Kotler Social Marketing

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Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social ChangeAuthor(s): Philip Kotler and Gerald ZaltmanReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Jul., 1971), pp. 3-12Published by: American Marketing AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1249783.

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Socia l Marketingn Approacht lanned Soc ia l hangePHILIPKOTLERandGERALDZALTMAN

Can marketing conceptsand techniques be effectivelyapplied to the promotion ofsocial objectives such asbrotherhood,safe driving, andfamily planning? The applica-bility of marketing conceptsto such social problems is ex-amined in this article. The au-thors show how social causescan be advanced more suc-cessfully through applyingprinciples of marketing analy-sis, planning, and control toproblems of social change.

N 1952, G. D. Wiebe raised the question Whycan't you sellbrotherhood like you sell soap? 1 This statement implies thatsellers of commodities such as soap are generally effective, whilesellers of social causes are generally ineffective. Wiebe examinedfour social campaigns to determine what conditions or character-istics accounted for their relative success or lack of success. Hefound that the more the conditions of the social campaign re-sembled those of a product campaign, the more successful thesocial campaign. However, because many social campaigns areconducted under quite un-market-like circumstances, Wiebe alsonoted clear limitations in the practice of social marketing.A different view is implied in Joe McGinniss's best-selling bookThe Selling of the President 1968.2 Its theme seems to be Youcan sell a presidential candidate like you sell soap. Once Nixongave the word: We're going to build this whole campaign aroundtelevision . . . you fellows just tell me what you want me to do andI'll do it, the advertising men, public relations men, copywriters,makeup artist, photographers, and others joined together to createthe image and the aura that would make this man America'sfavorite brand.These and other cases suggest that the art of selling cigarettes,soap, or steel may have some bearing on the art of selling socialcauses. People like McGinniss-and before him John K. Gal-braith and Vance Packard-believe everything and anything canbe sold by Madison Avenue, while people like Wiebe feel this isexaggerated. To the extent that Madison Avenue has this power,some persons would be heartened because of the many good causesin need of an effective social marketing technology, and otherswould despair over the spectre of mass manipulation.Unfortunately there are few careful discussions of the powerand limitations of social marketing. It is the authors' view thatsocial marketing is a promising framework for planning andimplementing social change. At the same time, it is poorly under-stood and often viewed suspiciously by many behavioral scientists.The application of commercial ideas and methods to promote socialgoals will be seen by many as another example of business's lackof taste and self-restraint. Yet the application of the logic ofmarketing to social goals is a natural development and on thewhole a promising one. The idea will not disappear by ignoringit or ralling against it.

Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35 (July, 1971),pp. 3-12.

1G. D. Wiebe, MerchandisingCommodities nd Citizenshipon Tele-vision, PublicOpinionQuarterly,Vol. 15 (Winter,1951-52),pp. 679-691, at p. 679.2 Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968 (New York: TridentPress,1969).3


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4 Journal of Marketing, July, 1971This article discusses the meaning, power, andlimitations of social marketing as an approach toplanned social change. First, this will requiredelineating the generic nature of marketing phe-nomena and some recent conceptual developmentsin the marketing field. This will be followed by a

definition of social marketing and an examinationof the conditions under which it may be carriedout effectively. The instruments of social market-ing are defined, followed by a systems view of theapplication of marketing logic to social objectives.What is Marketing?

The following statement testifies that there isno universal agreement on what marketing is.It has been described by one person or anotheras a business activity; as a group of related busi-ness activities; as a trade phenomenon; as aframe of mind; as a coordinative, integrativefunction in policy making; as a sense of businesspurpose; as an economic process; as a structureof institutions; as the process of exchanging ortransferring ownership of products; as a processof concentration, equalization, and dispersion; asthe creation of time, place and possession utili-ties; as a process of demand and supply adjust-ment; and many other things.3In spite of the confusing jumble of definitions, thecore idea of marketing lies in the exchange process.Marketing does not occur unless there are two ormore parties, each with something to exchange, andboth able to carry out communications and distribu-tion. Typically the subject of marketing is the ex-change of goods or services for other goods or ser-vices or for money. Belshaw, in an excellent studyof marketing exchange and its evolution from tra-ditional to modern markets, shows the exchangeprocess in marketing to be a fundamental aspect ofboth primitive and advanced social life.4Given that the core idea of marketing lies inexchange processes, another concept can be postu-lated, that of marketing management, which canbe defined as:

Marketing management is the analysis, planning,implementation, and control of programs designedto bring about desired .exchanges with targetaudiences for the purpose of personal or mutualgain. It relies heavily on the adaptation andcoordination of product, price, promotion, andplace for achieving effective response.5

Thus marketing management occurs when peoplebecome conscious of an opportunity to gain from amore careful planning of their exchange relations.Although planned social change is not often viewedfrom the client's point of view, it involves very muchan exchange relationship between client and changeagent.6The practice of marketing management as ap-plied to products and services has become increas-ingly sophisticated. The responsibility of launchingnew products on a national basis involving the in-vestment and risk of millions of dollars and theuncertainties of consumer and competitor responses,has led to an increased reliance on formal researchand planning throughout the product developmentand introduction cycle. Marketing managementexamines the wants, attitudes, and behavior of po-tential customers which could aid in designing adesired product and in merchandising, promoting,and distributing it successfully. Management goesthrough a formal process of strategy determination,tactical programming, regional and national imple-6 Arthur H. Niehoff, A Casebookof Social Change(Chicago: Aldine, 1966); Warren G. Bennis, Ken-neth D. Benne and Robert Chin, The Planning ofChange (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,1969).

