Social Marketing in the News
Health Body Talks About Concerns
The nation's health concerns were at the top of the National Health Promotion Council's roundtable discussions yesterday. Health Minister Solomone Naivalu said the council was the highest multi-sectoral civil society body that focused on Fiji's health needs.
"For the first time, teams from various agencies have come together to produce multi-year social marketing and mobilisation plans scheduled for 2006," he said. "These plans focus on key public health issues and are aligned with ongoing national initiatives like road safety, responsible drinking, childhood nutrition, immunisation, water and sanitation, and physical activity."
"Each plan has specific behavioural objectives to achieve clear strategies, feasible management structures, robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms," he said. "What these plans need now is our collective support."
Online Retailers Should Use Gadgets and Games to Market to Young Consumers
More than two-thirds of young online consumers own gadgets such as PCs, DVD players, home stereos, game consoles, mobile phones, or handheld video games, Forrester found. About one-quarter own MP3 players and browser- or camera-enabled mobile phones.
In addition, consumers between the ages of 12 and 21 spend an average of 11 hours per week surfing the web—compared with 8.5 hours weekly for adults—and 79% visit game sites. More than one-third visit music sites, and almost half visit movie sites, according to Forrester.
The study also found that more than half of young, online consumers rely on their friends and families for purchase advice, and 65% tell others about products they like. In addition, teens have on average 41 buddies on their IM lists. That makes them ideal prospects for social marketing via instant messaging, mobile phones and e-mail, Forrester said.
Online retailers should use young consumers’ love of games to promote products through such tools as advergames and online video, and online promotions should include “tell-a-friend” links for e-mail, Forrester says.
Literacy Workers Strengthen Work in Poor Aspac Countries
Twenty-eight literacy workers from three countries in Asia-Pacific, including the Philippines, met recently in Davao City to strengthen its institutional capabilities to meet the demands of quality education in their areas.
The training and workshop focused on “developing and enhancing the capability of the officers of the LRCs [Literacy Resource Centers] in identifying, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating and sustaining community development projects”, Lim said.
Participants were also given insights on understanding and defining the concept of development communication, social marketing, advocacy and community mobilization and impact on development activities of the LRCs.
“It is also hoped that after the training, participating LRCs will be able to act as more effective resource centers for the organizations and individuals engaged in non-formal education and literacy activities in each country and in Asia-Pacific region,” said Lim.
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Youth Affairs Ministry to Launch Drive Against AIDS
Joining hands with National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and NGOs working on HIV-AIDS, the [Indian] Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports plans to launch a major awareness drive involving about 25,000 youth clubs across the country to create awareness on AIDS prevention.
"We will involve about 25000 youth clubs in this drive. Apart from sensitising people on AIDS prevention, the drive also aims at creating social marketing of condoms which means selling condoms to people at a subsidised rate helping them take advantage of the device," he says.
The social marketing of condoms relate to moving from house to house and convincing people to use condoms for safety from sexually transmitted disease, protection from HIV/AIDS and gaping pregnancy. |
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Creating Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs
In a recent forum joined by the business and education sectors, Jose “Joey” A. Concepcion III, the presidential consultant for entrepreneurship, decried how the educational system remains deficient in terms of developing entrepreneurial graduates. Though business management courses remain as popular as ever, entrepreneurship is still an elective subject in many schools, he said.
Nevertheless, Concepcion is elated that the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has finally approved, after a four-year wait, a college curriculum for a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship degree program. Calling it a “milestone” in the Philippine educational system, he hails the educators and businessmen who crafted the curriculum, saying it would give rise to more young business owners and a stronger culture of enterprise. He’s also batting for greater involvement of the business sector in mentoring students and encouraging more startup ventures.
A serious advocacy seems necessary to get more young people into entrepreneurial careers. Without sufficient social marketing, says University of Makati president and Asian Institute of Management (AIM) professor Tomas Lopez, entrepreneurship might suffer the same fate as vocational education, which still has to shake off the stigma of being a second-rate course.
Rewriting Road Safety
Road safety messages delivered by young drivers for young drivers combined with rewards for good driving were convincing arguments for the two winners of the RTA Slow Down essay competition.
The winners of the $1000 open section, Stephanie Sergeant, and $300 junior section, Tiffany Bloomfield, both in year 10 at James Sheahan High School, produced ideas the local road safety officer hopes to incorporate into future road safety campaigns.
Orange Cabonne [Australia] road safety officer Andrea Hamilton-Vaughan said both entries touched on education techniques which were gaining support in the road safety community. "Social marketing methods have been used more in the last few years but this has been mostly in the health area, not the road safety area.”
"As road safety officers we want to explore ways that make sense to Tiffany's age group," Ms Hamilton-Vaughan said. "Some of the essays have given us the tools - the incentives to get people's cooperation."
Offering incentives in the form of petrol vouchers and licence discounts to young drivers with good driving records, and using other young drivers in advertising, rather than TV stars, and confronting footage of accidents, were recurring themes in the essays.
While both girls said this sort of campaign had its place, a new approach was needed.
"What's missing is positive reinforcement," Stephanie said.
GSMMP Appoints 50 Divisional Reps
At least 50 Kairo ambassadors were recently appointed by The Gambia Social Marketing Management Programme (GSMMP) in North Bank, Upper River and Central River Divisions.
The divisional representatives are charged with the responsibility of selling Kairo pills, condoms and other contraceptives in their divisions. In addition, they are to diffuse information on health, and to make sure that rural-dwellers are accessible to healthcare.
Naco Will Blow Condoms at Midnight
The [Indian] National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) will spend Rs 250 crore on distribution of condoms this year. It will also launch a new concept, social marketing network, to ensure that condoms are available even at midnight.
The Naco, during a random survey, found that condoms are not available during night time as most of the pharmacies down their shutters by 10 pm. This was observed even in places, which fall under high risk category for Aids, like Suryapet.
Consequently, the Naco is mulling a new strategy of installing condom vending machines at all public places.
Get the Message?
It's clear that the straightforward approach to changing Americans' behavior will no longer work. Simply gathering the evidence, donning the white coat, warning the public and recommending a course of action won't cut it.
The U.S. government is now betting on "social marketing," especially as it tackles obesity — a threat to the public's health that can lead to diabetes, heart disease and other serious conditions and that costs the nation an estimated $117 billion annually in healthcare costs.
The fight to stamp out tobacco smoking in the United States has schooled social marketers in the techniques they will need to get Americans off the couch and away from the chips.
Global Challenges | U.S. Funding Cuts for Condoms, Abstinence Promotion 'Hindering' ABC Prevention Programs, Advocates Say, NPR Reports
Some HIV/AIDS advocates are saying that the Bush administration's emphasis on promoting abstinence and fidelity in HIV/AIDS prevention programs and efforts to "de-emphasize" the use of condoms is "hindering" programs adopting the HIV prevention method known as "ABC" -- which stands for abstinence, be faithful and use condoms -- NPR's "All Things Considered" reports…Jodi Jacobson, director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, said that condom procurement, distribution and social marketing have been "shifted and redirected" from the general population to so-called "high-risk populations" and HIV/AIDS prevention programs are sending "inconsistent messages." Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul said the Bush administration supports programs using all three ABC methods, and although financial reports must reflect how much funding went for each component of ABC, "that doesn't mean you don't have a program that covers all of them."
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