Smoking and Social Marketing - Term Paper Example

Running Head: SOCIAL MARKETING Social Marketing Social Marketing Introduction Smoking is one social issue that affects all the societies equally. Promoting advertising has been identified as the main cause of smoking in the adolescence and it is easier to influence their young minds. This problem of smoking can only be solved by using similar tactics of marketing which are used to sell products. Social marketing is a term used for the marketing of social issues that affect the health of the public. This paper explored the social issues of smoking and how it can benefit from social marketing theory. The paper begins with a discussion on the social issue and the origin of social marketing. The paper then moves on to the marketing environment and consumer orientation. In order to develop a better understanding of how social marketing can influence the social issue a discussion on smoking and social marketing is given which covers a number of factors associated with it. In the end conclusion and recommendations are given. Smoking – A Social Problem Even though the awareness about the ill-effects of smoking has significantly increased over the years, it remains a social problem today effecting millions of people worldwide. For instance, the number of smokers in the UK has dropped by 50 per cent since the 1950’s, still smoking caused around 1.2 million deaths in European region alone in 2000 (Bonas 2005). Many diseases have been associated with smoking, such as low birth weight, high death rate, cancer, heart attacks, stroke, etc. Smoking not only has a negative impact on the health of the smoker, but it also has adverse effects on the people who live around the smoker and the society as a whole, making it a social problem. The problem of smoking is not confined to one particular region but spread over the whole world, especially among the youngsters. According to a study conducted by Schaefer (1979), old smokers who quit are constantly replaced by smokers that originate in the younger generation. Moreover, status symbol was identified to be one of the main causes of smoking, i.e. smoking served as a status symbol which motivated the people to smoke (Schaefer 1979). Most of the people begin smoking during adolescence and the main motivation behind taking up smoking is said to be the frequent advertising of cigarette (Arnett 2001). Social Marketing and its Origin Sandage defines social marketing as the “design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution, and marketing research” (Sandage and Fryburger 1960, pp. 222-223). All the big brands in the world are successful only because of their marketing techniques. Marketing is used to endorse brands and increase its ‘likeability’ among the people. One of the earliest examples of the social marketing is that of President Nixon. He was the first president who was sold like a “brand” on the television, a detailed account of which can be found in the best selling book The Selling of the President 1968, written by Joe McGinniss. The term Social Marketing was formally introduced in 1971 by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman in the Journal of Marketing, in which they suggested how marketing techniques can be used to benefit social cause, idea, and behaviour (Kotler and Zaltman 1971). Social marketing has come a long way since then and is frequently used to endorse social cause and influence social action. Social marketing also plays an important role in changing the behaviour of the target audiences and can be used to elicit a desired social action or reaction. Social marketing is often used to increase awareness about public health, environmental protection, education, etc. Social Marketing Environment Social marketing too is influenced by a number of macro and micro environmental factors. Before a social marketing plan can be developed it is necessary to take into consideration the environmental factors that might effect the social marketing plan, such as demographic, economic, physical, technological, political/legal, and socio-cultural. It is very important to determine these factors before planning because they can ruin the whole plan if attention is not given to them. He demographics provides a little background of the case at hand, political/legal factors give knowledge of the existing laws that can be used against the or for the cause, whereas socio-cultural factors determine the attitudes and behaviours of the target audiences toward the cause, etc. All these factors can be used to make the social marketing plan more reliable and influential if analyzed properly. These factors play an important role making a marketing plan successful. According to Philip Kotler and Eduardo Roberto, scanning of environmental factors is the most important part of the social marketing plan and “the identification of one or two critical environmental forces that affect the social product’s marketing” can have a significant effect on the outcome of the whole plan (Kotler & Roberto 1989, p. 277). Social Marketing and Consumer Orientation A product cannot succeed unless it meets the needs of the consumer. Consumer orientation means focusing on the needs of the consumer which are to be met by the product. A product cannot be successful unless it meets the expectations of the consumer. All the successful brands and product satisfy a particular need of the consumers. Consumer orientation is very important for a social marketing plan and is the first step of the process. The result completely depends on the consumers and so they remain the main focus of