* ABOUT THE AUTHORS.Philip Kotleris A. Montgomery Ward Professor ofMarketing at the Graduate School ofManagement, Northwestern University.He is the author of Marketing Manage-ment: Analysis, Planning and Controland Marketing Decision Making: AModel-Building Approach. ProfessorKotler is also advisory editor of theHolt, Rinehart and Winston MarketingSeries, former chairman of the Collegeon Marketing of the Institute of Management Sciences, andpresently a director of the American Marketing Association.Gerald Zaltman is associate profes-sor of behavioral science, Departmentof Marketing, Graduate School of Man-

agement and Faculty Associate of theCenter for the Interdisciplinary Studyof Science and Technology at North-western University. He holds an MBAdegree from The University of Chicagoand a PhD in sociology from The JohnsHopkins University. Professor Zaltmanis author of Marketing: Contributionsfrom the Behavioral Sciences, co-editor of Creating SocialChange (in press), Perspectives on Social Change (in press),and a contributor to numerous books and journals. His majorresearch interests and writing concern the diffusion of inno-vations, communication, social change, and the sociology ofscience.The authors would like to express their appreciation to theEducational Foundation of the American Association of Ad-vertising Agencies for their support which permitted activitiesleading to many of the ideas expressed in this article.

3MarketingStaff of the Ohio State University, AStatement of Marketing Philosophy, JOURNAL OFMARKETING, Vol. 29 (January, 1965), p. 43.4Cyril S. Belshaw, Traditional Exchange and ModernMarkets (EnglewoodCliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall,Inc.,1965).5Philip Kotler, Marketing Management: Analysis,Planning and Control, Second Edition (EnglewoodCliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972).


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Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change 5mentation, performance measurement, and feedbackcontrol.There has been a shift from a sales to a market-ing orientation in recent years. A sales orientationconsiders the job as one of finding customers forexisting products and convincing them to buy theseproducts. This sales concept is implicit in The Sell-ing of the President 1968, since one is actually notdeveloping a new product for the job, but rathertrying to sell a given one with a suggestion that itis somewhat new and improved. The marketingconcept, on the other hand, calls for most of theeffort to be spent on discovering the wants of a tar-get audience and then creating the goods and ser-vices to satisfy them. This view seems privatelyand socially more acceptable. In private terms, theseller recognizes that it is easier to create productsand services for existing wants than to try to alterwants and attitudes toward existing products. Insocial terms, it is held that this marketing philoso-phy restores consumer sovereignty in the determi-nation of the society's product mix and the use ofnational resources.In practice, since at any time there are both prod-ucts in existence and new products being born, mostmarketing efforts are a mixture of selling and mar-keting; that is, a change strategy and a responsestrategy. In both cases, marketing management isbecoming a sophisticated action technology thatdraws heavily on the behavioral sciences for cluesto solving problems of communication and persua-sion related to influencing the acceptability of com-mercial products and services.. In the hands of itsbest practitioners, marketing management is appliedbehavioral science.

Social MarketingAn increasing number of nonbusiness institu-tions have begun to examine marketing logic as ameans to furthering their institutional goals andproducts. Marketing men have advised churcheson how to increase membership, charities on how toraise money, and art museums and symphonies onhow to attract more patrons. In the social sphere,the Advertising Council of America has conductedcampaigns for social objectives, including Smokeythe Bear, Keep America Beautiful, Join thePeace Corps, Buy Bonds, and Go to College.In fact, social advertising has become an establishedphenomenonon the American scene. Sandage says:True, (advertising's) communicationfunction hasbeen confinedlargely to informing and persuadingpeople in respect to products and services. Onthe other hand, it can be made equally availableto those who wish to inform and persuade peoplein respect to a city bond issue, cleaning up com-munity crime, the logic of atheism, the needsfor better educational facilities, the abusive tac-tics of given law and enforcement officers,or any

other sentiment held by any individual who wishesto present such sentiment to the public.7Social advertising has become such a feature ofAmerican society that it is no longer a question ofwhether to use it, but how to use it. It has beenvery successful in some cases and conspicuouslyun-successful in others. At fault to a large extent isthe tendency of social campaigners to assign ad-vertising the primary, if not the exclusive, role inaccomplishing their social objectives. This ignoresthe marketing truism that a given marketing ob-jective requires the coordination of the promotionalmix with the goods and services mix and with thedistribution mix. Social marketing is a much largeridea than social advertising and even social com-munication. To emphasize this, the authors definesocial marketing in the following way:Social marketing is the design, implementation,and control of programs calculated to influence

