24762 Chap.10 The Social Marketing Intervention Mix
The Social Marketing Intervention Mix
From recipes to the 4Ps
Borden’s marketing mix cast the marketer as a creative chef; McCarthy’s 4Ps made it narrower, and Kotler carried them into social marketing, where they became dominant.
The 4Ps reinterpreted
In social marketing, product is the behavioural offer, price is the cost and barriers of change, place is where change is supported, and promotion is how it is communicated.
The lecture lists the weaknesses of forcing social problems into that frame.
Wider mixes
Gordon (2012) re-thinks the mix, French (2011) crosses four forms with five types of intervention, and seven criteria help choose the right combination.
Price and product
Six price tactics raise the benefits or lower the costs of the desired behaviour and raise the costs of the competing one, and the product has three levels, from the actual behaviour to its supports and the core social good.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Borden’s mix and McCarthy’s 4Ps
- 02
The 4Ps in social marketing
- 03
Weaknesses of the 4Ps
- 04
Hug, nudge, shove and smack
- 05
Six price tactics
- 06
Three product levels
- 07
Seven criteria for choosing a mix
Worked example · free
Lower the price of getting a flu vaccine
- 1Decrease non-monetary costs: offer the vaccine at work during shifts, removing travel and time.
- 1Decrease monetary costs: pay workers for the time, since a lost shift is a real cost to them.
- 1Increase non-monetary benefits: frame it as staying well for the busy winter and protecting regulars.
- 1Increase non-monetary costs of not vaccinating: make vaccination the visible norm in the venue, so staying unvaccinated stands out.
Key terms
- Marketing Mix
- The combination of tools a marketer uses to reach an objective, first described by Borden as a chef’s set of ingredients.
- Augmented Product
- The services and tools that support a behaviour change, around the actual behaviour and the core social good.
- Nudge
- A form of intervention that rewards a behaviour with little conscious engagement.
The Social Marketing Intervention Mix FAQ
What are the 4Ps in social marketing?
Product is the behavioural offer, often intangible; price is the costs and barriers people must overcome, which can be psychological, cultural, social, temporal, practical, physical or financial; place is the channels and settings where change is supported; and promotion is how the change is communicated.
Why are the 4Ps criticised?
The lecture lists the lack of a tangible product, the heavy reinterpretation needed, tools such as advocacy and policy change that do not fit, a short-term transactional focus and a framework that is too simple for complex social problems.
What is the difference between a hug, a nudge, a shove and a smack?
French’s forms combine reward or penalty with high or low cognitive engagement: a hug rewards a considered choice, a nudge rewards with little thought, a shove penalises with little thought, and a smack penalises a considered choice.
How do I choose the right intervention mix?
Use the lecture’s seven criteria: evidence of effectiveness, plausibility, fit with insight data, acceptability to funders, stakeholders and recipients, risk and return, ethics and legislation, and consistency with existing policy.
What are the three product levels in social marketing?
The actual product is the tangible object or the behaviour itself, the augmented product is whatever supports the behaviour change, such as a service or tool, and the core product is the social good that results from the change.
Did cash prizes for quitting smoking work?
The lecture cites a Cochrane review of Quit and Win contests, which offered prizes for staying off cigarettes for a month, finding that fewer than one in 500 smokers quit because of the contest. The effect on community smoking rates was small.
Where did the marketing mix idea come from?
Neil Borden introduced it in a 1953 address and a 1964 article, describing the marketer as a chef who mixes ingredients creatively. McCarthy’s 4Ps narrowed it in 1960, and Kotler carried the 4Ps into social marketing, where the lecture says they became dominant.
Assessment move
Take one past campaign on your Assessment 1 problem and list its tools under the 4Ps; most will cluster in promotion. Then add one tool from outside the 4Ps and one price tactic, and justify both against the seven criteria. Practise drawing the hug, nudge, shove and smack grid from memory with an example in each cell.
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