Understanding Social Marketing and its Imperatives for Nigeria

4/11/2014 BrandCrunch.com.ng - Understanding Social Marketing and its Imperatives for Nigeria
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Understanding Social Marketing and its Imperatives
for Nigeria[1]
Social Marketing in the Evolution of Marketing
Writing in a 2006 publication of the strategy firm, McKinsey &
Company, entitled Profiting from Proliferation, the trio of David
Court, Thomas French and Trond Knudsen had this to say about
Marketing: “the scope of today’s marketing challenge is
breathtaking, and proliferation is the reason. Recent advances in
Technology, Information, Communications and Distribution have
created an explosion of new customer segments, sales and service
channels, media, marketing approaches, products and brands […].
Marketers -even the most sophisticated- are struggling to keep up”.
While the growth of Marketing itself remains a continuum and new
marketing approaches continue to evolve, the foundations of Social Marketing date back to some
sixty years ago when the psychologist C. G. Wiebe, in a paper entitled Merchandising Commodities
and Citizenship on Television, asked the now famous question: “Can Brotherhood be sold like
Soap?” Wiebe had proposed that organizations which sell intangible social objects (such as
goodwill, respect for the environment, or community development) would be more successful, if
they sold their social objects the way marketers sold cars and mouthwash.
What is Social Marketing?
First we must not, as is often done, confuse “Social Marketing” with “Social Media Marketing”,
which is the use or optimization of online social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, etc to
create communities and promote conversations for Marketing purposes. Or with “Cause
Marketing’’ which refers to collaboration between commercial corporations or brands and not-for-
profit organizations to promote mutually-beneficial interests (e.g. “10% of the price you pay for
our widget goes to The Orphan Foundation”).
The term “Social Marketing” was first coined by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman in 1971, in
their "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change" which was published in the
Journal of Marketing, to refer to the application of marketing to the solution of social and health
problems. According to the argument, if Marketing has been remarkably successful in encouraging
people to buy products such as Coca Cola and Nike trainers, it can as well encourage people to

adopt behaviors which enhance their own - and their fellow citizens’- lives.
Like generic Marketing, Social Marketing in itself is not a theory but, rather, a ‘borrower’ of other
bodies of knowledge such as Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and Communications theory, in
order to understand how to change the behavior of people.
A major point of divergence of Social Marketing from other fields of Marketing is with respect to
the objectives of the marketer. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit
the marketer, but to benefit the target consumer and the general society. While the goal of generic
marketing is to ultimately achieve shareholder objectives, the social marketer seeks to meet
society’s
desire to improve its citizens’ quality of life. Ready instances of Social Marketing at work can be
found in international health programmes in developing countries, such as for Contraceptives
and Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) and in developed countries, for driving behavioral change in
drug abuse, heart disease and organ donation. Social Marketing, therefore, is the use of Marketing
for behavioral and social change. It is all about learning what people want, rather than persuading
them to buy what we produce.
Research is even more critical
This is why research becomes a key aspect of Social Marketing. In social marketing, the consumer
is assumed to be an active participant in the change process. The social marketer builds a long
term relationship with target consumers and seeks their input throughout the life cycle of a
programme by embarking on formative, process and evaluative research. In other words, Social
Marketers ask "what is wrong with us? What don’t we understand about our target audience?", rather
than "what is wrong with these people, why won’t they understand?” In Social Marketing, the
facilitation of “exchange” (remember that word in one of the age-old definitions of Marketing?) is
done through the voluntary behaviour of people. In order to engender this voluntary behaviour
and consummate the exchange, Social Marketers really have to strive to offer target consumers
what they want.
For instance, a social marketer who seeks to reduce prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) among teenagers, by encouraging condom use, may discover in the course of research that
the target market is more concerned with pregnancy than STDs. The social marketer must,
therefore, consider highlighting the contraceptive benefits of condoms, as well as their disease-
prevention benefits. Consumer research in Social Marketing thus identifies benefits associated
with a particular change of behaviour and helps facilitate the process of exchange.
Beyond the 4Ps of Marketing
The 4Ps of Marketing, otherwise known as the Marketing Mix, also form the basis of any Social