the acceptability of social ideas and involvingconsiderations of product planning, pricing, com-munication, distribution, and marketing research.Thus, it is the explicit use of marketing skills tohelp translate present social action efforts intomore effectively designed and communicated pro-grams that elicit desired audience response. Inother words, marketing techniques are the bridgingmechanisms between the simple possession of knowl-edge and the socially useful implementation of whatknowledge allows.The Requisite Conditions for Effective

Social MarketingSome clues concerning the difference betweensocial advertising and social marketing are contain-ed in early papers by Lazarsfeld and Merton and byWiebe which attempt to explain the limitations ofsocial advertising.8Lazarsfeld and Merton's AnalysisLazarsfeld and Merton took exception with theview of many people that mass media can easily beused to control people's minds: It is our tentativejudgment that the social role played by the veryexistence of the mass media has been commonlyoverestimated. 9 They believed that the effective-ness of mass media for propaganda purposes de-pended on three conditions, one or more of which islacking in most propaganda situations. The first7C. H. Sandage, Using Advertisingto Implement heConceptof Freedom of Speech, n The Role of Ad-vertising, C. H. Sandage and V. Fryburger, eds.(Homewood, ll.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1960), pp.222-223.8 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, MassCommunication, opular Taste, and OrganizedSocialAction, in Mass Communications, William Schramm,ed. (Urbana,Ill.: Universityof Illinois Press, 1949),pp. 459-480,and same reference as footnote 1.9Lazarsfeldand Merton,same referenceas footnote8,p. 462.


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6 Journal of Marketing, July, 1971condition is real or psychological monopolizationby the media; that is, a condition marked by theabsence of counterpropaganda. This characterizesthe totalitarian state and accounts for the greatereffectiveness of these regimes in molding publicopinion through mass media. It is found occasion-ally in free societies under special circumstances,such as a wartime effort. For example, Kate Smith'seffectiveness in selling war bonds over the radioduring WorldWar II was partially due to the mara-thon nature of the event and the fact that every-one believed in the cause; i.e., there was no counter-propaganda. However, most campaigns in a freesociety in peace time compete with so many othercauses and everyday distractions that the monopolycondition is lacking, and this condition reduces theeffectiveness of such campaigns.Lazarsfeld and Merton said the second conditionrequired for effective mass propaganda is canaliza-tion, the presence of an existing attitudinal basefor the feelings that the social communicators arestriving to shape. They asserted that typical com-mercial advertising is effective because the task isnot one of instilling basic new attitudes or creatingsignificantly new behavior patterns, but rather ca-nalizing existing attitudes and behavior in one di-rection or another. Thus, the seller of toothpastedoes not have to socialize persons into new dentalcare habits, but rather into which brand of a fa-miliar and desired product to purchase. If the pre-existing attitudes are present, then promotionalcampaigns are more effective, since canalization isalways an easier task than social reconditioning.The authors accept this idea but would add thatmany business marketing situations also involve thetask of reshaping basic attitudes rather than ca-nalizing existing ones. For example, consider busi-ness efforts to influence farmers to change time-honored farming practices, doctors to try out newdrugs, and males to dress with more fashion andflair. Canalization is always easier, but the authorswould like to emphasize' that business marketers,like social marketers, often try to diffuse funda-mentally new products and services which requiremajor attitudinal reorientations.Lazarsfeld and Merton call the third conditionsupplementation by which they mean the effort tofollow up mass communication campaigns with pro-grams of face-to-face contacts. In trying to explainthe success of the rightist Father Coughlin move-ment in the thirties, Lazarsfeld and Merton observe:This combination of a central supply of propa-ganda (Coughlin's addresses on a nationwide net-work), the coordinated distribution of newspapersand pamphlets and locally organized face-to-facediscussions among relatively small groups-thiscomplex of reciprocal reinforcement by massmedia and personal relations proved spectacularly

successful.'o

This approach is standard in many closed societiesand organizations and suggests another key differ-ence between social advertising and social market-ing. Whereas a social advertising approach con-trives only the event of mass media communicationand leaves the response to natural social processes,social marketing arranges for a stepdown commu-nication process. The message is passed on and dis-cussed in more familiar surroundings to increaseits memorability, penetration, and action conse-quences. Thus supplementation, monopolization, andcanalization are critical factors influencing the ef-fectiveness of any social marketing effort.Wiebe's Analysis

An additional contribution was made by Wiebein his attempt to understand the differential effec-tiveness of four social campaigns. 1 He explainedthe relative effectiveness of these campaigns interms of the audience member's experience withregard to five factors:1. The Force. The intensity of the person's mo-tivation toward the goal as a combination ofhis predisposition prior to the message andthe stimulation of the message.2. The Direction. Knowledge of how or wherethe person might go to consummate his mo-tivation.3. The Mechanism. The existence of an agencythat enables the person to translate his moti-vation into action.

