Thinking

Social Marketing

Social marketing requires a different approach
Social marketing requires a very particular form of campaigning. Whereas commercial marketing campaigns seek to offer individuals immediate personal gratification, a social change campaign often offers no obvious personal gratification to the individual. The first challenge, therefore, is to determine the motivational factors required for an individual to behave in the desired way and to redefine ‘gratification’ as a less tangible, social impetus.

Our approach to any social or cultural change campaign is to:
  • Ensure we have a full understanding of current attitudes and the relationship between those attitudes and relevant behaviours
  • Understand the environmental, social and cultural context in which those attitudes exist
  • Identify the attitudinal and behavioural barriers to achieving the objectives
  • Define the key personal and social benefits
  • Use those barriers and benefits to devise a messaging framework and campaign approach that delivers maximum engagement
  • Employ strong and clear direct response techniques to ensure tangible campaign tracking is possible
  • Identify support activities and/or information shortfalls to allow individuals to make more informed decisions and encourage them to take action
We recognise that any campaign which aims to overcome relatively engrained perceptions and behaviours must find the right tone of voice with which to address its audience. It is essential to engage with the audience in a way which builds trust, and which feels familiar; which demystifies the issue; provides clear solutions, not just challenges; engages with different personalities, ages and backgrounds; and which inspires behavioural change, not just a change in attitude. This is not an easy task, but given our experience and significant expertise, we are able to consistently deliver solutions which tick every box.

If you have a social challenge or objective, get in touch and we’ll explore it together.
 
If you would like to get to know us better and discuss how we help you achieve your social objectives, call us on 029 2035 3940 or email anna@stillsdesign.com.