‘Behold’ Social Marketing

Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman were the first to refer to the term and develop the concept of ‘social marketing’ in 1971. Social marketing is considered the application of commercial marketing techniques and principles to non-commercial transactions. It is used to serve social causes and to provoke social change, which consequently most of the times leads to legislation changes as well.  

The 5 ‘Ps’ used in commercial marketing practices, now apply also in social marketing; however as mentioned by Tench R. and Yeomans L. (2006) in their book Exploring Public Relations they are interpreted in a different way, as shown below:

·      Price represents intangible or tangible ‘sacrifices’ on behalf of the target group in order to gain some other benefits by this programme.

·      Product is an idea that represents what the programme aims to change.

·      Promotion represents the ways that will persuade the target audience to change behaviour.

·      Place interprets the channels used to reach the target audience.

·      Positioning is the already established perception of the target audience over the idea that the programme aims to promote.

The way that the marketing mix applies in social marketing seems to coincide with the steps followed in a communications campaign emphasizing in behaviour change, such as research and analysis of the problem/issue, audience segmentation, strategy development, implementation and programme evaluation.

Whether an organisation will use public relations or social marketing to deliver a public communications campaign, I guess it depends on the social issues that needs to be dealt with each time and on the organisation itself, its resources and the experience and education of its staff. The use of social marketing to deliver a communications campaign consequently influences the role of Public Relations within organisations, since marketers seem to expand in a field that once was dominated by public relations practitioners. 

Important Note:
The article of Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman was published in the Journal of Marketing, (volume 35, pp. 3-12) in 1971 under the tiltle “Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change”.