Social marketing campaigns: positive and powerful

Every single day, people all over the world experience a barrage of media campaigns that promote a certain product or service that could possibly make them feel younger, happier, healthier or even sexier than the rest of humanity. From whitening products to massage services, the media declares the importance of having or owning such products so life would be better. However, there are also more pressing issues that must be addressed by NGOS, government sectors and other institutions like sustainability, global warming, increased prevalence of diseases like AIDS, negative habits like drunk driving and a lot more. Social marketing campaigns are efficient in getting their message to the public particularly when it’s a community based social marketing campaigns.
 
The roots of social marketing campaigns comes from the social marketing theory. The National Social Marketing Centre 2006  defined social marketing as “systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good”. So if statistics show that smoking leads to respiratory diseases that slow down productivity, then health agencies can launch social marketing campaigns that would eventually discourage the public from smoking. This has been currently done is some Asian countries where packs of cigarettes contain unpleasant images of sick lungs.
 
Social marketing campaigns are very effective in relaying messages and promoting awareness to the public especially when the media used presents high-impact promotions. For example, London’s media ad using social marketing campaigns directed towards use of seatbelt is powerful. This was a result of a focused campaign since they depicted gruesome accidents that influence behavioral change among drivers. However launching social marketing campaigns are also challenging since people do not usually change behavior especially when an act has become a habit like smoking, drinking or reckless driving. It is very crucial then for social marketing campaigns to identify barriers to behavior so the public can be persuaded to show changes. Statistical research for social marketing campaigns are also important for data increase credibility of reports. Also, using community based social marketing campaigns are quite efficient since they reach out to the people on a more personal level. Cost is another important element since people consider the price of giving up or starting a habit. Technology like the Internet is a well-recognized medium for launching social marketing campaigns. Nonetheless, regardless of strategy adopted, social marketing campaigns benefit the society in general.