1. Defining the Role of Social Marketing in Your Overall Health Promotion Program

This section will help you define the specific contribution of social marketing activities to your overall health promotion program. It will also clarify how social marketing relates to other program approaches, such as advocacy and community development. As part of this process, you will identify your audiences (who you need to reach) and the changes you seek in order to achieve your health promotion goals.

Social marketing is defined as: "the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society."¹

So, what exactly are you expecting from social marketing?

1.1 What are the overall goals of your health promotion program?

You may find this type of goal in the mission statement, purpose or mandate of your organization or your program.

Example: "To increase the number of children in our community practising bicycle safety and wearing bicycle helmets to contribute to the reduction of ;bicycle-related head injuries".

1.2 Which factors have you identified to explain the current situation? Which factors need to change to improve the situation?

Key factors could include: epidemiological descriptions, policy and environmental issues, lifestyle risks, and any number of other factors.

Example: Number of bicycle-related head injuries, hospital admissions, increase in helmet popularity, number of deaths, and timing for prevention.

1.3 In your overall health promotion program, what approaches (other than social marketing) are you currently using or planning to use to achieve your overall goals?

• Policies
• Community development / mobilization
• Advocacy
• Others approaches(specify):

1.4 Which target audiences should you attempt to influence to meet your objectives and implement your advocacy or community development initiatives?

Target audiences can be internal (employees, board members, committees, and volunteers) or external (population segments, decision-makers, policy-makers, partners, etc.). What do you want your target audiences to know, think, and do (adopt behaviours or policies, make donations or decisions, subscriptions, etc.)? Be specific about what you want them to "do", since it is the most important component when analyzing target audiences.

Example :

Target audience: Community and school authorities
To know: Seriousness of bicycle-related injuries
To do: Provide support to organize bike and helmet inspections.

Target audience: Children in Grades 1 to 4
To think: Accept the use of bicycle helmets
To do: Use bicycle helmets

Examples in this section are adapted with permission from the Barons-Eureka-Warner Helmet Hero Program (Alberta).²

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¹ A.R. Andreasen, Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development and the Environment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).

² Drozdowski, Jennifer. Project Development and Pilot Project Report for the Helmet Hero Program. (Barons-Eureka-Warner Health Unit, Alberta, July 1993).