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KAREN F. A. FOX & PHILIP KOTLER
The application of nnarketing to the pronnotion of social
causes was proposed a decade ago. The authors position
social marketing as an approach to social change, describe
its evolution, and review social marketing applications and
assess their impact.
THE MARKETING OF SOCIAL
CAUSES: THE FIRST 10 YEARS
URING the past decade the "territory" of marketing
has expanded to include the marketing tasks of nonprofit organizations and the marketing of worthwhile
social causes. Kotler (1979) reviewed the accomplishments in the first area, describing how an increasing
number of nonprofit organizations—particularly hospitals, colleges, social service agencies, and cultural
organizations—are applying marketing concepts and techniques to improve the marketing of their services. Despite earlier controversy, few marketers dispute the
relevance of marketing to the management of nonprofit
organizations (Nickels 1974).
The time is now appropriate to evaluate the status of
work in the area of social cause marketing—social
marketing. Here the applicability of marketing is more
hotly contested. Social marketing as a distinct application area for general marketing theory was advanced
about a decade ago (Kotler and Zaltman 1971). Since
then, various reform groups and government agencies
have applied social marketing to such causes as family
planning, energy conservation, improved nutrition,
antismoking, prevention of alcohol and drug abuse,
safer driving, and myriad other causes. Yet no review
D
Karen F. A. Fox is Assistant Professor of Marketing, The
University of Santa Clara. Philip Kotler is the Harold T.
Martin Professor of Marketing, Northwestern University.
The authors thank those who shared their experiences
in social marketing and Phillip White for his helpful comments on a draft.
24 / Journal of Marketing, Fall 1980
of these efforts and of the issues and problems connected
with social marketing has been published. In fact, some
recent articles—written by academic marketers rather
than practitioners^-<iuestion the appropriateness and ethics of social marketing just as it is being more widely
adopted (e.g., Laczniak, Lusch, and Murphy 1979). G.
D. Wiebe's (1951-52) question of 30 years ago, "Why
can't you sell brotherhood like you sell soap?", persists
along with the newer question, ''Should you be selling
brotherhood?" Furthermore, the whole discussion is
plagued by confusion about what social marketing is.
As the technology of social marketing will shortly mark
its first decade, an assessment of its nature, successes,
limitation, and future is now warranted.
As background for such an assessment, we undertook an extensive review of the literature in marketing
and in public health (where many of the applications of
social marketing have been carried out). We interviewed
key people in two leading social marketing firms to
learn what problems they have tackled and what successes
and frustrations they have encountered, and interviewed
people in federal government agencies concerned with
health and nutrition about their awareness of and experience with social marketing. Our findings are presented
in the form of answers to the following questions.
•
•
•
•
•
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What is social marketing?
What situations call for social marketing?
What has social marketing accomplished?
What are the major criticisms of social marketing?
What are the hurdles in successful social marketing?
What is the future of social marketing?
Journal of Marketing
Vol. 44 (Fall 1980), 24-33.
What is Social Marketing?
Social marketing was originally defmed as;
. . . the design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social
ideas and involving considerations of product planning,
pricing, communications and marketing research (Kotler
and Zaltman 1971, p. 5).
Thus social marketing was conceived to be an application of marketing concepts and techniques to the
marketing of various socially beneficial ideas and causes
instead of products and services in the commercial sense.
Synonymous terms might be "social cause marketing,"
"social idea marketing," or "public issue marketing."
The term "social marketing" unfortunately has been
given different meanings by other writers. For example,
Lazer and Kelley (1973) published Social Marketing:
Perspectives and Viewpoints which includes articles on
marketing's social responsibilities and social impacts,
as well as the marketing of social ideas, under the term
"social marketing." In a recent article entitled "Social
Marketing; Its Ethical Dimensions," Laczniak, Lusch,
and Murphy (1979) confuse social marketing with
nonprofit organization marketing by improperly including the marketing of political candidates and urban
police departments as examples of "social marketing."
Our position is that social marketing should be distinguished from "societal marketing" on the one hand and
"nonprofit organization marketing" on the other.