Marketing strategy. However, beyond the 4Ps of Marketing, Social Marketing also lays claim to
some other 4Ps (i.e. totaling 8Ps in all). This is illustrated by a Social Marketer, Nedra K.
Weinreich.
Product: This may range from a tangible/physical offering such as contraceptives, to services such
as medical examinations to detect breast cancer early enough, or to intangible ‘products’ such as
practices or ideas (e.g. Oral Rehydration Therapy, Breastfeeding, Non-Circumcision of Female
children, Environmental Protection, etc). In order for the target market to adopt the ‘product’,
s/he must first realize that s/he has a problem and that the ‘product’ offering is the right solution.
Research determines the consumer’s perception of the problem and the ‘product’ and the
importance of that problem in the consumer’s list of priorities.
Price: Other than paying physical cash, ‘Price’ in Social Marketing refers to what the consumer
must do to obtain the product. The consumer may need to give up some time or effort, risk peer
disapproval and embarrassment. If the ‘price’ outweighs the benefits, consumer perception may
rank the value of the product as low. Otherwise, if in the perception of the consumer the product
benefits outweigh costs, s/he may try the product and eventually adopt it. Research enables the
social marketer to arrive at optimal points of costs and benefits, in order to make the product
meaningful and desirable.
Place: This is how the product reaches the consumer. For tangible products, it may include
storage, transport, sales teams and the retail trade, or Points of Gifting (POGs, for products given
free). ‘Place’ may also refer to channels through which the consumer is furnished with
information (e.g. ante-natal/post-natal clinics, workplaces, shopping malls, etc). Research must
identify the habits and activities of consumers, in order to determine the best suitable options for
distribution.
Promotion: This has often been known, though rightly, as ‘Behavioral Change Communications’
but has been mistakenly thought to be the whole gamut of Social Marketing. This includes, the
planning and deployment of Advertising, Public Relations, Direct Marketing, Advocacy, Events,
etc. Research determines the right promotional mix to create demand and sustain post-adoption
behavior.
Publics: A Social Marketing programme is often directed at several external publics such as the
target consumers, influencers, policymakers, gatekeepers, etc. Its internal publics include those
who plan, approve and implement the programme and must therefore ‘buy into’ it.
Partnership: Usually, programmes directed towards social change require massive inputs in terms
intelligence-gathering, planning, logistics, financing and implementation. Therefore, a Social
Marketing programme often becomes much more effective through partnership with other
organizations (Governmental, Non-Governmental, Professional Associations, etc). For instance,
the Social Marketing organization may partner with the professional body of Nurses and Midwives

throughout a country, in a programme targeted at making nursing mothers to adopt breastfeeding.
Policy: While social marketing programmes are meant to change individual behaviour, such
change may need to be sustained on a larger, national scale and over time. Often, policy change
may be required to create an enabling environment. In a Social Marketing programme targeted at
Youth cigarette smokers for example, Government may be required to implement anti-public
smoking regulations. Media advocacy becomes important here.
Purse Strings: Where does funding for Social Marketing programmes come from? Usually, funds
are sourced from donor organizations and grants from government, international organizations
and charity organizations. Pre-Activity research will determine the most-likely sources of funds at
each stage.
Imperatives of Social Marketing for Nigeria
In many developing nations of the world, such as India, effective Social Marketing programmes
have not only become drivers of social change, but also contributed to improvement in the
standards of living of citizens.
In Nigeria, Social Marketing as a discipline of Marketing has not entirely evolved and its
opportunities have not been thoroughly explored by marketing agencies (presently, no marketing
firm specializes in selling Social Marketing services) and Government. On the other hand, Non-
Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have often achieved some of their objectives by
incorporating Social Marketing tactics. The Society for Family (SFH) for instance has executed quasi-
social marketing campaigns for HIVs/STDs and contraceptives, over the years, while the Support
for Malaria Programme (SUNMAP, funded by the UKaid/DFID) has borrowed from Social Marketing
to make people adopt the use of Longer-Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs). Again the Nigeria Urban
Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), a project which seeks to reduce barriers to family planning
services and conceived by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a thirty-
nine million dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has employed Social
Marketing tactics towards realizing its mandate in 6 Nigerian cities.
It needs to be pointed out that most of the Social Marketing programmes of some of these
organizations are often greatly tilted towards the promotional aspects of Social Marketing (i.e
Behavioral Change Communications). Perhaps, the preponderance of Behavioral Change
Communications in such campaigns and programmes is as a result of the visibility of ‘Promotions’
in itself, as ‘the face of Marketing to the outside world’.
With a myriad of socio-economic challenges which have bedeviled the Nigerian nation over the
years and the growing shifts in people’s attitudes towards issues such as health, religion, the
environment and civil society in general, a groundswell of social change in the country can be
brought about through Social Marketing programmes. The National Orientation Agency (NOA) for

1. http://www.brandcrunch.com.ng/bnrch/index.php/columns/opinions/227-understanding-social-marketing-
and-its-imperatives-for-nigeria
instance will do well to partner with relevant international donor organizations in a Social
Marketing campaign to encourage youths in the North to eschew terrorism in the name of Religion
and those in the South to desist from ransom kidnapping, in the name of acquiring wealth. Flood-
prone states such as Lagos and Oyo States can embark on Social Marketing campaigns geared
towards changing people’s behaviour towards their environment, while in a well-planned Social
Marketing project, the government of Akwa Ibom will have addressed the innocent slaughter of
children who are being branded as ‘child witches’ by the same society which nurtured them. In
addition, the Federal Government can kickstart a campaign to change the behavior of young
Nigerians towards becoming more innovative, enterprising and self-reliant, rather than seeking
after white-collar jobs.
Let’s put Social Marketing to work.
=====================================================================================
A 360° marketing professional, Dele Ogundahunsi consults on Marketing Strategy & Business
Growth. He is CEO at The Field Marketing Company (twitter: @deneri ; skype: deneri4)
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Understanding Social Marketing and its Imperatives for Nigeria

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