Determining Your Message Products and Identifying Communication Activities

Determining Your Message Products and Identifying Communication Activities

The 4 Ps of Social Marketing

1. Product 2. Place (or distribution) 3. Price 4. Promotion ------#5 – is people! And the 6 th ‘P” is PROOF!

Whether or not you think you are selling a product, you are: Your product is the behaviour change, belief change, attitude or awareness change that you are promoting through your demo project.

Price/Cost includes the actual monetary and non-monetary costs exchanged in the act of purchasing the product. But there also, in social marketing – psychological costs such as embarrassment, withdrawal symptoms, peer pressure, and so forth. Time and opportunity costs are also included as are ‘opportunity costs lost’ (if the product is purchased, what else cannot be bought – or enjoyed, or used).

Exchange Theory is Fundamental Benefits must outweigh the costs if your audience is to change and adopt your product

. PRICE In commercial marketing, the costs are straightforward. In social marketing, they are often hidden or secondary or ‘opportunity costs’ that need to be considered. For example, • I know I shouldn’t dump my waste in the river, but it’s too far to take it to the dumpster. • I know I should stop drinking, but I don’t want to be embarrassed and go to AA

In social marketing – context costs are usually short term and certain, but benefits are often long term and less certain (Weinstein, 1988, cited in Donovan and Henley 2003). The challenge in behaviour change communication is to sell unsure, long-term benefits when the short term costs are often certain, and very high.

Place (or distribution) is the process of making the product available to the consumer – therefore including channels, networks, access factors, availability of transportation, ease of parking, location, etc. This also includes how you ‘position’ your product.

PLACE Think of ‘place’ as how to make sure you get your product where it is available for people to get. This is the ‘making sure its on the shelves’ part of the equation to factor in to your social marketing strategy.

For behaviour change, we need to have our products –and our messages – in the places where our audience is. Where are they? ?

Another important fact – PEOPLE! In behaviour change communication, sometimes the best way to ‘place’ your product is through people – mentors, face to face, communicators. They are often the ‘gate keepers’

The mystery of ‘word of mouth’ advertising… Why is it that some ideas or behaviours or products start epidemics and others don’t? And what can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own? …(Gladwell, 2002: 14).

Promotion is the mix of activities undertaken to create awareness of the product and its benefits and to persuade the consumer to go for it. Promotion includes advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, sponsorship, public relations.

PROMOTION Promoting your ‘product’ will require a variety of tactics and a ‘mix of methods’ including: • Advertising • Sales promotion • Sponsorship • Publicity and public relations • Free merchandising (give aways) • And personal selling

Point of Decision-Making Both effective social marketing and commercial advertising campaigns, try to get to their ‘client/customer’ at that ‘just in time moment’, when the audience is just about to make their mind up or do something.

More about PRODUCT In commercial marketing – the product is in fact a tangible item or service. But in social marketing, the product is a particular BENEFIT. “Although people may buy a quarter-inch drill, what they really want is a quarter inch hole”. Kotler (1988) makes a distinction between: • The core product • The augmented product • And the actual tangible product

The core product is the underlying benefit that the consumer is getting by buying a product or service or by adopting a practice. It’s what people really, really want! What are some examples of these differences? Which is the core product, the augmented product and which is the actual tangible product?

The augmented product involves what Donovan and Henley (2003: 239) call ‘the buyer’s total consumption system’. But really refers to all of the additional services and benefits that supplement the actual product or that are needed to sell the core product. Commercially, this might involve the purchase of insurance, warranties, service agreements, training and so forth. Augmented products can also be incentives.

So augmented products for those just discussed might include: To feel attractive (core product) – we buy cosmetic guides, magazines or also beautician services (augmented products), To lose weight or diet (core product) – we buy health cookbooks, diet magazines, food scales, cooking classes, etc. (augmented products) To prevent HIV/AIDs (core product) – we might buy literature on HIV/AIDS, check anonymous hotlines or websites To get a better career (core product) – we pay tuition, library fees, take extra classes, hire tutors, (bring our lecturers apples and fruit…. ) etc. Well-being and stress reduction – buy a yoga DVD, take a yoga class, get a personal yoga instructor, and so on.

Tangible products to achieve the same core product might be • • • Cosmetics, lipsticks, etc. Prepared diet meals Actual condoms Books, pens, course materials Yoga mats, yoga outfits, mystic music, incense, candles, …

Another Important factor – PRODUCT MIX In promoting social change – you can’t only sell one option – you need a mix of different options for the same ‘core product’. That way people – and different market/audience segments - have a menu choice of complementary products to choose from and that always makes us feel better. They also provide different product choices for different audiences. For example:

An exercise programme might promote the following options: • Ride or walk to work • Take the baby for a stroll • Walk the dog • Play with your kids on the swings in the playground • Walk - instead of taking a cart when golfing • Dance, Dance

Pros and Cons of Different Types of Media

Does media really make a difference?

For example, (Donovan and Henley, 2003: 267) suggest that it is: “unrealistic…to expect that advertising alone will have a significant impact on a man’s violent behaviour, but it can have a substantial influence on encouraging the violent man to seek help…”

Donovan and Henley’s (2003: 268) suggest it is realistic to expect that media will have the most behavioural effect where all or nearly all of the following apply:

• The desired behaviour change requires little time, effort, financial, or psychological effort; • Where social norms are important and favour the desired change; • Where there are clear and substantial benefits to the individual (that outweigh the costs) • Where there are no major environmental inhibitors • Where the individual’s attitudes are neutral or already mildly positive towards change

Think outside the box when choosing media today. Some new media to consider might be: • Multi-media kiosks in malls and transportation centers • Game box (play station, X-Box) • Mobile phone text messages…. • DVDs and CDRoms • Internet cafes • You-tube

We should not forget the importance of including ‘events’ in our strategies: • • Conferences Speaking engagements “Walk-a-thons” Music Festivals Film festivals Dances “Launches” ….

Civic Journalism

Find these persons/shows. By partnering with them, you create a win-win scenario.

Media Mix So, now you’ve gone through all the options with respect to different media choices. You cannot do everything, but need to maximize your options. After (1) correctly identifying your audience and studying their needs, attitudes, practices and beliefs, (2) setting appropriate and realistic objectives, (3) choosing your media mix will be the corner stone of your campaign design.

Messages & Communication Efforts May (Will) Fail if: • We get our ‘purpose’ or objective wrong. We haven’t diagnosed the problem correctly. • We make our message too general. • We aren’t specific about what we want to people to do, or to feel. • We pick the wrong target audience. • We don’t know our audience (their goals, desires, aspirations…) • We get the message wrong.

• We aren’t creative enough in designing our message • We get the channels or networks for communication wrong. • We don’t work within budget. • We don’t pretest and get feedback. • We don’t have the support services in place to help people do the right thing. Or, we aren’t organized to respond.

The good news is, we don’t have to get 100% in everything to have a good campaign!!!!