The Evolution of Social Marketing
One can best understand social marketing by seeing it in
relationship to the major broad approaches to producing
social change—the legal, technological, economic, and
informational approaches. Consider how these approaches
apply in inducing people to reduce their cigarette consumption. The legal approach is to pass laws that make
cigarette smoking either illegal, costly, or difficult (e.g.,
prohibiting smoking in public places). The technological approach is to develop an innovation that will help
people reduce their smoking or the harm thereof (e.g.,
an antismoking pill, a harmless cigarette). The economic approach is to raise the price or cost of smoking
(e.g., higher cigarette taxes, higher insurance rates for
smokers). Finally, the informational approach is to direct persuasive information at smokers about the risks
of smoking and the advantages of not smoking (e.g.,
"Warning; The Surgeon General Has Determined That
Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health").
The roots of social marketing lie in the informational
approach, in the form known as social advertising.
Many cause groups, struck by the apparent effectiveness
of commercial advertising, began to consider its potential for changing public attitudes and behavior. Family
planning organizations in India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and
several other countries have sponsored major advertising campaigns attempting to sell people on the idea of
having fewer children. Messages on billboards and over
radio tell the public that they can have a higher standard
of living with fewer children (India) or be happier (Sri
Lanka). Nutrition groups have also used advertising
extensively to encourage people to adopt better eating
habits. The U.S. Department of Energy has plans for a
multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to promote energy conservation to the American people.
Properly designed, these campaigns can influence
attitudes and behavior. The problem is that all too often
these campaigns are the only step taken to motivate new
behavior and, by themselves, are usually inadequate.
First, the message may be inadequately researched. For
example, media campaigns to encourage people in developing countries to improve their diets miss the point
that many people lack knowledge of which foods are
more healthful, they may lack the money to buy these
goods and, in remote areas, they may not find certain
foods available. Second, many people screen out the
message through selective perception, distortion, and
forgetting. Mass communications have much less direct
influence on behavior than has been thought, and much
of their influence is mediated through the opinion leadership of other people. Third, many people do not know
what to do after their exposure to the message. The
message "Stop smoking—it might kill you" does not
help the smoker know how to handle the urge to smoke
or where to go for help.
As these limitations were recognized social advertising evolved into a broader approach known as social
communication. Much of current social marketing has
moved from a narrow advertising approach to a broad
social communication/promotion approach to accomplish
its objectives. Social communicators make greater use of
personal selling and editorial support in addition to
mass advertising. Thus, the family planning campaign
in India utilizes a network of agents, including doctors,
dentists, and barbers, to "talk u p " family planning to
people with whom they come in contact. Events such as
"Family Planning Day" and family planning fairs, together with buttons, signs, and other media, get across
the message.
Only recently has social marketing begun to replace
social communication as a larger paradigm for effecting
social change. Social marketing adds at least four elements that are missing from a pure social communication approach.
One element is sophisticated marketing research to
leam about the market and the probable effectiveness of
alternative marketing approaches. Social advertising
amounts to " a shot in the dark" unless it is preceded by
careful marketing research. Thus social marketers
concerned with smoking would examine the size of the
The Marketing of Social Causes: The First Ten Years / 25
smoking market, the major market segments and the
behavioral characteristics of each, and the benefit-cost
impact of targeting different segments and designing
appropriate campaigns for each.
The second element added by social marketing is
product development. Faced with the problem of getting
people to lower their thermostats in winter, a social
advertiser or communicator will see the problem largely
as one of exhorting people to lower the thermostat,
using patriotic appeals, fuel-cost-saving appeals, or whatever seems appropriate. The social marketer, in addition, will consider existing or potential products that
will make it easier for people to adopt the desired
behavior, such as devices that automatically lower home
heat during the middle of the night or that compute fuel
cost savings at various temperature settings. In other
words, whenever possible the social marketer does not
stick with the existing product and try to sell it—a sales
approach—but rather searches for the best product to
meet the need—a marketing approach.
The third element added by social marketing is the
use of incentives. Social communicators concentrate on
composing messages dramatizing the benefits or disbenefits of different kinds of behaviors. Social marketers
go further and design specific incentives to increase the
level of motivation. For example, social marketers have
advised public health officials who are running immunization campaigns in remote villages to offer small gifts
to people who show up for vaccinations. Some hospitals
in South America run "price specials" on certain days
whereby people who come in for health checkups pay
less than the normal charge. The sales promotion area is
rich with tools that the marketer can use to promote
social causes.
The fourth element added by social marketing is
facilitation. The marketer realizes that people wishing
to change their behavior must invest time and effort,
and considers ways to make it easier for them to adopt
the new behavior. For example, smoking cessation classes
must be conveniently located and conducted in a
professional manner. Marketers are keenly aware of the
need to develop convenient and attractive response channels to complement the communication channels. Thus
they are concerned not only with getting people to adopt
a new behavior, but also with finding ways to facilitate
maintenance of the behavior.