4. Adequacy and Compatibility. The ability andeffectiveness of the agency in performing itstask.5. Distance. The audience member's estimate ofthe energy and cost required to consummatethe motivation in relation to the reward.To show how these factors operate, Wiebe firstanalyzed the Kate Smith compaign to sell bondsduring World War II. This campaign was emi-nently successful, according to Wiebe, because ofthe presence of force (patriotism), direction (buybonds), mechanism (banks, post offices, telephoneorders), adequacy and compatibility (so many cen-ters to purchase the bonds), and distance (ease of

purchase). In fact, extra telephone lines were in-stalled on the night of the campaign at 134 CBSstations to take orders during her appeal. Theeffort to buy bonds... was literally reduced to the distance betweenthe listener and his telephone. Psychological dis-tance was also minimized. The listener remainedin his own home. There were no new people tomeet, no unfamiliar procedures, no forms to fillout, no explanation, no waiting .. .12In the case of a campaign to recruit Civil De-fense volunteers, many of the same factors werepresent except that the social mechanism was not10 Lazarsfeld and Merton,same referenceas footnote 8. 11 Same reference as footnote 1.12Samereference as footnote1, p. 633.


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Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change 7prepared to handle the large volume of response,and this reduced the campaign's success. Teachers,manuals, equipment, and registration and adminis-tration procedures were inadequate, and many re-sponding citizens were turned away and disap-pointed after they were led to believe that theirservices were urgently needed.The third campaign, a documentary on juveniledelinquency, did not meet with maximum successbecause of the absence of a mechanism. Instead ofbeing directed to an existing agency, people wereurged to form neighborhood councils themselves.This certainly takes far more effort than simplypicking up the phone to buy a war bond, or stop-ping in to register at the nearest Civil Defenseunit.The fourth campaign revolved around the goal ofthe Kefauver committee hearings to arouse citizensto set their house in order. This campaign metwith a notable lack of success, however, becausecitizens were not directed to an appropriate mech-anism despite the fact that one existed in prin-ciple in the political party organizations. Politicalparty organizations apparently left much to be de-sired in terms of availability and compatibility.The skepticism prevalent at the time concerningthe chances of anything beneficial happening as aresult of the hearings was ample evidence thatconsiderable psychological distance existed betweenthe audience and the mechanisms for action.The Social Marketing Approach

The Lazarsfeld and Merton conditions and theWiebe factors provide a useful backgroundfor view-ing the conceptual framework used by marketingstrategists. Marketers view the marketing problemas one of developing the right product backed bythe right promotion and put in the right place atthe right price. These key variables in the marketingmix have been named the four P's by McCarthy.31The authors shall examine each of these variables,designated control variables, in terms of some well-known social issues.Product. In business marketing, sellers study theneeds and wants of target buyers and attempt todesign products and services that meet their de-sires. If well-designed and affordable,these productswill be purchased. In social marketing, sellers alsohave to study the target audiences and design ap-propriate products. They must package the socialidea in a manner which their target audiences finddesirable and are willing to purchase. This cor-responds to Wiebe's idea of a mechanism.Product design is typically more challenging inthe social area than it is in the business area. Con-sider the problemof marketing safer driving. Thesocial objective is t'ocreate safer driving habits and

attitudes in the population. There is no one productthat can accomplish this. Various products haveto be designed that will make partial contributionsto the social objective. A public education mediacampaign providing tips on safe driving is onesuch product; the offering of defensive drivingcourses is another; the creation of insurance poli-cies which reduce premiums for safer drivers isstill another product. In general, the social mar-keter remains aware of the core product (saferdriving) and tries to create various tangible prod-ucts and services which are buyable and whichadvance the social objective.Identical reasoning is required by those whomarket altruistic causes (e.g., charity giving, blooddonation), personal health causes (e.g., nonsmoking,better nutrition), and social betterment causes (e.g.,civil rights, improved housing, better environment).In each case, the social marketer must define thechange sought, which may be a change in values,beliefs, affects, behavior, or some mixture. He mustmeaningfully segment the target markets. He mustdesign social products for each market which arebuyable, and which instrumentally serve the so-cial cause. In some social causes, the most difficultproblem will be to innovate appropriate products;in other cases it will be to motivate purchase.Promotion. The marketing man's second controlvariable is promotion. It is the communication-persuasion strategy and* actics that will make theproduct familiar, acceptable, and even desirable tothe audience. Wiebe's counterpart to promotion is