the plan. Consumer orientation is assessed as soon as the macro- and micro-environmental factors are scanned. Once the consumer is identified in the social marketing plan, the focus then shifts on the needs of the consumer which helps in developing a relationship between the consumer and the social cause at hand. Another thing that needs to be considered is what has already been done by the consumer to bring about the desired change in the habit. Moreover, the consumer must desire the offer that is made and the attitude toward the offer must be positive. In social marketing, if the offer made to the consumer is something which is not desired or the consumer is unable to relate to the issue, then the whole marketing plan is more likely to fail. Thus, consumer orientation remains an integral part of social marketing plan. Stages of Change Theory and Smoking The stages of change theory suggest that cessation of smoking takes place through a series of stages. These stages include precontemplation (when a person has no intention to quit smoking any time soon), contemplation (when a person decides to quit smoking in the next six months), preparation (when a person decides to quit smoking in the coming month and has tried to quit at least once before in the past year), and action (when a person has quit smoking), maintenance – when a person has maintained the cessation of smoking for a period of six months (Prochaska & Anton, 2001). These stages of theory of change are much related to the social marketing theory as they all require motivations and cognition. Successful anti-smoking campaign can use these stages and make motivational ads accordingly so that cessation becomes easier and these people are continuously reminded why they should quit smoking. Social Marketing and Smoking Tobacco advertisements are identified as one of the main reasons why the youth begin smoking. These ads have a significant effect on the young minds which remain etched far long. Prosmoking ads are viewed by young individuals quite frequently and the negative message sent through the ads is perceived to be positive by the young minds. It was found in a study that the youngsters are prone to getting influenced by the ads made by the tobacco industries which results in a high number of smoking in adolescence and it was suggested that the youngsters prone to viewing these ads should be trained to resist (Borzekwoski, Flora, Feighery, and Schooler 1999). There have a number of anti-tobacco campaigns that have been quite successful. An example of such a campaign is that of British Heart Foundation’s campaign. The reached out to the audiences in a number of ways which included posters, digital press, PR, etc. Soon after the launch of their campaign, the traffic on their website increased as people wanted to know more about the harmful impact of smoking. Smoking as a social problem can benefit a lot from a proper social marketing plan such as that of BHF’s campaign. Many anti-smoking campaigns have been launched over the past many years and some of them have been quite successful. But because of the constantly changing environment, it is required that a new social marketing plan be made frequently. The issue of social marketing can benefit from social marketing using the following: Research Methodology: The collection of data plays an important role in the social marketing plan. As mentioned earlier, analyzing the environmental factors affecting the social marketing is the first step towards developing a social marketing plan. This can only be done by conducting a proper research. The adopted research methodology can have a significant effect on the outcome of the whole process. Research methodology may be qualitative or quantitative in nature. Qualitative research includes opinions and qualitative observations whereas quantitative data includes statistics and arithmetic data. Mixing both the approaches make the data more reliable as it includes both opinions and accurate statistics which can then be compared to reach a more reliable conclusion. However, purist researchers are against mixing the methodologies and prefer sticking to one type. In order to understand the problem of smoking it is important to collect data which is both qualitative and quantitative in nature as it is important to first know the opinions of the consumer about the social issue and then get statistics relating to the issue so facts can be presented to the consumers. Target Audience: Before the plan can be made it is important to identify who the campaign will target. The target audience of an anti-smoking campaign is the adolescence since people in this age group are the ones influenced the most by the prosmoking campaigns and this is the age when most of the people develop the habit of smoking. It is therefore most suitable to target this age group so the issue can be solved before it develops. Behaviour Change and Social Marketing: The main purpose of the social marketing plan is to bring about the desired change in behaviour and not sell a product. In order to achieve this, it is important to first identify the baheviour and what motivates that behaviour. Once the source of motivation is identified, the next step is to eradicate that source of motivation or develop a strategy to divert the consumer to the other direction. The whole social behaviour of smoking cannot be changed by just convincing one individual to give up smoking since the environment that surrounds the individual constantly influences the individual. A study was conducted to find out why some anti-smoking campaigns are more successful than the