Social Marketing in the News 

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Peers Raise Awareness of FASD

 

No amount of alcohol is safe to drink while pregnant.

Circle of Friends, a social marketing program, along with the Calgary Health Region (CHR), is campaigning to get this message out to 16 to 24 year olds in the southern < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Alberta region.  And youths who submit a short video demonstrating how they would support a pregnant friend may get their voice heard across the nation.  "Sometimes a girl gets pregnant, and their friends disown them because they stop partying with them -- that's not supportive," said Shelly Repka, of Circle of Friends.  Repka said they want to see submissions showing friends giving friends support, sticking with them, giving them advice and just being there…The winner's submission will be used to help develop a TV and radio public service announcement, that will come out in early 2006 and be broadcast on national television.

 

 

Fresh Survey of AIDS Victims Mooted

 

The Parliamentary Accounts Committee [India] has suggested a fresh survey of HIV/AIDS infected people in the country to arrive at a correct figure, following allegations of inadequacies in the sentinel surveillance method adopted by the Government… According to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), there are 5.1 million HIV-infected people, but the figure has been contested by some international agencies and non-governmental organisations.

 

The committee has said the National AIDS Control Programme had achieved limited success, because it failed to generate sufficient awareness among the masses… It has found the scheme of social marketing of condoms lacking, since NACO could not procure and distribute the targeted number of condoms. The programme could not set up the targeted number of Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinics and modernise blood banks and voluntary counselling and testing centres in every district.

 

 

Crystal Meth Remedies Prove Elusive

 

"A lot of treatment centers while they do excellent work are cookie cutters," Eastlund said. "(The 12 steps) is there and it's a great, available resource, but we need to think outside of the box. We need to develop programs specifically for gay men, but also for women, who are using the drug to deal with crazed lives. Often single mothers are drawn to meth to get through their busy days."

 

Eastlund hopes to see the city funnel dollars into programs like these, as well as education and social marketing campaigns that address how large and widespread the problem is, she said.

 

Mental health services also need to be more available for HIV patients who are dealing with crystal meth, she said.

 

Nettie DeAugustine, preventive health bureau manager at the Long Beach Health Department, wants to see more treatment specifically designed to treat meth and better resources to place people into programs unique to their problem.

  

 

Selling to Kids? Take Note

 

"Marketing works," the panel concluded — and, as a result, parents' efforts to encourage their children to make healthful food and beverage choices are up against enormous odds.

The panel found convincing evidence that children younger than 4 typically cannot distinguish between an advertisement and entertainment programming. It also concluded that most children younger than 8 do not understand advertising's "persuasive intent."

Among children 12 to 18, the panel found insufficient evidence that food marketing influenced long-term food and drink preferences or short-term consumption. But it did find strong statistical evidence that, among both younger children and teens, those who watched the most TV (and who thus were exposed to the most food advertising) were most likely to be overweight.

The evidence fell short of establishing that TV ads cause excessive weight. But "even a small influence, aggregated over the entire population of American children and youth, would be consequential in impact," the report stated.

 

Among the committee's recommendations:

•  Government organizations, philanthropies, healthcare groups and food industry and marketing interests should band together to craft a "massive social marketing campaign" that would help boost demand for healthful foods among children. Such a campaign, the panel warned, would likely take years to stabilize and reverse kids' rising rate of excess weight.

 

 

Diet: Science Panel Tells Industry to Stop Marketing Junk Food to Kids

 

The panel said the government should try tax breaks and other incentives to encourage the shift away from junk food and, if that doesn't work, Congress should mandate it.

 

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, questioned whether any healthy-food campaign could match the power of junk-food marketing.

 

"I don't think that even the best social marketing on healthy foods can overcome the advertising and sale of breakfast cereals that taste like cookies," she said.

The panel's chairman, J. Michael McGinnis, said the panel sees an opportunity in the marketing power of industry.

