Social Marketing in the News
Advice on Saving Available to Workers at Every Level
The nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Delaware Valley hosts workshops in the region to promote wealth building for people of all ages and economic levels. The campaign, Philadelphia Saves, which serves not only the city but the entire Delaware Valley, emphasizes the importance of paying off high-cost debt, spending wisely and saving through a retirement program.
"This is a social marketing campaign to change a culture -- teach people how to use credit as it was intended to be used," said Kathleen Bryson, education director for the CCCS of Delaware Valley. "Everyone needs to save to have that rainy day fund so they don't use credit."
Next Target in AIDS Fight: Sugar Daddies
… before she knew it, Brenda became part of Africa's "sugar daddy" culture - a widespread but quiet fact of life on a continent where young women are often economically and socially vulnerable. Yet now the phenomenon is increasingly being tackled as a key social and moral factor in the spread of AIDS.
Uganda, long a leader in anti-AIDS efforts, is tackling the issue:
• Government-sponsored posters in schools warn, "Beware of Sugar Daddies!"
• One member of parliament is promoting "chastity scholarships" for young women as an economic counterweight to sugar daddies.
• A radio soap opera features characters who get into sugar-daddy relationships - and discover their downsides.
• A PSI campaign uses a Golden-Rule approach. Showing a picture of a middle-aged man, it says, "Would you let this man be with your 18-year-old daughter? So why are you with his?"
Across Africa, anti-sugar-daddy campaigns are on the rise. A social-marketing group in Cameroon, for instance, held a recent protest march. In Ghana, preachers have begun speaking out.
Using Information to Reduce Health Inequalities
Tamsin Rose made a presentation and ran a workshop on "Using information and communication to reduce inequalities" at the WHO Regions for Health Network Annual meeting in Katowice, Poland on 24-25 November 2005.
The presentation…explored how the practice of health promotion has moved away from centralised, single message campaigns towards social marketing which involves targeted messages and a variety of media based on the needs and aspirations of the target audiences.
The workshop reviewed case studies from 3 regions (Wales, Emilia-Romagna, South Tyrol) on how they used information and communication to consult on priorities for health policy, to raise awareness of public health issues and gain public acceptance for healthcare reforms. In addition, details of information campaigns on topics such as smoking, food hygiene and childhood immunisation were shared.
Violent Reaction: Can a Public Relations Campaign Save Young Lives?
Early last month, state Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Phila.) announced a 10-year plan to eliminate youth homicide—an ambitious goal in Philadelphia, where almost 15 percent of this year's 346 homicide victims were 18 or younger, according to the Daily News. Evans' plan will have several components, but one of the most visible will be a social-marketing campaign, similar to anti-smoking campaigns like "the truth," aimed at educating juveniles against violence.
"Whenever we've fundamentally wanted to make changes, we've used a form of social marketing," Evans says of his decision to commit about $500,000 over the course of a year to public relations. But, as demonstrated by the recent forum at Germantown High School (which was not under the umbrella of the 10-year plan), communicating public-health messages to teens can be terribly difficult. Kids reject almost anything that strikes them as "corny"—which most public-health messages are—and many are too caught up in the day-to-day business of adolescence to worry about big-picture problems anyway.
More news and commentary on social marketing is posted at On Social Marketing and Social Change.
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