Our discussion of how social marketing goes beyond
social advertising and social communication can be summarized by saying that social marketing involves all
"four P ' s , " not just one. Social marketing involves
coordinating product, price, place, and promotion factors to maximally motivate and facilitate desired forms
of behavior. Furthermore, social marketing calls for
marketing research and for preparation of a full marketing
26 / Journal of Marketing, Fall 1980
plan, strategy, and budget to get initial "sales" and to
reinforce the new behavior over time.
What Situations Call
for Social Marketing?
Social marketing potentially can be applied to a wide
variety of social problems. It appears to be particularly
appropriate in the following three situations.
When New Information and
Practices Need to be Disseminated
In many situations people need to be informed of an
opportunity or practice that will improve their lives. In
developing nations, social marketers have had to tackle
such challenges as;
• Convincing people to boil their water and keep the
water supply covered.
• Encouraging people to build and use latrines.
• Explaining to mothers the advantages of continuing to breastfeed their babies instead of switching
them to less nourishing gruel at an early age.
• Encouraging people to buy and use iodized salt to
prevent goiter.
• Showing parents a simple way to treat infant diarrhea at home—important because infant diarrhea
is a major cause of infant mortality in less developed
countries.
In industrialized nations the social marketer often must
disseminate new information resulting from scientific
research, including significant changes in high blood
pressure treatment, in childhood immunization, in cancer detection and treatment, and in recommended diet.
Consider the changing concepts of what constitutes a
good diet. In the early 1950s American elementary
school children were taught about the seven basic food
groups and were told to eat foods from each group
daily. The 1969 USDA Yearbook entitled Food For Us
All indicated that the American population was well fed
and reported that "sugar or a sweet in some form is a
daily necessity" (Mikesh and Nelson 1969, p. 232),
Yet in 1979, the Surgeon General's Report on health
promotion and disease prevention criticized the typical
American diet, linking a diet high in fat, sugar, cholesterol, and salt and low in dietary fiber to heart disease,
dental caries, high blood pressure, and colon cancer
(U.S. Public Health Service 1979). These shifts m our
knowledge of sound health practices suggest that we
cannot simply relegate new health information to a slot
in the elementary school curriculum, trusting that the
next generation will be better informed and thus healthier than their parents. New information must be transmitted much more widely and more rapidly along with
facilitation, price, and innovation steps to stimulate and
reinforce new behavior.
When Countermarketing is Needed
In various nations of the world, companies are promoting the consumption of products that are undesirable or
potentially harmful—for example cigarettes, alcoholic
beverages, and highly refined foods which contribute to
lung and heart disease, liver damage, overweight, and
other problems. The large promotional budgets behind
these products tend to crowd out opposing views, because those who disagree are often too fragmented, too
few in number, or have inadequate resources to present
the counterposition. Social marketing is now viewed by
many public interest groups and government agencies as
a way to present the other side of the story and stimulate people to adopt more healthful behavior. Sweden,
for example, has taken vigorous steps to countermarket
alcohol consumption, including running ad campaigns
stigmatizing drunk behavior, restricting the availability
of alcoholic beverages, raising the prices of alcoholic
beverages, establishing stiff penalties for drunken driving, and increasing anti-alcohol school education programs .
Another current example of countermarketing has
come in response to the promotion of infant fonnula in
Third World countries. Borden. Nestle, and other infant
formula manufacturers, faced with declining birth rates
in developed countries, began aggressive marketing to
mothers in Africa. Latin America, and other less
developed regions characterized by poverty, illiteracy,
lack of pure water, lack of facilities for sterilizing bottles, and lack of refrigeration for storing mixed formula
(Post and Baer 1978). Social marketing campaigns have
been carried out to counter such powerful slogans as
"Give your baby love and Lactogen" and to inform
mothers of the advantages of breastfeeding.
When Activation is Needed
Often people know what they should do, but do not act
accordingly. For example, nine out of 10 smokers
interviewed in a 1975 government survey said they
would like to quit, yet 57% expected to be smoking five
years later (Fisher 1977). Likewise, many people "know"
they should lose weight, get more exercise, floss their
teeth, and do other things, but they do not do them. In
part their inertia is related to the myriad alternatives
they have and the countervailing media messages to
enjoy life and maintain current habits ("Have a Coke
and a smile" instead!). Furthermore, the benefits may
be obtainable only by sustained effort, and the personal
"payoff" over a lifetime may be exceedingly difficult
to estimate. As one elderly man reportedly said, "If I
had known I was going to live this long, I would have
taken better care of my health" {Forbes 1979).
