24762 Chap.2 What Social Marketing Is
What Social Marketing Is
Same tools, different aim
Social marketing uses the same theories, tools and techniques as commercial marketing, but its goal is positive social change rather than profit.
The Week 2 lecture is clear that marketing itself is not the villain; the use it is put to decides.
Three things it is not
It is not education alone, which stops once people know; not social media alone, which is a channel; and not advertising alone, which is one communication option.
Values and benchmarks
French and Gordon (2019) set out the values and ways of thinking behind the field, and the National Social Marketing Centre’s eight benchmark criteria give a checklist you can hold any programme against.
Why it matters for the tasks
The workshop links this week to every task: judge whether past efforts on your problem were participant oriented, use stakeholder engagement in the poster, and open your personal statement with a clear account of what social marketing is.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Social versus commercial marketing
- 02
Education, social media and advertising are not enough
- 03
The seven values of the value wheel
- 04
Five social justice principles
- 05
Strategic and operational social marketing
- 06
The NSMC benchmark criteria
Worked example · free
Score a campaign against the benchmark criteria
- 1Customer orientation: there is no sign of research into why students sleep late, so it is weak.
- 1Behaviour: the goal is a behaviour, sleeping more, which is a strength.
- 1Exchange: nothing lowers the cost of sleeping, such as quiet hours or later deadlines.
- 2Methods mix: posters are a single tool, so the programme is closer to education than to social marketing.
Key terms
- Social Marketing
- Blending marketing ideas with other approaches to shape behaviours that help people, communities and the wider social good.
- Benchmark Criteria
- The National Social Marketing Centre’s eight tests of a social marketing programme, from customer orientation to methods mix.
- Operational Social Marketing
- Social marketing at the level of tactics and operations, delivering a programme once policy and strategy are set.
- Equity
- Allocating the specific resources each person needs to reach an equal outcome, one of five social justice principles.
What Social Marketing Is FAQ
What is the difference between social and commercial marketing?
Both draw on the same theories, research, segmentation and mix of tools. Commercial marketing judges success by sales and profit for the organisation, while social marketing judges it by a change in behaviour that benefits people and society, which is why its offers often look less attractive at first.
Why is an awareness campaign not social marketing?
Education aims to inform, so it has succeeded once people know something. The lecture contrasts social marketing, which works on awareness and knowledge but also on attitudes, behaviour, practices and structures, and succeeds only once people act differently, so an information campaign is at most one part of a programme.
What are the five social justice principles?
Access to resources like healthcare, housing, food and education; equity, giving people what they need for an equal outcome; participation in decisions affecting wellbeing; cultural diversity without discrimination; and respect for human rights. All three assessments ask you to apply them.
What do the benchmark criteria cover?
Eight areas: customer orientation, behaviour, theory, insight, exchange, competition, segmentation and the methods mix. French and Blair-Stevens adapted them from Andreasen, and they are useful for critiquing a past campaign because each one points to a specific gap.
Does social marketing actually work?
The lecture says thousands of programmes have demonstrated effectiveness, citing reviews by Stead and colleagues, Gordon and colleagues and Firestone and colleagues. A failed campaign therefore tells you about that design, not about the approach as a whole.
What are the seven values in the French and Gordon value wheel?
Ethical, social value and social justice, creative, emancipatory, participatory, mutuality and reciprocity. They are drawn around one centre rather than ranked, so a programme is expected to hold them together; the companion diagram lists seven ways of thinking, from strategically and critically to utopian.
What is the difference between strategic and operational social marketing?
The lecture stacks policy, strategy, tactics and operations. Policy and strategy are strategic social marketing, where insight shapes what is decided; tactics and operations are operational social marketing, where it shapes how a chosen programme is delivered on the ground.
How should I classify a campaign I want to critique?
Ask whether it changed or aimed to change a behaviour, whether it was built on research with the audience, and whether it combined several tools. A campaign that only informs, or uses a single channel, is better described as education or advertising inside a possible programme.
Assessment move
Collect three campaigns you have seen and sort them: education only, a single channel, or a programme with several tools. Then run the best one through the eight benchmark criteria and write one line per criterion. Learn the five social justice principles by name, because naming the principle you are applying is what lifts a critique into the higher rubric bands.
Working through What Social Marketing Is in 24762? Sia is AskSia’s AI Marketing tutor — ask any 24762 What Social Marketing Is question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how 24762 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.