarily in financial terms. He or she will want to look at the...