Doing the right thing provides payoff; Ad firm aims to attract companies to make a difference through social marketing,

Won, Shirley, “Doing the right thing provides payoff; Ad firm aims to attract companies to make a difference through social marketing,” The Globe and Mail, Canada, August 29, 2003.

The concept of social marketing originated in the 1970’s when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman argued that the marketing principles used to sell products to consumers could be used to sell ideas, attitudes and behaviors. This article discusses the potential of selling ideas as opposed to just product. The Enron situation made the public suspicious of the internal activities of big businesses as a whole. Social marketing has traditionally been used by government and non-profit agencies in health and environmental campaigns. Industry observers say this kind of marketing strategy has become more attractive to businesses because of its dual promise of making the world a better place to live, as well as improving the bottom line. Businesses look to this type of campaign to get “increased sales, an enhanced corporate image, strong brand equity, better employee relations and improved consumer and stockholder relations. The ultimate goal of social marketing is behavior change.

Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change

Kotler, Philip, and Gerald Zaltman. "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change." Journal of Marketing 35, no. 3 (July 1971): 3-12.

Kotler and Zaltman argue that, “the application of the logic of marketing to social goals is a natural development and on the whole a promising one”. These two gentlemen were ahead of their time with the publishing of this article because as I read through it today virtually all of it is still applicable in modern situations. They go on to say, “it is the explicit use of marketing skills to help translate present social action efforts into more effectively designed and communicated programs that elicit desired audience responses”. The findings of this article were that even a well-designed campaign can fail in accomplishing the desired social objectives, yet it does provide a bridging mechanism between environmental scientists and the consumers. It also states that the costs of the campaign may not be worth it. I think that with the advent of email and other forms of mass communication the costs in the present day will be minimal as compared, as will time spent on it, with the possible long term results.