In such situations, the task of social marketing is to
move people from intention to action. Marketers have
studied the many factors that affect the readiness of
people to act, and have developed several approaches to
motivate and facilitate action. In the future, various
national or local emergencies—such as water shortages,
oil shortages, and epidemics—may increase the need
for public agencies to know how to activate people
quickly.
What Has Social
Marketing Accomplished?
Although social marketing is an appealing social change
approach in theory, to what extent has it been effective
in practice? At this time, we can only review the accomplishments of social marketing on an impressionistic
basis. The bona fide applications of social marketing—as
distinguished from social advenising or social communication—are too few to provide a full data base.
Moreover, because social marketing often has been carried out without experimental controls, it is difficult to
know whether behavioral changes were due to social
marketing efforts or to other factors.
We consider two major areas of application—family
planning and motivating healthier life styles—and a
sampling of other interventions which reflect elements
of a social marketing approach.
Family Planning
Family planning has been a major focus of social
marketing efforts, reflected in a growing literature.
Roberto (1975) provides an excellent exposition of social marketing theory applied to the problem of family
planning. The Population Infonnation Program at The
Johns Hopkins University recently published a detailed
review of social marketing applications, including information on features of specific programs and their
effectiveness (Population Infonnation Program 1980).
The report defines the basic goal of such programs as
providing contraceptives "efficiently, economically, and
conveniently to people who will use them" (p. J-395).
The majority of campaigns to market family planning
are government-sponsored, motivated by the availability
of effective birth control products and by the growing
awareness that economic and social gains can be wiped
out by rapid population growth. Many of these social
marketing campaigns have been successful, as the
following cases show.
A successful social marketing campaign in Sri Lanka
(formerly Ceylon) was based on principles of marketing
research, brand packaging, distribution channel analysis, and marketing management and control. Consumer
The Marketing of Social Causes: The First Ten Years / 27
research prior to the campaign indicated widespread
approval of the idea of family planning but little knowledge and use of contraception. The government, in
cooperation with several agencies, centered its effons
on achieving widespread usage of condoms as a means
of birth control. A brand was developed named "Preethi"
(meaning happiness), and was sold in a three-pack for
four cents (U.S.), one of the lowest costs in the world.
Preethi achieved distribution in more than 3,600 pharmacies, teahouses, grocery and general stores, as well
as by direct mail. Literature and order forms for condoms were distributed by agricultural extension workers
on their regular visits to farm families. The sale of
condoms was supponed through a mass media campaign, including newspaper and radio ads, films, and a
booklet entitled "How to Have Children by Plan and
Not by Chance." Distributors also received large
point-of-purchase displays. As a result of this orchestrated marketing approach, Preethi sales grew from
300,000 per month (in mid-1974) to an average of
500,000 per month in 1977. It was estimated that 60,000
unwanted pregnancies were avened by this social
marketing project (Population Services International
1977).
Similar campaigns have been successful in pans of
India, Thailand, Bangladesh, and other countries. For
example, in Bangladesh this type of campaign resulted
in the monthly use of more than 1.5 million condoms
and about 100,000 cycles of oral contraceptives, providing full contraceptive protection for approximately
400,000 couples at a yearly cost of about $4 per couple.
In Thailand, the Community-Based Family Planning
Services marketing program for promoting binh control includes some novel features. The agency stages
contests with prizes to the person who inflates the biggest "balloon"—a condom—as a way to break down
taboos about contraception. Contraceptives are accepted
in rural villages, where villagers often ask local Buddhist
monks to bless newly arrived shipments of contraceptives. The agency has recruited 5,000 rural distributors,
including rice farmers, shopkeepers, village elders, and
others who receive a one-day training course on selling
condoms and keeping records, for which they receive a
modest commission. The cost of all this effon is $3.50
per recipient per year, less than half of the cost of a
similar government program in Thailand not using a
marketing approach (Mathews 1976).
