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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. • • • • • • 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. REFERENCES Bloom, Paul N. (1980), "Evaluating Social Marketing Programs: Problems and Prospects," 1980 Educators Conference Proceedings. Chicago: American Marketing Association. and William D. 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