Evidence based intervention has become the touchstone phrase for social marketing, public health and policy development in Australia in the recent years. The recent release of the Australia: The healthiest country by 2020 report by National Preventative Health Taskforce is based on delivering an evidence based social change platform through education, legislation and social marketing interventions. Whilst the increasing political centrality of the major political parties is suggesting “evidence based intervention” sits as a politically neutral position in pursuit of a common “social good”, the experience of the New Zealand social marketers suggests that a change of government can quickly change what constitutes the “evidence” in an “evidence based intervention”.

The presentation discusses how social marketing as theory, academia and practice sits within the broader social change agenda in Australia. Based on data collected through personal interviews with Australian social marketers, outcomes of the International Non Profit and Social Marketing conference, and from observations of events unfolding in the application of social marketing in the political, government and non-profit spheres, this paper outlines the areas for future debate and research in the application of commercial marketing theory in social change.

Slideshare of the presentation available on the day.

Social marketing academics and practitioners need to get into the habit of defending the spend on social marketing interventions as a matter of routine behaviour.  In the UK, the crisis is on the expenditure of £30 million pounds on a social marketing campaign.  £30 million sounds like a lot of money, until you start doing breakdowns and explanations.  Then when you realise how little that amount means when you’re looking at what it’s being asked to do, and you’re looking at the size of the market it’s supposed to address (at which point, the average journalist should start sensing a story about government underfunding of vital services if you’re doing the job really well, because, well, look at the figures), you start to realise how small the investment actually is against the desired outcomes (it’s never helped by the fact social marketers keep succeeding on ill-funded campaigns. Improbably high ROI just encourages less spending next time).

Here’s how to explain £30 million in other terms.

• The British population is just a shade under 61 million people.  Spending 30 million is fifty pence per head of population.  Once.
  • One off spent of less than a copy of The Telegraph per person in the UK.
  • Once.
  • For three years of work.
  • You can’t get a packet of crisps for 50p
• Sports Analogies
  • 3/4 of a good English football captain for that price.
  • Roughly a single year of team salaries in the UK Rugby union Guinness Premiership. Teams there have a £2.25 million salary cap per team for 12 teams.
• Looking at the actual figures, for £30 million, you get three years of operation
  • £10 million pounds a year pays for 64 operations
  • 64 operational areas operating at £156,250 per unit per year.
  • Spending £156,250 per region, per year on intervention to reduce long term drains on health funds through postponed death, general illness reduction, and the cost of lost labour during epidemics is socially profitable use of government funds.

There’s also the cost of inaction versus the cost of action. Death has a buy-in rate, and a series of calculated prices based on age, earnings over time and other formula.   Break those out to show the cost of non-investment.

• Investment against Death: Using some research from Massey and Ackerman (2003) I managed to source a cost per life (aka cost of death) calculation from 2003 that puts a financial value on the loss of  human life at USD$780,000 which translates roughly to £475,000 (+/- 5% for market fluctuation) for the cost of a premature death based on the foregone future earnings of a child who dies from asthma or cancer.
  • Save 63 children from premature asthma death, and you break even.  64 or more lives is profit.
  • 64 lives over 3 years amongst 64 agencies.
  • One less death per region every three years and the program’s recovering its own costs in lifetime yield.

Of course, never forget the “Think of the children” defence. Sure, it’s a rogue’s solution to the problem, but every now and then, it’s good to go rogue.

• The less reasonable approach is to point out that £156250 is an investment in improving the life expectancy of English children, so why does the British media oppose measures to prevent children from health problems?
  • Why do The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Star support the premature deaths of children? Do they want children to die of preventable death and suffer from preventable disease? I ask you Minister, when did our media turn against this great nation and the future of our children?^[2]

Currently, when challenged on expenditure, the usual reaction is to announce sweeping cuts to the budget that are stealth introduced by project overruns, and other accounting tricks.  That’s not the optimum solution, and it’s not a way to treat the general public. When challenged on the budgets, step up and defend the spend to the aggressor party. Talk to them, talk with them, and explain the alternatives, and ask them if they had the choice, would they choose differently?

And if they would, get them to explain and defend their spend to you. It’ll change how they see the world when they’re trying explain why spending £475,000 to save £156,250 is a sensible idea.

Reference

Massey R, and Ackerman, F (2003) Cost of preventable childhood illness: the price we pay for pollution, GDAE Working Paper No. 03-09.

Footnote

^[1] No disrespect to our colleagues in the MSM. Remember, everyone loves the cookies but few people stop to remember the work of the cookie cutter.

^[2] If in doubt, fall back on the children. It’s what the moral crusaders do all the time, and it really annoys them when they’re facing their own arguments.  Name one newspaper editor who’s made a stock in trade of shout “Won’t somebody think of the adults?”.

The NHS North West’s drive to improve the health of the region’s population through a sustained social marketing campaign is seemingly coming under attack from numerous London-based newspapers – newspapers that seem to have misinterpreted what social marketing actually means.