In Mexico, family planners face a tougher challenge
because traditional values oppose the idea of family
planning, as did past government policy designed to
increase the population. Manhood and womanhood have
traditionally been measured by the number of children
produced. The dominant Catholic culture and widespread
ignorance of birth control funher hamper family planning effons. Yet in 1974 the Mexican government es-
28 / Journal of Marketing, Fall 1980
tablished the National Population Council (NPC) to slow
the country's galloping rate of population increase. The
NPC adopted a classic social marketing approach with
the following elements. All promotional materials feature a logo showing a mother, a father, and two children. The family planning messages are carried by
posters, booklets, and radio and TV spots. Family planning commercials are broadcast vinually every half hour
on the radio. Free contraceptives are available at about
950 hospitals and clinics operated by the Ministry of
Health and at 930 clinics run by an affiliate of the
International Planned Parenthood Foundation (Wille
1975).
The effectiveness of social marketing of family planning can be assessed by looking at sales data, distribution systems, changes in knowledge, attitudes, and
practices of consumers, cost-effectiveness, and, at the
macro level, changes in fenility and binh rates. The
Population Information Program reports micro-level measures indicating positive results. Positive results also can
be claimed at the macro level. Bogue and Tsui (1979),
analyzing the effect of several different variables, found
that family planning effons explain much more of the
binh rate reduction since 1968 than does any other
factor, including changes in economic and social development which usually have been given most of the
credit. According to their data, the recent decline in the
world fenility rate has been primarily due to "the worldwide drive by Third World countries to introduce family
planning as pan of their national social-development
services" (pp. 99-100).
Heart Disease Prevention
Coronary disease is a byproduct of "the good life."
Though nearly nonexistent in most of the world, it has
reached epidemic proponions in Western industrialized
countries. Between 1972 and 1975 the Stanford Heart
Disease Prevention Program carried out an interdisciplinary intervention to determine ways to reduce risk of
coronary disease through long-term changes in health
practices—decreasing dietary cholesterol consumption
and cigarette use, and increasing exercise levels.
Though fundamentally a sophisticated use of social
communication, carried out by public health and communications research specialists, the program embodied many of the elements of a social marketing approach.
As in the case of family planning, the goal of long-term
behavior change required carefully designed and implemented interventions. To facilitate evaluation, the
program was carried out in three similar rural California communities; in one community a mass media campaign alone was used; in a second, a mass media
campaign was combined with personal instruction for a
sample of high-risk individuals; in the third, neither
treatment was used.
The extensive media campaign in the first two communities consisted of radio and TV spots and minidramas;
"doctor's columns" and columns on diet in local newspapers; printed items, including an information booklet,
a hean health calendar, and a cookbook, mailed to all
residents; and biiiboards and bus posters. Residents in
the second community also received personal instruction utilizing modeling and reinforcement to encourage
them to quit smoking, lose weight, and get more exercise. In each of the three communities a sample of
people was selected and tested at the beginning of the
program and followed up annually.
The mass media were used to teach specific behavioral
skills whenever possible, rather than simply to exhon
people to change. Maccoby and Alexander (1979) cite
several other key features of the study which match
marketing considerations, including;
• The establishment of specific objectives for each
component of the campaign over time.
• Clearly defmed audience segments.
• The creation of clear, useful, and salient messages
through formative research and pretesting.
• Utilization of creative media scheduling to reach
the audience with adequate frequency.
• Stimulation of interpersonal communication to encourage a synergistic effect of multiple channels.
• Promotion of clear and well-paced behavioral
changes in messages,
• Use of feedback to evaluate the campaign's progress over time.
• The use of a long-term campaign to avoid threshold effect considerations.
The program demonstrated that long-term changes
in habits and significant reduction in risk for heart
disease could be assisted through communitywide interventions utilizing the mass media (Meyer and Maccoby
1978). Both mterventions yielded a significant increase
in knowledge of risk factors and of desirable practices
and a significant reduction in overall risk, with the
media-plus-direct-instruction intervention producing the
greater changes.
A social marketer might consider ways of extending
the effectiveness of the Stanford Hean Program. For
example, panicipants might be given special incentives
or reinforcements for conforming to good health habits.
Grocery stores might panicipate by highlighting healthful foods, as is now being done by Giant Food Stores in
the Washington, D . C , area. The direct support of local
doctors and dentists could be enlisted because they are
panicularly likely to see high-risk individuals.
Other Applications of Social Marketing
A growing number of health improvement programs
reflect or have been consciously developed with a social
marketing approach;
1. The Cancer Infonnation Office of the National
Institutes of Health has produced and pilot-tested
a "Helping Smokers Quit" kit to encourage physicians to use their influence with patients who
smoke. The kit includes a brief guide for the
doctor, patient education materials, and a followup letter and brochure to be sent to the patient after the office visit.
2. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is supporting a project to use mass media and other channels to improve children's eating habits. The
project began with extensive consumer research—
interviews with children about their food preferences and eating habits.
3. The American Hospital Association's Center for
Health Promotion is working to encourage preventive health measures and healthy "life habits" through programs run by hospitals, businesses,
and community organizations. The Center recently
conducted a workshop for hospital decision makers on marketing health promotion programs to
local industry.
4. When infant immunization levels in Missouri
dropped to ominous levels, a marketing plan was
designed on the basis of a statewide study of the
social-psychological factors affecting the problem
(Houston and Markland 1976). The market was
segmented and promotional material was directed
to parents and expectant parents, as well as to
the staff of the Missouri Division of Health. The
campaign spokesman, "Marcus Rabbit, M . D . , "
was created to link the program to children, but
to appeal to adults.
5. Public health specialists are using new channels
to provide diagnostic services. A team of homosexual male clinicians from the Denver Metro
Health Clinic conducted weekly VD screening in
one of Denver's three steam baths catering to
homosexuals (Judson, Miller, and Schaffnit 1977).
6. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
changed eating habits in a National Institutes of
Health employee cafeteria through a "Food for
Thought" game. Food information was presented
on playing-card-like cards which employees received each time they went through the serving
line. Small prizes were awarded to those who
acquired sets of cards. An increase in purchases
of skim milk and decreases in purchases of bread
and desserts and in total calories consumed were
measured with the aid of the existing inventory
control cash register system which automatically
recorded every food item selected (Zifferblatt,
Wilbur, and Pinsky 1980).
Although many of these campaigns are still to be evaluated, especially in terms of benefit/cost criteria and
The Marketing of Social Causes: The First Ten Years / 29
long-term effects, the use of conscious social marketing
planning by cause organizations is clearly on the upswing.
What Are the Major Criticisms
of Social Marketing?
Not surprisingly, the increasing
marketing has been accompanied
legitimacy and possible negative
ing four classes of criticism have
application of social
by questions about its
impacts. The followappeared.
Social Marketing is Not Real Marketing
Some marketers still feel that marketing is largely a
business discipline with little or no application to social
causes. They believe that marketing is valid only where
there are markets, transactions, and prices. As stated by
Laczniak and Michie (1979), marketers should "take
enough pride in the scope of traditional marketing."
Every discipline has its orthodox group which is
content to ply familiar waters, believing either that their
discipline has nothing to offer in the new territory or
that, if it does, others will resent the intrusion. However, we believe that scholars and practitioners have a
right, indeed, an obligation, to venture out and look
freshly at phenomena from their discipline's perspective. Such ventures have produced such new fields as
political sociology, economic anthropology, social psychology, and quantitative geography. If the new framework or findings are accepted, then the discipline has
made a contribution.
Social Marketing is Manipulative
Many of the issues in social marketing call for changing
people's attitudes and behavior, urging them to give up
or cut back on comfortable habits. In contrast, commercial marketing frequently supports and encourages present habits, including those that are potentially harmful.
Given that commercial marketing is often accused of
being manipulative (primarily in persuading people to
buy more things or in convincing them that one brand
will satisfy a given need better than another brand), it is
not surprising that social marketing is charged with
being even more manipulative. For example, Laczniak,
Lusch, and Murphy (1979) believe that social marketing
is potentially unethical in giving power to a group to
influence public opinion on such contested issues as
pornography and abortion.
The word "manipulative" is something of a red
herring in this discussion. The word "manipulative"
usually connotes hidden and unfair ends and/or means
used in the influence process. We argue that if a cause
is marketed openly with the purpose of influencing
someone to change his or her behavior, then the process
is not manipulative, any more than is the activity of a
30 / Journal of Marketing, Fall 1980
lawyer, religious leader, or politician trying to convince
others. If the social marketer simply makes the strongest
possible case in favor of a cause without distorting the
facts, the approach is not manipulative. Social marketing, especially when used in countermarketing, can provide a voice for those with competing points of view.
Social Marketing is Seif-Serving
Some critics might be distressed that some social
marketers who are promoting a cause are also making a
profit in the process. Consider the following examples.
• Seat belt manufacturers are major supporters of
auto safety legislation, partly because they stand
to gain.
• Bottled water manufacturers in France have
backed efforts to influence French citizens to
reduce their alcohol consumption.
• Condom manufacturers have lent support to campaigns against VD because they stand to gain
through greater use of condoms.