force. The social campaign strategist will tendto think of this as mass media communication, butpromotion is actually a much larger idea. To themarketing man, promotion includes the followingmajor activities:Advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonalpres-entation and promotion of products, services, orideas by an identified sponsor.Personal Selling: Any paid form of personalpresentation and promotion of products, service,or ideas by an identified sponsor.Publicity: Any unpaid form of nonpersonal pres-entation and promotion of products, services, orideas where the sponsor is unidentified.Sales Promotion: Miscellaneous paid forms (spe-cial programs, incentives, materials, and events)designed to stimulate audience interest and ac-ceptance of a product.Each of these promotional tools involves complexissues in strategy and tactics. With respect to ad-vertising, the marketer has to determine the sizeof the total advertising budget, the choice of ap-peals, the development of attention-getting copy,the selection of effective and efficient media, thescheduling of the advertising inputs, and the meas-urement of overall and segment-level results. With

respect to personal selling, the marketer must de-termine the size of the total sales force, the de-13E. Jerome McCarthy, Basic Marketing: A ManagerialApproach,Third Edition (Homewood,Ill.: RichardD. Irwin, Inc., 1968), pp. 31-33.


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8 Journal of Marketing, July, 1971velopment of sales territory boundaries and assign-ments, the development of personal presentationstrategies, the degree and type of salesforce moti-vation and supervision, and the evaluation of sales-force effectiveness. Publicity necessitates arrangingfor significant news about the product to appear invarious media. Sales promotion calls for developingspecial display, premiums, programs, and events thatmight be useful in stimulating interest or action.Each of these activities is a specialty in whichthe experts have achieved sophisticated levels ofknowledge and techniques. This is especially ap-parent when one examines social campaigns de-veloped by amateurs where the appeals and copyseem very naive. Even behavioral science consult-ants to social campaign organizations often fail tomake a maximum contribution because of their in-ability or reluctance to view the issue in broadmarketing terms instead of in strictly social orethical terms.Recently Nathaniel Martin criticized the Indiangovernment for failing to handle family planningas a marketing problem.

Selling birth control is as much a marketing jobas selling any other consumer product. And whereno manufacturer would contemplate developingand introducing a new productwithout a thoroughunderstanding of the variables of the market,planners in the highest circles of Indian govern-ment have blithely gone ahead without under-standing that marketing principles must deter-mine the character of any campaign of voluntarycontrol. The Indians have done only the poorestresearch. They have mismanaged distribution ofcontraceptive devices. They have ignored the im-portance of customer service. They have pro-ceeded with grossly inadequate undertrainedstaffs; they have been blind to the importance ofpromotion and advertising.14

This is not to deny that the Indian governmenthas undertaken some innovative promotional ap-proaches. Referral fees are paid to salesmen, bar-bers, and others who bring in consenting males forsterilization. The consenting male is given a tran-sistor radio or a small payment to cover his costs ofbeing absent from work. Women have been offeredgifts for consenting to use intrauterine contracep-tive devices. But Martin feels that the total pro-gram lacks the qualities of an organized, well-planned, and continuous marketing effort.,l5

An example of careful promotional planning fora social objective is found in the American CancerSociety efforts to raise money for cancer research.In their brochure directed to local units, they at-tempt to educate the volunteer and professionalchapters on the handling of newspapers, pictures,company publications, radio and television, movies,special events, and controversial arguments. Forexample, in terms of special events:Dramatic special events attract attention to theAmerican Cancer Society. They bring color, ex-citement, and glamour to the program. Wellplanned, they will get excellent coverage in news-papers, on radio and TV, and in newsreels. ...A Lights-on-Drive, a one-afternroonor one-nightHouse-to-House program have such dramatic ap-peal that they stir excitement and enthusiasm ...keep in mind the value of bursts of sound suchas fire sirens sounding, loud-speaker trucks, fifeand drum corps. .... A most useful special eventis the ringing of church bells to add a solemn,dedicated note to the launching of a drive oreducation project. This should be organized ona Division or community basis, and the churchbell ringing may be the signal to begin a House-to-House canvass. Rehearsals of bell ringing,community leaders tugging at ropes, offer goodpicture possibilities.l6Some readers might be critical of this approachto a worthwhile social objective, but two thingsshould be mentioned. The first is that this shouldnot be identified as the marketing approach to socialobjectives. Many persons mistakenly assume thatmarketing means hard selling. This is only a par-ticular style of marketing, and it has its criticsboth inside and outside the profession. There aremany firms that market their products with tasteand sensitivity; examples include Xerox, ContainerCorporation, and Hallmark. It is important torecognize that this is not nonmarketing but rathera style of marketing that was chosen in the beliefof its greater effectiveness in accomplishing thegoals of the organization.Second, the issue is not whether a particular ap-proach suits one's personal taste, but whether itworks. If a hard marketing style raises sub-stantially more money for cancer research than asoft marketing style, it must be respected bythose who think cancer research is more importantthan personal aesthetics.Place. The third element of the marketing ap-proach to social campaigns calls for providing ade-quate and compatible distribution and responsechannels. Motivated persons should know where theproduct can be obtained. Place is equivalent to twoof Wiebe's five conditions for an effective masscommunication campaign (direction, and adequacyand compatibility). The poor results of many social

