Social Marketing in Public Health

Abstract

Social marketing in public health is application of commercial marketing concepts, tools, resources, skills and technologies to encourage socially beneficial behavior especially among poorly or inadequately served segments of the population. It can be product- or behavior-focused. It mainly aims at changing one’s behavior to promote health and prevent diseases for benefit of individual and society as a whole. Triad of social marketing comprises of behavioral goals, segmentation and marketing mix. One element identifies the objective, other identifies the target segment and the third helps in chalking out the action plan to achieve the same. Marketing mix has 4 P’s; Product (idea or good), Price (direct or indirect cost), Place (ways to reach target audience) and Promotion (channels of distribution). Additional P’s in social marketing are partnership, policy and politics. There are multiple theories which explain change process such as innovation adoption curve, theory of reasoned action, and health belief model. The planning process requires analysis of the demographic, technological and political environment which helps in making short-term and long-term plans for target segment followed by an action plan including budget evaluation and monitoring. Social marketing has been used successfully in many states like in West Bengal, an interactive communication campaign: Bula di, HIV/AIDS prevention campaign mascot to inform people about the disease and its prevention through various channels like TV, radio, press, road shows, hoardings, public transport vehicles, posters and toll-free helpline number. Looking at the prospects of social marketing, this concept should be explored and promoted further to achieve bigger targets in preventing public health problems. Basically, this article introduces the concepts of social marketing and its specific applications in public health.

Keywords: Bula di, behavioral goals, marketing mix, segmentation, social marketing