Social Marketing in the News
The Business of Avoiding Babies
After the political fallout of male sterilisation in post-emergency India (1975-77), gentler ways were sought to be devised, but with little success. Population control agendas rode on prettier-sounding concerns of reproductive health, women's empowerment and choice. Striking is the sex bias in offering choice to the "target" to control population through invasive reproductive technologies under the cover of mother and child health…There is disproportionate weight on women's contraception by international agencies and pharmaceuticals. For example, UNFPA, the world's largest supplier of contraceptives to developing nation governments, deals with only 22 per cent of condoms. The rest is made up of pills (27), implants and trochars (2.12), and injectables (the largest at 45 per cent).
How do the controversial products of this lucrative business find themselves in women's bodies? The pharma-donor-government links are becoming a nexus. NGOs distribute the products through vertically delivered, unaccountable and scattered social marketing, which is outside public regulatory gaze.
Now, UNFPA and WHO, largest procurers of contraceptives, find that the "big boys" are too expensive for sourcing hormonal contraceptives and are seeking to expand their supply base with Indian generic drug manufacturers. India can do with strengthening its pharma market, and hereby is introduced another stakeholder in the big game of curbing births. Population stabilisation can be achieved through the contraceptive of rights and development. It does not need more hormonal contraceptives for women that are long-acting, invasive, untested, hazardous and provider-controlled all in the name of offering a "choice" that results in anything but women's well-being. Women's health is much more than reproductive health, and cannot be subordinated to the population control enterprise.
Nasoma Echoes HIV Preventive Message
The National Social Marketing Association (NASOMA) joins today's global events marking World AIDS Day with its oft-repeated preventive message that appeals for abstinence, faithfulness and consistent use of condoms to avoid infection.
Under the theme "Stop Aids! Keep the Promise!" NASOMA advises young people that condoms are not only effective in preventing HIV infection, but that it is a simple and effective tool to prevent unwanted pregnancies, ultimately reducing child mortality and other sexually transmitted diseases.
The biggest component of the NASOMA programme is geared towards behaviour change and awareness. "Through information awareness, we are trying to change people's behaviour when it comes to HIV/AIDS," he [Country Director of NASOMA, Hosky //Gowaseb] concluded.
Scientific Panel Tells Industry to Stop Marketing Junk Food to Kids
Food marketing strongly influences what children eat, the Institute of Medicine said in a comprehensive review of scientific evidence on the issue.
Some children's advocacy groups said the recommendations don't go far enough and called for a ban on junk food marketing to children.
"If marketing to children affects their food choices, then it's time to stop marketing to them," said Susan Linn, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School who helped found the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, questioned whether any healthful-food campaign could match the power of junk-food marketing.
"I don't think that even the best social marketing on healthy foods can overcome the advertising and sale of breakfast cereals that taste like cookies," she said.
AHF to Roll Out Frank, Unconventional 'HIV - Not Fabulous' Social Marketing & HIV Prevention Campaign in Los Angeles
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest AIDS organization, will…unveil "HIV -- Not Fabulous," a frank new social marketing campaign on HIV prevention that urges HIV negative gay men throughout Los Angeles to "Stay Negative."
The CDC-funded, three-year advertising campaign uses real people living with HIV/AIDS, and through simple and powerful photographs, highlights certain physical ailments -- diarrhea, wasting syndrome, lipodystrophy [irregular body fat distribution] -- that have become a day-to-day reality for many of those living with the disease.
Broad Changes in Product Lines, Marketing
The Institute of Medicine report concludes what most parents already know: Kids who watch a lot of TV ads eat more junk food. Food and beverage marketing to children is "at best, a missed opportunity, and at worst, a direct threat to the health of the next generation," the report warns.
Some businesses report mixed experiences with promoting healthier food. Demand shot up for lower-fat milk and mandarin oranges after Wendy's restaurants added them as options for kids' meals and promoted them heavily, said spokesman Bob Bertini. Orders have dropped off as advertising campaigns have changed, he said, but they're still popular. But the fast-food chain recently dropped a fruit bowl introduced earlier this year because it wasn't selling. He's doubtful about focusing ad campaigns only on nutritious foods.
"If there's a market for those choices, certainly we will emphasize them, as we did with fruit," Bertini says. "We continue to promote a wide cross-section of our menu because we're a mass marketer. We have a large, diverse audience with very different needs."
Other recommendations include government, school and private sector initiatives such as offering incentives for promoting nutritious choices, devising a social marketing program to sell parents on healthy diets, and setting standards for all foods sold in schools, not just federally funded lunches.
Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Too Few Health Programs Reach Poor; Better Results Possible - World Bank Report
A new World Bank report today warns both developing countries and the international development community to check for gaps between intentions and verifiable results in helping poor people battle illness and disease. Health programs designed to reach poor people often end up instead helping the better-off, the study says. However, it adds that this situation can be avoided, and based on a number of successful national case studies, offers governments key policy steps to make sure that disadvantaged groups get the crucial health care services they urgently need.
Among the examples identified by the Reaching the Poor study authors are: Marketing of insecticide-treated bed nets in Tanzania. In two southern districts, with a total population of about 60,000, the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre developed and implemented a social marketing program that raised the ownership of bed nets in the poorest 20% of households from 20 to 73%. As in Ghana and Zambia, the increase in bed net use/ownership was higher among the poor than among the better-off.
As a result, the report avoids identifying 'magic wand' approaches that can guarantee success wherever applied. Instead, it advocates a process of adaptation, recommending that country policy makers seek to fit to their own settings those strategies proven successful elsewhere that seem most relevant to their own situation. Critical in this process, note the authors, will be a solid understanding of why the poor were not getting services. Moving past thinking that governments, donors, and development agencies always know the answers, and working hard to understand the ingredients of inequalities are the obvious next steps to creating policies that fit the needs of the poor.
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