The Four “P’s”
Marketing strategies accommodate consumer focus by addressing the "Four P's": product, price, place, and promotion:

• In social marketing, product refers to the item or concept you want to promote. It could be a tangible object (like a condom), or a behavior (like exercising), or an idea (for example, that underage drinking isn't cool). In order to have a viable product, people have to believe that using or adopting the product will somehow benefit them.
  
  
• Price refers to the cost of using a product or changing a behavior. This may include monetary costs, but more often refers to what people have to pay in terms of effort, energy, or time. For example, a teenager who stops smoking may actually save money by not having to buy cigarettes. However, the price of quitting may also have costs, such as dealing with friends who smoke or finding the willpower to remain smoke-free.
  
  
• Place describes the channels you will use to reach your target audience. Will you try to reach people in schools? Doctor's offices? Shopping malls? On the Internet? Research will help you identify the best venues for delivering your product.
  
  
• Finally, promotion refers to the strategies you will use to create and sustain demand for the product. It involves the development of an effective message, as well as decisions about how the message will be communicated. You might decide to use electronic media, such as radio and television; print media, such as newspaper ads or bumper stickers; or non-conventional media, such as airplane banners or tattoos.

Many of the techniques used in social marketing efforts are the same as in commercial marketing:

• First, you identify and analyze your target audience through carefully planned formative research.
  
  
• Then, you use the information from your research to design your message.
  
  
• In designing your message, you focus on creating an exchange: providing a benefit to the audience (such as not being fined) in exchange for a desired behavior (such as wearing a seatbelt).
  
  
• After you have developed a message, test it with members of your target audience, then revise it accordingly.
  
  
• Next, determine the best media sources for communicating your message and the right people to deliver it on your behalf.
  
  
• Finally, track the effectiveness of your message, then refine it based on the results of your evaluation.

We'll look at each of these steps more closely, tomorrow. But first we need to emphasize two principles that differentiate social marketing from general marketing practices: audience focus and the exchange principle.

Audience Focus

The success of social marketing depends in large part on your understanding of the audience you want to reach. The first step in developing this understanding is to define your audience. Once you know who you want to reach, and why, you can tailor your messages accordingly.

"General public" is not a helpful phrase when it comes to marketing. It assumes the existence of a vast, undifferentiated crowd of people with uniform needs and similar interests. Yet, everyday experience tells us that this is clearly not the case: Just turn on the television to one of more than 100 channels, and chances are, you will hear someone make a comment with which you disagree.

Fortunately for social marketers, the general public comprises many smaller audiences, or segments, that do share interests, cultures, and backgrounds. Through a process called "audience segmentation," these groups can be characterized and differentiated according to specific traits, such as age, gender, ethnicity, role in the community, skills, or experiences. Knowledge of these traits helps social marketers develop and deliver appropriate messages.

Figure 1. Mercedes Equals Fun

Figure 2. Mercedes Equals Service

Mercedes offers us an example of how to use research to effectively market a product to a new audience (see Figure 1, above). Eager to capture a growing number of young and wealthy car buyers, they spent considerable time and money to find out what this young, 25 to 40-year-old audience looked for in a car. The answer: fun and service. Armed with this knowledge, Mercedes developed this very simple "rubber ducky" ad. Their research was very successful.

The campaign also included an ad featuring a picture of a service bell (see Figure 2). The message tells you: Buy a Mercedes, and you'll get prompt service. Both ads were extremely successful, and the campaign boosted Mercedes sales to young adults considerably. Interestingly, during this same period Nissan tried to capture the youth market by creating an ad that featured Barbies and GI Joes. Unfortunately, the company hadn't done its research, didn't know their audience, and the campaign bombed.

The Mercedes campaign illustrates why it is so important to package your message so that it appeals to your target audience. For a similar example from the social marketing world, we can look at a anti-smoking campaign developed in Minnesota (see Figure 3, below). This statewide campaign, targeting 10-14 year olds, was based on findings that many teenagers believed smoking looked "cool." A television ad, billboard, and poster campaign featuring animals smoking cigarettes elicited the attitude that smoking was, to use a favorite target audience word, stupid.

Figure 3. Minnesota Anti-Smoking Advertisement

Exchange Principle
Another essential feature of social marketing is a concept known as the exchange principle. This means that in order for people to try something new (like using condoms) or give something up (like stopping smoking), they need to benefit in some way. Furthermore, the reward or benefit of adopting the behavior needs to be greater than the "cost." Finally, the new behavior must be worth the cost in the individual's mind.

Consider this example: You are trying to lose weight and have decided that you need to go to the gym three nights a week to do so. But what are you willing to give up in order to get yourself to the gym? If the benefit of losing weight is great enough, then it may be worth it to you to leave the comfort of your home and head off into the night. However, if the goal seems unattainable, or the gym is too far away, too expensive, or there's a great TV show on that you don't want to miss, then the likelihood that you will make it to the gym decreases on a given evening.

When thinking about your target audience and the exchange process, keep in mind that people don't make choices in a vacuum. Research tells us that people are more likely to adopt a new behavior if friends, family, and/or their social group approve of it or practice it themselves. Advertisers often use this knowledge to sell products. For example, one popular Coke commercial depicts a group of young teenagers holding a car wash. Music is pumping and the kids are having fun. The exchange: "If you drink Coke, you'll have fun. If you drink Coke, you'll have friends." Framed in this way, why would any teenager not want to drink Coke?

"Peer pressure" on adults may not be as great as on youth but can still effect behavior. Consider, for example, how much easier it is to take an early morning walk if you have a friend to walk with you. Or how much more comfortable it is for a new mother to breastfeed her infant it the behavior is supported by the other adults in her life.

Now that we've reviewed some of these important marketing principles, we can begin thinking about their application—the topic for tomorrow’s discussion.

You have completed the presentation for Day 2.
Please go to Activity 2: Analyzing a Social Marketing Ad.

References
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Jaker. J. (2000). Early and often: How social marketing of prevention can help your community. Developed for CSAP's Central Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies. Minnesota Institute of Public Health. For more information contact www.miph.org.

Kotler, P. (1972). A generic concept of marketing. Journal of Marketing, 36, 46-54.

Kotler, P. (1975). Marketing for nonprofit organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 90.

McQuail, D. (1983). Mass communication theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Wallack, L., Dorfman, L., Jernigan, D., and Themba, M. (1993). Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention. Newbury Park CA: Sage Publications.