Two things leap out of the How-do article. First, it’s great to see that site (and the  article) understand what social marketing means, even if the first few commentators completely miss the point. Social media marketing is not social marketing.  This is where the NHS and the National Social Marketing Centre need to put some time, people and money into bringing the journalists, editors and sub editors into the loop as to what we do (offer behaviour options), how we do it (marketing techniques) and why we’re doing it (free choice, democratic principles, cost-benefit,  ROI).

Social marketing is a new technique to the world of government, newspapers, journalists and the general public.  As one of society’s teams of change agents, we’ve got a responsibility to explain ourselves to our critics, and to do it without making them feel stupid for not understanding in the first place.  This is a role that I see the Global Social Marketing Network being able to perform in many different circumstances – particularly if we adopt a common front of engaging the critics in public debate and private 1 to 1 meetings where we give them the chance to ask questions, get answers, and we take the opportunity to hear out their criticisms, concerns and fears. We need to talk with our critics, understand them, and see if there’s a common ground, a fair point, or a misunderstanding that’s dividing where we stand (pro-social marketing) and where they stand (anti-social marketing).

I’d also like to draw attention to Comment#5 on the article.

….The one thing more annoying than being pounded with advertising telling me what to think (and tries to ‘change my behavioural patterns – a stunningly Orwellian phrase if ever I heard one) is being pounded with adverts from health fascists that I’m paying for.

FWIW, I agree with Comment #5 – I can’t stand the health fascists either.  Hello, I’m caffeine addicted, obese  (thanks for the constant reminder WiiSports) male with a propensity for fast food (Thanks Nandos).  Can’t stand the people who want to ban their way to social compliance rather than work with the audience for social change (Just say no to people who cheat to win by bringing in laws when they can’t win clean in the marketplace).

Because I don’t like the health fascist model, I’m an advocate for social marketing, and for doing social marketing properly.

When done properly without cheating, social marketing provides a free market approach to social change.  Simply put, we’re going to outbid the (negative) behaviour by putting a better offer on the table, nightstand, drive through window or bar.  That’s how we do it in marketing – market research, product development, and blindsiding the competitor with a better offer at a better price in a more convenient format.  Just like Coke, Pepsi, Microsoft or any of the other commercial marketing players.

We’ll see your best offer  in the marketplace, and we’ll make a counter offer to beat that so you’ll prefer our option over the other choice.  Safe sex is a question of confidence the morning after, feeling good about feeling safe, and feeling certainty rather than lingering doubt.  Health food needs to be able to sell on the flavour (raw and the cooked), effectiveness (snack pack without the waste), efficiency (easy to eat, ready to access) to make a decent counter offer to the drive through McDonalds burger.   Until there’s a drive through F&V window, and McDonald’s production values of fast, cheap and accessible, healthy isn’t making an offer than equals or betters the competition.

Social marketing and social marketers have to win clean in the marketplace, play straight up against our rivals, and take the social momentum from them with better options, better products, more choice and better outcomes.  After all, that’s how we do it, capitalism style to create the problem, and that’s how we need to do it, capitalism style, to solve the problem.

^{Of course, this only works when you want change rather than compliance.  That’s another story though.}

I have to admit to still being somewhere between Cloud 9 and a state of shock over the sheer intensity of the conference, and my successes at the Conference. 

The Good

First and foremost, a massive thank you to TCP and to the National Social Marketing Centre for the event.  I had the honour of working in with the two teams by running the WSMC twitter account.  I owe a massive debt of thanks to Patrick Ladbury at the NSMC for letting me set up and run the WSMC twitter account.  Thank you.  It’s a tribute to you and the Centre that I was able to come into the picture at the last moment and just slot into the framework.

The Brilliant

Philip Kotler.  This man is one of the most seriously impressive people I’ve had the honour to meet, and to hear him talk about social marketing in person is an amazing privilege. This man is a living legend in the marketing business, and a genuine icon of the commercial marketing sector.  He was there at the opening of the conference, and was present and participating throughout the entire process. I know many key note speakers fly in, speak, and fly out.  He was there in the sessions, listening, learning and observing the progress of the discipline he helped build from a great idea to powerful social force.

Plus…

Kotler, P, Dann, S and Dann, S (2008) Social Marketing Conference Photo, World Social Marketing Championships, Brighton

I have a signed copy of the Kotler and Lee (2008) Social Marketing text, and I was lucky (and bold) enough to be photographed with Kotler, and have my photo taken with Nancy Lee (my social marketing icon).