14Nathaniel A. Martin, The Outlandish Idea: How aMarketing Man Would Save India, Marketing/Com-munications, Vol. 297 (March, 1968), pp. 54-60.15For two analyses of the marketing issues and oppor-tunities in the family planning issue, see Julian L.Simon, A Huge Marketing Research Task-BirthControl, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 5(February, 1968), pp. 21-27; and Glen L. Urban,Ideas on a Decision-Information System for FamilyPlanning, Industrial Management Review, Vol. 10(Spring, 1969), pp. 45-61. 16Public Information Guide (New York: American Can-cer Society, Inc., 1965), p. 19.


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Social Marketing:An Approachto Planned Social Change 9campaigns can be attributed in part to their failureto suggest clear action outlets for those motivatedto acquire the product. The current campaign tointerest people in the pollution problem may sufferfrom this defect. It is succeeding in making every-one not only aware of environmental pollution butalso fearful of it. People want to do something aboutit. But for the most part they cannot act becausethere is not a clear product to buy (such as apetition to sign, an election in which to choose anantipollution candidate, or a pending piece of na-tional legislation). Nor does the average personhave a clear picture of the alternative channels ofaction for expressing his interest in the issue. Thereare so many ad hoc organizations working withoutcoordination and at times with cross-purpose, thatthe average person is likely to tune out fromfurther messages because of personal frustration.Saturation campaigns unaccompanied by the pro-vision of adequate response channels may result ininterest overkill.The importance of place has been recognized inseveral campaigns. The most notable example isthe Kate Smith bond-selling campaign and its imag-inative establishment of telephone order channelsduring the broadcast. Strategists of anticigarettecampaigns have recognized the need for action chan-nels by setting up smoker's clinics in many largecities. They could even go further and provide tele-phone advice and even social calls if the economicswould justify these additional channels. An adver-tising agency is planning a campaign called PickYour Issue in which several different social issueswould be individually featured. The point wouldbe made that because the busy citizen does not havetime to become involved in all issues, this shouldnot be an excuse to remain uninvolved in anyissues. The good citizen should pick an issue.Each issue advertisement will contain informationon the organizations active in that area and informthe citizen about where to write for further in-formation.

Thus, place means arranging for accessible out-lets which permit the translation of motivationsinto actions. Planning in this area entails selectingor developing appropriate outlets, deciding on theirnumber, average size, and locations, and givingthem proper motivation to perform their part ofthe job.Price. The final control variable that must beplanned is price. Price represents the costs thatthe buyer must accept in order to obtain theproduct. It resembles Wiebe's concept of distanceand incorporates some aspects of adequacy and com-patibility. Price includes money costs, opportunitycosts, energy costs, and psychic costs, Thus, thecost to persons asked to appear for immunizationshots includes any possible money charge, any op-portunities foregone, the expenditure of energy, andthe psychological concerns aroused by inoculation.

The cost of giving up smoking is largely psycho-logical, since there is actually a financial savingin breaking the habit. The cost of using seat beltsis the charge for buying them, the effort to lockand unlock them, and the psychological cost of notbeing completely sure one is better off in an accidentwearing them or not wearing them.The functioning of this concept can also be illus-trated in terms of an interesting phenomenon inhealth care services where many poor patients preferto patronize unlicensed practitioners and pay a feeinstead of going to the free hospital. In Caracas,Venezuela, for example, although there is a freehospital for the indigent, many of them patronizeprivate clinics which cost them 20 bolivares forconsultation. Why? Because while there is nocharge at the free hospital, there is a substantialcost to the patient in terms of energy and psycho-logical abuse. When a patient arrives at the hos-pital, he has to wait to see a social worker first.When he is finally interviewed, the social workerasks many questions about his income to determinewhether he is really indigent. Then he sees anumber of other hospital staff members for varioustests, and again is asked about his income. Finally,he sees the doctor who might discover that he reallyneeds to see a specialist who will not be availablefor several weeks. Throughout the experience, theperson is made to feel inferior and a nuisance.Therefore, it is not surprising that he wishes toavoid these energy and psychological costs even ifit means paying for the services.

