Social Marketing in the News
Campaign Pledges To Conserve Energy: Pledge Signers Commit to Follow at Least Three Sustainable Methods
The Harvard Green Campus Initiative (GCI) has announced a new pledge campaign that asks students, staff, and faculty members to commit to a series of energy-saving measures.
Signers can fulfill the pledge by making sure their computer is set for “sleep mode,” turning their thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer, or turning off electrical appliances when not in use.
They can also fulfill the pledge by making double-sided photocopies, taking the T or bicycling to work once a week, or buying “environmentally preferred products,” such as recycled paper.
Signers who work in labs can fulfill the pledge by shutting their fume hood sashes.
Also, signers can fulfill the pledge by publicizing the sustainability initiative or by becoming involved in Green Campus Network activities.
“The actions we list ARE easy, but many people still don’t do them on a regular basis,” [the coordinator of GCI’s Campus Energy Reduction Program, Maura K.] Leahy wrote. “Social marketing research has shown that taking a written pledge, particularly with one’s peers or community, is a great motivator for action,” she added.
Meth Comes Out of the Closet: In Parts of Washington's Gay Community, Crystal Methamphetamine Is Starting to Take a Toll -- and Creating a Demand for Treatment
Like community-level anti-meth efforts in other cities, the D.C. Crystal Meth Working Group is planning a campaign aimed at educating the nonusing public, preventing meth abuse among gay men and offering treatment referrals to current users. The District health department has provided a $42,000 grant for the group to work with Whitman-Walker [Clinic] on the campaign.
Community activist Christopher Dyer, who chairs the group's social marketing campaign subcommittee, said the campaign's slogans, "Let's Talk About Crystal Meth" and "Crystal Meth Sucks," will be launched in nightclubs with posters, pins and T-shirts.
National Health Insurance Scheme: A Desideratum
One of the major strategies for effecting the needed change in function, form, structure and performance of Nigeria’s health system is the National Health Insurance Scheme. Like all insurance schemes, the NHIS involves gradually putting funds aside while you are healthy to take care of you when you are sick or ill. It entails contributions from the government, employers of labour, workers and other prospective beneficiaries. A functional health insurance scheme would necessarily be participatory and inclusive as well as private sector-led and government-regulated. It at once ensures better funding and improved health expenditure as well as makes the health bill easier to bear by government, employers, employees and other users.
The National Health Insurance Scheme will considerably improve access to health services and facilities (that is decrease physical distance to health amenities), enhance quality and increase affordability. However, like all reform initiatives, whose benefits are still in the womb, the NHIS needs to be sold through social marketing to would be beneficiaries of the programme.
Syphilis Rates Among Gay Men Skyrocket, Notes AIDS Healthcare Foundation
According to the report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national syphilis rate in the United States increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2004. The population of men who have sex with men, which includes gay and bisexual men among others, accounted for 64% of all adult primary and secondary syphilis cases in 2004 -- up from a rate of only 5% in 1999. After more than two years of an aggressive and innovative syphilis prevention campaign sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and AHF called, "Stop the Sores," Los Angeles fared better than many other large cities nationwide: it was not even among the top ten cities in incidence of syphilis.
The 'Stop the Sores' social marketing campaign is an innovative syphilis prevention campaign running in greater Los Angeles in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services STD Program, AHF and several other Southern California AIDS service organizations. The social marketing campaign…features print ads, posters and billboards in a cartoon style. Television spots use the same character -- Phil, the Sore -- in both animation form and as a live-action figure more akin to theme park or major league sports mascots.
International Position for GSB Prof
Steve Burgess, Professor of Business Administration and Research Director at the [University of Cape Town] Graduate School of Business (GSB), has been elected to the Advisory Committee on Transformative Consumer Research at the Association for Consumer Research (ACR), the world's leading consumer research body.
"This is an exciting age of transformation in the world economy. The transformative consumer research movement focuses on important topics of our time, such as consumer issues in 'base-of-the-pyramid' country contexts, environmental, cultural and social sustainability, and the harmful effects of consumer behaviours," explained Burgess.
"Industrialised countries have ageing populations and this highlights the need for research into elderly consumers, product safety and financial and medical decision-making. Less industrialised countries have more cultural diversity and more rapid growth, which stresses identity dynamics, harmful consumer behaviours and social marketing."
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