• Life insurance companies are encouraging people
to jog, cut down on fats and sugar, install smoke
alarms, and in other ways reduce illness, accidents, and premature deaths, thus cutting insurance
claims and raising company profits.
Clearly commercial enterprises will increasingly
support social marketing programs as they see financial
benefits accruing to their companies while they also
promote beneficial social change. This development appears to us to be desirable because it increases the
incentive for commercial marketers to consider the best
interests of consumers. Too often, social marketing effons are undenaken by underfinanced cause organizations which run the risk of creating excessive demands
on their limited resources when they achieve a major
success, a phenomenon which Houston and Homans
(1977) term "the failure of success."
A more troublesome issue is the use of tax money
by government agencies to promote politically motivated efforts. For example, a booklet on energy conservation measures was delivered to every home in New
England at the stan of the 1979-80 heating season, paid
for by the Depanment of Energy and private corporate
contributions. Critics pointed to the "coincidence" of
the upcoming New Hampshire primaries and President
Carter's need to improve his image as an effective
leader on conservation. In contrast, most governmentsponsored social marketing efforts are likely to be fairiy
uncontroversial when used to increase the effectiveness
of legislatively mandated social programs. Social marketing is already being applied in this way by several
federal agencies.
Social Marketing Will Damage the
Reputation of Marketing
Some marketers fear that applications of social marketing might arouse negative public sentiment toward marketing. Social marketing might acquire a bad name in
two ways. First, it might be attacked for promoting
unpopular causes, such as abortion or family planning.
Second, it might influence peopie to accept a new
behavior that turns out not to be in their best interest.
The public might ultimately tum against social marketing and call for its curbing or regulation. Such attacks
might strengthen present criticisms of commercial marketing and result in a setback to both.
There is some irony in this scenario because social
marketing should, if anything, add luster rather than
disrepute to marketing's image as the public sees marketing used to enhance the quality of their lives.
What Are the Real Hurdles to
Successful Social Marketing?
The most devastating blow to social marketing would
be to demonstrate that it is ineffective, that it does not
change anything. Ineffective marketing is wasteful of
resources and may lead people to expect results which
cannot be produced. Novelli (1980) notes that managers
and planners looking for a panacea or a "quick fix"
may rush to embrace social marketing with inflated
expectations; "When these quick solutions are not forthcoming, they are disappointed and view marketing as
having failed." Some social issues are not likely to be
affected by social marketing because the costs, although
mainly nonmonetary, are too great and because the
level of consumer involvement is either too low to
overcome inertia—e.g., antilittering campaigns—or so
high that producing behavior change will require great
facilitation effon—e.g., antismoking campaigns (Rothschild 1979).
Social marketing practitioners are the first to admit
that social marketing will have a different degree of
effectiveness with different social causes, and that most
social marketing problems will be more formidable than
the typical marketing problems facing commercial
marketers. William Novelli, a leading social marketing
practitioner, admits, " I f s a thousand times harder to do
social marketmg than to do package goods marketing."
He and Paul Bloom recently reviewed the major hurdles
faced by social marketers, and their observations are
summarized hereafter (Bloom and Novelli 1979),
First, the market is usually harder to analyze. Social
marketers have less good quality secondary data about
their consumers. They have more difficulty in obtaining
valid and reliable measures of salient consumer attributes, and in soning out the relative influence of various determinants of consumer behavior. They have more
difficulty getting consumer research studies funded, approved, and completed in a timely fashion.
Second, target market choice is more difficult. There
is often public pressure to attempt to reach the whole
market rather than to zero in on the best target groups.
Thus a family planning campaign is restrained from
focusing on the families who have the most children
because of charges of racial or religious discrimination.
When the relevant groups can be targeted, these groups
are usually the most negatively predisposed to adopt the
desired behavior, and thus success is harder to achieve.
Third, formulating product strategy is more difficult. The antismoking crusader should really invent a
safe cigarette but this is not easy to do, and therefore
the range of product innovation options is smaller. For
many causes the reformer must get people to do something that is unpleasant rather than offering them something that would be even more pleasant than their present
behavior.
Founh, social marketers have fewer opponunities to
use pricing and must rely more on other approaches that
would increase or decrease the cost to consumers of
cenain behavior. Thus getting people to stop littering is
not accomplished as well through a fine (very difficult
to enforce) as by reducing the cost of not littering by
providing more refuse containers in parks and on busy
thoroughfares.