But even monetary charges may play a usefulrole in leading the poor back to free hospital ser-vices. In private correspondence, a social psycholo-gist suggested:It is a surprising discovery that even free medicalcare presents a marketing problem. Maybe weshould apply dissonance theory and introduce suchmedical care at a high price to make it look moredesirable. Then let us apply a cents-off specialintroductory offer to make the service attractive.The marketing man's approach to pricing thesocial product is based on the assumption thatmembers of a target audience perform a cost-benefitanalysis when considering the investment of money,time, or energy in the issue. They somehow processthe major benefits and compare them to the majorcosts, and the strength of their motivation to actis directly related to the magnitude of the excessbenefit. This type of conceptualization of behavioris found not only in the economist's model of eco-nomic man, but also in behavioristic theory withits emphasis on rewards and costs, in Gestalt theorywith its emphasis on positive and negative valences,and in management theory with its emphasis onincentives and constraints. The marketer's approachto selling a social product is to consider how therewards for buying the product can be increasedrelative to the costs, or the costs reduced relative


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10 Journal of Marketing, July, 1971PLANNING

VARIABLES MARKETSProduct Primary target

1. Core product2. Tangible

products CHANNELSMass and special-ized media

Promotion1. Advertising2. Personal Secondaryselling target3.Publicity market

ENVIRONMENT CHANGE AGENCY 4. Sales

1. Economicpromotion Paid agents

2. Political Research Planning3. Technological I Unit Unit4. Cultural Place5. Competitive1.Channel types Voluntary groups Tertiary

3. Size and organizations target4. Locations market5. Compatibility

Price1. Money costs2. Opportunity Miscellaneouscosts target3. Energy costs markets4. Psychic costs

FIGURE. Social marketing planning system.

to the rewards, or trying to find a mix of product,promotion, place, and price that will simultaneouslyincrease the rewards and reduce the costs. The mainpoint is that social marketing requires that carefulthought be given to the manner in which manage-able, desirable, gratifying, and convenient solutionsto a perceived need or problem are presented to itspotential buyers.The Social Marketing Planning Process

The four P's of marketing management areintegrated in an administrative process frameworkin Figure 1. Continuous information is collectedfrom the environment by the change agency. Plansand messages are created and sent through channelsto audiences, and the results are monitored by thechange agency.The change agency operates a research unit anda planning unit. The research unit collects severaltypes of information. It monitors the environment-economic, political, technological, cultural, andcompetitive influences-for important developmentsaffecting its social policies and objectives. For ex-ample, a family planning agency would monitor eco-nomic-demographicdevelopments (income and popu-lation trends), political developments (liberalizationof birth control information), technological develop-

ments (new birth control techniques and devices),cultural developments (attitudinal changes towardbirth control), and competitive developments (ac-tions of similar and competing groups). The re-search unit also collects information on the pasteffectiveness of various programs as well as infor-mation on audience attitudes, desires, and behavior.The change agent's planning unit formulatesshort- and long-range social marketing plans onthe basis of this information. For example, thefamily planning organization carefully considers therole of different products, promotions, places, andprices. It would identify the major channels ofcommunication and distribution, such as mass orspecialized media, paid agents, and volunteer groups.It would differentiate the programs intended forits primary target market (large and low-incomefamilies), secondary target market (other child-bearing families), tertiary target market (sourcesof funds and additional volunteer efforts), and mis-cellaneous target markets (politicians and churchgroups). Finally, it would continuously gather ef-fectiveness measures on these programs for re-cycling its planning.This approach represents an application of busi-ness marketing principles to the problem of market-ing social change. It is already manifest in someof the larger social change agencies. For example,


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Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change 111. Mass media advertising campaigns2. Special presentations to executives .._ BUSINESSFIRMS

SERVICE1. Group discountsDRERVIVE

ORGANIZATIONS/er2. Fund raising

1. Monthly DDC bulletin 1. Local advertisingNATIONAL 2. Film LOCAL \ 2. Direct mailDRIVERSSAFETY 3. Consumerleaflets .. SAFETY 3. Dashboard tickersDRIVERSCOUNCIL 4. Trainingplans for plants \COUNCILS 4. Bring-a-friend disoount5. Tie-in sales

1. Direct recruit-SCHOOLS/ et2. Flyers whichchildren bringhome to theirparents

POLICEANDCOURTS1. Mass mediaadvertising campaigns2. Selective media advertising campaigns3. Sales promotion4. Publicity FIGURE. Marketingchannelsand tools: Defensivedrivingcourse.

consider the work of the National Safety Council.Its staff includes an advertising manager, a salespromotion management, an Advertising Council ofAmerica coordinator, a research director, and aprogram director. One of its products is a defensivedriving course. Figure 2 shows the various chan-nels through which this course is marketed alongwith the promotional tools it uses. The NationalSafety Council reaches potential prospects throughbusiness firms, service organizations, schools, andthe police and court system. For the 1970s, theNational Safety Council has adopted

? . . a four point marketing program. . . . Oneof the first objectives is to increase the saleseffectiveness of our existing 150 state and localsafety council cooperating agencies. . . . Thesecond part of the, program is to create 500 newtraining agencies in communities not now servedby safety councils. . . . A third part of themarketing program will be aimed at selling bigindustry on adopting DDC as a training coursefor all employees or selected categories of em-ployees in plant-run training programs. . . . Thefourth part of the marketing plan deals with anationwide promotional effort built around a se-ries of community special-emphasis campaignsrunning from February 1 through Memorial Dayeach year of the decade.17