Lee, N and Dann, S (2008) Social Marketing World Championship Dinner, Brighton

The Downright Astonishing

I was named as one of the 18 senior social marketing figures.  The conference held a lunch time breakout session to have “Lunch with senior social marketeers”.  The list of names of the Social Marketing “Team of the Century” (as I’ve taken to calling it)

• Clarence Room – Philip Kotler & Nancy Lee
• Sandringham Room – Bill Smith & Seynabou Mbengue
• Osborne – Rob Donovan & Tane Cassidy
• Lancaster Room – Gerard Hastings & Alan Andreasen
• Edinburgh Room – Francois Lagarde & Jeff French
• Ambassador Room – Sue Peattie & Doug McKenzie Mohr
• Library – Craig Lefebvre & Katherine Lyon Daniel
• Surrey Room – Stephen Dann & Ray Lowry
• Gloucester Room – Sameer Deshpande & Juan Manuel Urrutia

I am honoured and humbled to be in the same line up as these icons of the business.  I was affectionately referring to the conference as the World Championships of Social Marketing, and I think I can comfortably say I walked out of the event with a title belt and a baggy green cap as part of the World Championship squad.

The Future

This conference involved me staking a major bet on the production of a new definition of social marketing which paid serious dividends.  The full paper based on the conference presentation has provisionally been accepted into the Journal of Business Research with no changes.  There’s interest in the methodology used in the paper from another journal.  People were literally screencapping the definition with digital cameras. This was the biggest event of my career, and one of the most amazing days of my life to stand before peers, icons and idols, and put a legitimate claim on defining the meaning of social marketing.

There’s much more to recap and write up from the event for the next few days. For now, I’ll just settle with being extremely honoured and humbled to be part of an amazing event.

Social marketing is the mission impossible team – getting voluntary adoption of competitive alternatives to hedonism in the name of uncertain future benefit.

We do it. We do it well, and we do it with marketing. That’s why we’re social marketers.

Social media marketing is the use of social networks, Web2.0, social media and networked word of mouth for marketing purposes.
For a good head to head between the two terms, see Nedra Weinreich‘s post on social marketing covers the dual terms quite comprehensively.

Community engagement is the cornerstone of the successful approaches profiled from audience generated media such as the Transport Accident Commission’s “Make a film, Make a difference” campaign through to the novel approach to message channels used by the NSW Food Authority’s AU$60K campaign for “Health Fish Message”. NSW Health reaching out to pregnant women through the networks of fishmongers and retail outlets to provide key information at the point of purchase (and most valuable decision making moment). The Child Support Agency’s shift from payment enforcer to support mechanism for the separated parent was perhaps the biggest shift from seeing the client as a problem to be solved to engaging the end user as part of the process.

Evidence based policy has also provided a supportive framework with market research driven interventions and community engagement increasingly enabling the government to place limited resources into more effective campaigns. Post-intervention evaluations have become a cornerstone of the Australian approach – none better than the NSW Health “Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Children” campaign which tracked significant increases in the desired behaviour, and found areas for future inventions from formal market research and real world data (eg calls to helplines).

Ultimately, if any lesson needs to be learnt by the government social marketer, it’s simple self confidence. Many presenters peppered their speeches with remarks of how they could do better, or needed greater market share or weren’t as innovative as their commercial peers, whilst at the same time explaining how they were using cutting edge internet campaigns, bleeding edge technology and novel marketing solutions to reach and persuade resistant audiences. As the commercial marketer, my speech became more of a pep rally as the core lesson to learn from commercial marketing. In my view, the need step of commercial marketing thinking to add to social marketing is realistic targets, longer term goals and a big dose of self confidence. After all, commercial marketing calls 40% a success, 80% the iPod, and 90% a good time to seek a break up of the market monopoly.

Step 2 Forget “health” as a benefit.
Nobody cares about health. You don’t buy a box of unhealthy at the drive-thru – you buy convenience, flavour and instant gratification. Appeal to those options before you appeal to the generic “health” option.

Step 3 Make an offer. Then get ready to start the negotiations.
Put the offer on the table and see what the market thinks. Remember, this is a negotiation process – this is the deal making, haggling and bargaining. If their offer won’t achieve your goals, it’s not that much use. But if your offer isn’t accepted by the market, you’re not getting closer to the goal anyway. Compromise where it helps, hold the line where it doesn’t and strike a deal. You can always make another later offer .

Step 4: Don’t cheat
Don’t cheat. If the market doesn’t like your offer, go back and make a better deal. Don’t force change with law if you’re not making headway by making deals. It’s cheating, and the market feels cheated. You’re saying that “if you won’t play nicely, we’ll force you to play”. If you must, just take your bat and ball and go home. Otherwise, go back to step 1, and start the process again to find a better offer for them.

Step 5. See it through for the long term
Social change campaigns take time, effort and a willingness to get things wrong along the way. Commercial marketers do not have immediate, automatic and market dominating success any more than social change campaigns ever do. Take a lesson from Apple. It took seventeen years, hundreds of different offers and a totally unrelated product to their computer line up to create the iPod success. So take an iPod social change approach – look for success after refining the offer again and again until you strike a sweet spot with the consumer with the right deal.

After all, you want them to do something for you, the least you can do is give them something they want in return.