Fifth, channels of distribution may be harder to
utilize and control. For example, a family planning
organization may be able to get many retailers to carry
condoms but has less control over how they will display
them, price them, sell them, and replace them when out
of stock.
Sixth, communication strategies may be more difficult to implement. Some groups may oppose the use of
certain types of appeals that otherwise would be very
effective. The particular cause may require a longer
explanation than is available within the confines of a
short message. The budget may be too low to permit
pretesting the message or to ensure its wide distribution
or the evaluation of its impact.
Seventh, cause organizations are often backward in
their management and marketing sophistication. Many
cause organizations are small, rely mainly on volunteers, and have little familiarity with marketing concepts or planning approaches. They may not be able to
handle a large demand for their service, should it arise.
The staff may not really be committed to solving the
problem, especially if they will lose their jobs when
they succeed.
Eighth, the results of social marketing efforts are
often difficult to evaluate. For example, should the
success of a family planning campaign be measured by
total births avened or by births averted in high fertility
groups? Or should the measure be the number of people
The Marketing of Social Causes: The First Ten Years / 31
who become aware of family planning, or who begin to
show an interest in adopting it? Even after an appropriate measure is determined, the contribution of the marketing program to the final outcome is often difficult to
estimate.
The resolution of these problems will depend in part
on the accumulation of additional experience in applying and evaluating social marketing, on continuing efforts to integrate and disseminate findings from social
marketing programs, and on theoretical and empirical
work to improve our understanding of factors that can
be used to increase the impact of such programs (Bloom
1980; Cook and Campbell 1979; Cook and McAnany
1979; Fine 1979; Fox 1980; Rothschild 1979).
What is the Future of Social Marketing?
The 1980s outlook for social marketing is one of continued growth and application to an ever-widening range
of issues. More and more cause organizations and government agencies will tum to social marketing in a
search for increased effectiveness. Many will come to
social marketing only by passing through the stages of
social advertising and social communication first. Large
and expensive advenising blitzes may be attempted,
rather than integrated social marketing campaigns. The
risk is that if such social advenising campaigns fail,
critics may charge that marketing does not work when
in fact it was not really tried.
Clearly there will be a need for more and better
trained social marketers rather than simply social advertisers. The ideal training would have several components. Business marketing training which stresses market
analysis, economic analysis, and management theory
would be desirable. Because social marketers are involved
in trying to change attitudes and behavior rather than
simply to meet existing needs, they should study the
social science disciplines, panicularly sociology, psychology, and anthropology. They should also be trained
in communcation theory. In addition, social marketers
will need to acquire a social problem-solving perspective which will lead them to search for possible technological solutions that may eventually replace present
solutions based on self-denial, regulation, or economic
incentives.
Social marketers working in multicultural contexts
in the United States and in overseas development projects will need panicular sensitivity to cultural differences, a knowledge of relevant aspects of the cultures in
which they work, and facility in language or in working
with persons who have the necessary language competence. It is no wonder that many social marketers now
working on overseas projects have been Peace Corps
volunteers or have studied or worked overseas for extended periods. Courses in language, history, and an-
32 / Journal of Marketing, Fall 1980
thropology contribute to this preparation.
Though at present many social marketers are outside
consultants, a look into the future suggests that organizations may attract or develop their own "in house"
social marketers. These people may already be educators, public health specialists, policy analysts, and communications expens, for example. Or organizations may
attract business-trained marketers who are able to cross
over by gaining an understanding of the specific issues
and tasks that confront a specific organization or field,
such as health promotion. In effect, social marketers
will be dual specialists who can apply marketing to
specific social causes.
Summary
What impact is social marketing likely to have on promoting beneficial social change in an effective manner?
The evidence from the first decade of social marketing
applications is promising. We have described social
marketing as the application of marketing thinking and
tools to the promotion of social causes, and have traced
its evolution through social advenising and social communication. Cases from family planning, hean disease
prevention, and other health areas are presented to illustrate the range and impact of social marketing applications, though we acknowledge that many are not fully
elaborated examples of social marketing.
A growing number of cause organizations and government agencies are turning to social marketing. Groups
that once relied on social advertising alone are now
moving toward social communication and social marketing. Applications of social marketing have achieved
some notable results and provide insights into the challenges confronting social marketers. We foresee that
social marketing specialists, combining business marketing skills with additional training in the social sciences, will be working on a wider range of social
causes with mcreasing sophistication. Advances in conceptualizing social marketing problems and in evaluating the impacts of social marketing programs will further
enhance their effectiveness.
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