Preface

In the first edition of this book, we adopted the original definition of social marketing as the application of marketing principles and tools to the achievement of socially desirable ends. In our view, while there are clear differences between commercial marketing and social marketing (as there are between marketing fast moving consumer goods to domestic consumers and marketing industrial products to manufacturers), social marketing is simply an area of application of marketing techniques. Hence, this edition remains firmly based on the basic principles of marketing. This grounding reminds public health and other social change agents who have enthusiastically adopted commercial marketing techniques, that marketing – when applied correctly – is more than just a bag of advertising and promotional tools; it is both a philosophy and a set of principles about how to achieve mutually satisfying exchanges between marketers and consumers. Marketing, and therefore social marketing, relies on a comprehensive and fully integrated approach to achieving a campaign or programme’s objectives.

At the same time, the first edition broadened the definition and domain of social marketing by addressing two issues: first, to pre-empt debate about ‘who decides what is socially desirable’, the first edition proposed the UN Charter on Human Rights as the authoritative source for defining what constitutes a socially desirable goal; second, and following the UN Charter, the social in our social marketing emphasises the social determinants of individual and population health and wellbeing. Social marketing not only targets individual behaviour change, but also attempts to ‘go upstream’ and target individuals and groups in legislative bodies, government departments, corporations and non-profit organisations, who have the power to make policy, regulatory and legislative changes that protect and enhance people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life. From this perspective, social marketing attempts to bring about changes in products to reduce harm and enhance wellbeing; changes in places to facilitate adoption of desirable behaviours and inhibit undesirable behaviours; and changes in the political allocation of resources to bring about changes in the social and structural factors that impinge on an individual’s opportunities, capacities and the right to have a healthy and fulfilling life.