 

"There is tremendous creativity to be had in the industry, and if we contemplate as a society banning the marketing to kids, we're going to lose that creativity," said McGinnis, a senior scholar at the institute. "We take the industry at their word that they're interested in providing marketing for more healthful products.”

  

 

Competing Voices: In a Sea of Medical Information, Where Do You Find Answers?

 

"Most people want to know functional information: How do I get through the day with this problem?" said Patricia Flatley Brennan. She is the Moehlman Bascom professor of the School of Nursing and Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and specializes in designing the computer tools people need so they can find information for taking care of themselves.

…especially in the case of an Internet search, you need to make sure the information you have is valid.   A good rule for an Internet search is to pay more attention to dot-gov or dot-edu sites (from government and educational institutions, respectively) because they are less likely to be biased. That is not to say you should ignore the commercial, or .com, sites.

"There are some excellent dot-com sites," Brennan said. "They're companies, but they put out really stellar information, particularly pharmaceutical firms. But they'll put out information about their drugs, so there's subtle social marketing that occurs, but that subtle social marketing occurs on the government sites as well on the dot-edu sites. So I guess," she said with a chuckle, "it depends on whose social marketing you're willing to buy into."

 

 

Bank of America and Cause Related Marketing

 

This commercial in my opinion was brilliant example of Social Marketing. The commercial aligned Bank of America with a organization preserving historical buildings and landmarks. It was obvious how Bank of America was contributing to the organization but less obvious was the benefit B of A was receiving. It was simple brand association that they received leading to the acquisition of new customers and maintaining loyalty of current bank members. The commercial clearly demonstrated Bank of America’s commitment to this particular social issue. This commercial undoubtedly has strong potential to improve the B of A brand image. Improved brand image will translate into increased revenues for B of A. I can’t see this campaign being anything less than a win, win situation for both parties

 

 

The Last Word – Bisto: All Together Now: ”Ahhh.”

 

This December, this column brings you a heart-warming Christmas tale of social marketing for all the family, courtesy of that most British of brands, Bisto.

For those international readers who may not be familiar with the idiosyncrasies of British cuisine, Bisto has been a staple of Britain’s meal tables since 1908, as the nation’s favourite provider of instant gravy, in powdered form.

Bisto’s brand marketing has stuck rigidly to a successful formula over many years, positioning Bisto as “part of the family”. The formula has been refreshed and updated over time, but is essentially the same: cosy family scenes featuring the “Bisto Kids” who are attracted by the distinctive aroma of Bisto, leading them to utter the immortal words (and Bisto’s marketing slogan for many years) “Aah … Bisto”.

 

The issue is straightforward: the fact that families eat fewer and fewer meals together. This has been identified by social policy experts as playing a key role in a wide range of social problems: teenage drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancy, crime, anti-social behaviour, truancy and poor academic performance – you name it, it’s got something to do with the decline of the traditional family unit. And at the heart of the traditional family unit is the simple act of eating a meal together.

 

So Bisto has set itself the modest task of helping to turn the situation around with a new campaign called “aah nights.” The centrepiece of the campaign is a TV commercial, fully in the spirit of Bisto’s long-standing marketing campaigns, which extols the virtues of eating together as a family while explicitly recognising the challenges of doing this in the modern world, with all its pressures.

 

At www.aahnight.co.uk Bisto shows you how to do it in three simple steps, the first of which is to download a “Contract” that families can sign and stick on their fridge or other prominent place in the house. Step two is to invite the family or friends by email, and step three is to make a delicious meal (recipes provided) using – you guessed it – Bisto. So there’s the marketing bit, for any of you who worry that all this social stuff has nothing to do with selling more product. The website also contains information from a respected psychologist about why the issue matters, and there is a tie-up with a national newspaper.

The reason I have explained the anatomy of this campaign in such detail is because it is so well judged. I would go so far as to say that this is a perfect social marketing campaign – a textbook example of how it should be done. The issue is important to society and to the lives of Bisto’s customers, and it could not be more relevant to the brand and its heritage.