This example illustrates the possibilities of themarketing approach for furthering social causes.The National Safety Council and several other so-cial agencies have graduated from occasional cam-

paign organizations to full-time marketing organi-zations which go through cycles of informationgathering, planning, product development, measur-ing, and reprogramming.Social Implications of Social Marketing

The authors believe that specific social causescould benefit from marketing thinking and plan-ning. Problems of pollution control, mass transit,private education, drug abuse, and public medicineare in need of innovative solutions and approachesfor gaining public attention and support. Marketingmen by their training are finely attuned to marketneeds, product development, pricing and channelissues, and mass communicationand promotiontech-niques, all of which are critical in the social area.At the same time, social marketing is sufficientlydistinct from business marketing to require freshthinking and new approaches. Social marketingtypically has to deal with the market's core be-liefs and values, whereas business marketing oftendeals with superficial preferences and opinions. So-cial marketing must search harder for meaningfulquid pro quos to gain acceptance or adoption ofits products. Social marketing has to work withchannel systems that are less well-defined and lesspecuniarily motivated.- Only through applying mar-keting concepts and tools to a large number ofcases will the powers and limits of the social mar-keting approach be learned.In addition, there is the definite possibility thatthe overt marketing of social objectives will beresented and resisted. There will be charges thatit is manipulative, and consequently contributes17ChrisImhoff, DDC'sDecisiveDecade, TrafficSafe-ty Magazine,Vol.69 (December, 969), pp. 20 and36.


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12 Journal of Marketing, July, 1971to bringing the society closer to Orwell's 1984.There will be charges that' even if not manipula-tive, social marketing will increase the amount ofpromotional noise in the society, which is founddistasteful both because it emphasizes trivial dif-ferences and because it is noise. Finally, socialmarketing will be accused of increasing the costsof promoting social causes beyond the point of anet gain either to the specific cause or the societyas a whole. In the charities industry, professionalmarketing increases the absolute cost of raisingmoney, but it usually succeeds in raising moremoney after these costs are taken into account.However, when one considers the entire picture,it is possible that the total amount donated tocharities may not increase by the same amount asthe professional marketing costs.The authors are concerned with these possibledysfunctional consequences, and they must obviouslybe subtracted from the potential benefits that socialmarketing might produce. Since social marketingis just emerging, those concerned are encouragedto monitor it closely in the same dispassionate spiritthat business marketers have so ably analyzed anddocumented the many manifestations* of businessmarketing practice over the- years.

SummaryThis article considered the applicability of mar-keting concepts to the problem of promoting socialcauses. Social marketing was defined as the design,implementation, and control of programs calculated

to influence the acceptability of social ideas andinvolving considerations of product planning, pric-

ing, communication, distribution, and marketingresearch.Too often, social advertising rather than socialmarketing is practiced by social campaigners. La-zarsfeld and Merton attributed the failure of manysocial advertising campaigns to the frequent ab-sence of conditions of monopolization, canalization,and supplementation in the social arena. Wiebe, inhis examination of four campaigns, concluded thata campaign's effectiveness depended on the presenceof adequate force, direction, an adequate and com-patible social mechanism, and distance. To the mar-keter, the success of the campaign depends on theproper development of product, promotion, place,and price considerations. These concepts were de-fined and were shown to have applicability to socialcauses. The social marketing process calls formarketing research and the subsequent develop-ment of a well-conceived product and appeals mov-ing through mass and specialized communicationmedia and through paid agents and voluntary groupsto reach targeted audiences. The marketing stylemay be hard or soft, depending on which is deemedmost effective in accomplishing the social objectives.A marketing planning approach does not guaran-tee that the social objectives will be achieved, orthat the costs will be acceptable. Yet social mar-keting appears to represent a bridging mechanismwhich links the behavioral scientist's knowledge ofhuman behavior with the socially useful implemen-tation of what that knowledge allows. It offers auseful framework for effective social planning at atime when social issues have become more relevantand critical.

MARKETINGMEMOThe MarketingConcept and Technology .

It is a mistake to think of technology as entirely autonomous, although it hassecured for itself a great deal of autonomy. And it is a mistake to think that thetechnologicalsystem is self-justifying in its own terms. The present ecological crisisand fundamentalrethinking of technology's role in the society of the future is theprima facie illustration of this point. We are going to abandon many technologicaldevelopments even though the existing technological order justifies their furtherdevelopment. We are going to introduce many new technologies for which thereis no need in the existing technological system. And we are going to evolve andinvent many new forms of technologicalknowledge which are either unnecessaryorsimply go against the grain of the existing technological system. We are going todo these things because we are in process of changing the nature of the dialogueconcerning the needs of society and the potentials of technology.-Henryk Skolimowski, Problems ofTruth in Technology, Ingenor 8 (Win-ter, 1970/71, College of Engineering,The University of Michigan), pp. 5-7,41-46, at p. 42.

Kotler Social Marketing

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