Posts filed under ‘Campaigns’
Defining Social Marketing: Lessons from London’s NSM Centre – 8 Benchmark Criteria
Being in the social media space, and telling others I write about social marketing, I often preface the convo with a 25-word de-briefer between social media and social marketing.
This post hopes to further clarify and define social marketing by highlighting the eight benchmarks that London’s National Social Marketing Centre developed. And, will be used to evaluate future social marketing campaigns in the future.
Background: Alan Andreasen, one of America’s social marketing thought leaders, originally developed 6 benchmarks for defining social marketing in 2001. The NSM Centre then embarked on further evaluating these benchmarks in 2006. Some may point out that other benchmarks should be used as defining criteria, so it is important to note the NSM Centre created these eight benchmark’s as the characteristics unique to social marketing.
How to Use: These benchmarks can be used as a tool when working to identify whether a certain approach or campaign is identifiable as social marketing. These benchmarks are not necessarily the approach to conducting social marketing. However, they can help inspire new ideas and be used as a resource.
These benchmarks may also be useful when: A) considering and/or developing social marketing strategy, B) conducting social marketing trainings, C) in academic research and for reference. If one can not find these benchmarks within the work, then that work could very well not be ‘official’ social marketing.
Who Should Use: Government agencies, consultants, changemakers, evaluators, researchers, professors, trainers, policy makers, non-profits, foundations, charities, Ad Agencies, Communications Firm, Environmentalists, International Development folks, and more.
The Eight Benchmarks:
- Customer Orientation: Does the strategy develop a full understanding of the consumer? Is consumer research gathered from a variety of sources?
- Behavior: Is there a clear focus on behavior? with specific behavior goals in mind?
- Theory: Are the behavior goals theory-based and draw from an integrated theory-supported framework?
- Insight: Does the strategy work to gain a deeper ‘insight’ approach? looking at what ‘moves’ and ‘motivates?’
- Exchange: Does the strategy incorporate ‘exchange’ analysis? What must one give to get?
- Competition: Does the strategy address the ‘competition?’ What behaviors compete for the time and attention of the audience?
- Segmentation: Are you going beyond targeting and delving deep into various audience segments?
- Methods Mix: Are you utilizing an appropriate ‘mix’ of methods?
Take Aways:
- The social marketing field is evolving. As the definition has continually been tweaked and expanded, it is helpful to decipher among what is and what is not, social marketing.
- Social marketing, as a field of study and practice, is increasing its professionalism. These benchmarks help to decipher social marketing from public service advertising, cause communications, health communications, education, corporate responsibility, nonprofit communications, advocacy, lobbying, and social advertising. These fields may overlap and share common factors within social marketing but they in and of themselves, are unique, but could be possible social marketing tools.
To Access: The full PDF outlining these social marketing benchmarks, along with other helpful social marketing materials, can be accessed on the NSM Centre’s Web site.
Hookah: An Increasing Issue on the Public Agenda
Today, on SocialBttrfly‘s Twitter feed, womenshealth tweeted the following statistic:
or more nicotine and tar as
many filtered cigarettes.”
Hookah has recently been in the news due to health warnings concerning hookah users and their vulnerability to contracting herpes. A March 18, 2008 article from Colorado State University describes an incident where two students are believed to have contracted oral herpes from hookah activities due to the swapping of saliva that occurs.
However, other health effects are possible. Until I received the above tweet, I was unaware on the dangers of hookah. I have personally never done hookah nor really care to, but I know it is an increasing trend on many college campuses. A March 5, 2008 article in The Daily Orange describes this trend more:
“The sociality of hookah is also evidenced on a national level, with hookah bars beginning to open up in major cities as it becomes a trendy activity among teenagers and 20-somethings. “
Apparently, I am not the only one who is less informed about the health consequences of Hookah. According to a study conducted by the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH), 79% of hookah smokers believe the flavored tobacco is safer than cigarettes. Type ‘hookah’ in Google news and evidence that the topic is increasing its prominence on the public agenda appears ten-fold.
So my next thought was: Are there any social marketing initiatives or PSAs that currently address this issue?
The only PSA I could find was this one on Youtube. The source I have yet to identify.
If you know of more hookah PSAs or social marketing campaigns, please let me know.
For more information on the effects of smoking Hookah, visit CDC’s online factsheet or Womenshealth.gov’s informational description for more information.
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Yes, I did say this issue was brought to me in a tweet on Twitter by womenshealth, as in womenshealth.gov. For more information regarding the use of Twitter by non-profits, causes and government agencies, Nedra Weinreich of the social marketing blog, Spare Change, wrote an incredible post on this topic that I know you’ll find helpful.