other in 2007. It was found that the anti-smoking campaign do not work just by encouraging an individual to quit smoking, but the campaigns that helped in changing the entire social norm of smoking which can only be done over a period of time (University of Georgia 2007). Moreover, it was found that anti-smoking ads are most likely to be effective when the consumers know that their peers are also watching otherwise the ads cause the young consumer to rebel against the campaign (University of Georgia 2007). Positioning Social Product and Goals: It is important to first identify the goal of the anti-smoking campaign. Since this is a serious one it is necessary that the audiences also realize this. It is more suitable for the ads to be serious but it is also important not to preach as it might negatively affect the young audiences. The goal of the campaign should be to give a serious message that states facts. The example of such an ad is the advertising campaign launched by the British Heart Foundation showing fat oozing out of the artery of a smoker (BBC News 2004). Marketing Mix and Accessibility: The marketing mix includes the four tactics used in marketing. These tactics are of product, price, place, and promotion. It is better to determine the social and cost effects of the campaign. One high cost of smoking can be used to benefit the campaign as cessation would reduce the cost for the smoker which can be presented in the ad as a benefit of cessation. Another important factor identified by Kotler and Zaltman is that of place in social marketing as it covers the distribution of the ads and medium or communication (Kotler & Zaltman 1971). Another important factor to be considered is that of accessibility of the product, i.e. if the product is reaching out to all the consumers. The purpose pf the marketing mix model is to analyze the data collected from a number of sources, such as pricing, media, and promotion spending data, in order to develop a better understanding of the a particular marketing activity. Even though a marketing mix helps in isolating the impact of a particular marketing activity, it fails to provide an assessment of how different elements of marketing work together in a combination. Forbidden Fruits theory and Smoking The forbidden fruits theory suggests that stopping a person from something bad or the parental advisory labels increase the attractiveness of a brand. Since smoking is considered to be bad and usually requires an individual to be of a certain age to smoke in many countries, youth tends to get more attracted toward smoking. It is important that the marketing of anti-smoking ads do not include such elements in the campaign that increase the attractiveness of smoking. Segmentation and Targeting Segmentation and targeting are an important tool in marketing that help in locating the audiences of the product. Segmentation basically means identifying the kinds of customers that are present in the market i.e. the potential audiences. Targeting means selecting a group of customers which are to be targeted. For instance, for an anti-smoking campaign, the potential customers are the youngsters who may begin smoking, young adults who have started smoking because of the peer pressure, and adults who have been chain smokers for many years. An anti-smoking campaign may attract one of these groups and may repulse the other. Conclusion From the above-mentioned critical appraisal it can be concluded that social marketing theory has contributed a lot to the social issue of smoking. Many anti-smoking campaigns have been launched based on the social marketing theory and have been quite successful in bringing down the number of smokers. In the UK alone the number of smokers has declined 50 per cent over the period of fifty years (Bonas 2005). If proper social marketing plans are developed, the social issue of smoking can benefit a lot from it. In order to increase the influence of anti-smoking campaigns it is important to take into consideration the above mentioned strategies and develop novel ways of endorsing the anti-smoking ads which can only be achieved by adding more to the social marketing theory. Recommendations As noticed in the paper, the campaigns that aimed at changing the whole norm of smoking in a society were more successful than the campaigns that try to convince one individual to quit smoking (University of Georgia 2007). It is recommended that the anti-smoking campaigns should last for a period of time so that more people can be influenced in the society as the change in behaviour takes time to evolve. It was also noticed that the frequency with which the individuals come in contact with the prosmoking ads encouraged them to smoke (Borzekwoski Flora, Feighery, and Schooler 1999). It is therefore recommended that it should be made sure that individuals come in contact with the anti-smoking ads just as much as they come in contact with the pro-smoking ads, if not more. Lastly, it is recommended that the youngsters should be given training to resist the prosmoking ads since anti-smoking ads may not reach everyone. References Arnett, J. J., 2001. Adolescents’ Responses to Cigarette Advertisements for Five “Youth Brands” and One “Adult Brand”. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 11(4) , pp. 425–443. BBC News, 2004, February 2. Anti-smoking ads a huge success. [Online]. Available at: < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3453223.stm> [Accessed November 27, 2010]. Bonas, S., 2005, May 17. Smoking: psychological and social influences. [Online]. 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