Social_Marketing

Social Marketing Stop Smoking Campaign Regulated by the Department of Health NHS. The Marketing team of the stop smoking campaign want to focus on what people actually do. The aim here is to understand the behaviour of individuals concerning quitting or not quitting smoking. Another area where the marketers will be focusing is on the decision individuals will make regarding the benefits of quitting or not quitting smoking. The psychology of individuals will require understanding in order to gain research for the prevention of smoking. Eventually, leading the marketers to successful promotional tactics, this will be used to build awareness on the disadvantages of smoking. Market segmentation is the task of achieving a customer focus, before explaining this it is important to understand who will be benefiting and who will be funding it. The government in this case is the non profit organisation sending out the awareness to the general public via means of marketing. Unlike commercial marketing it should be understood the sole beneficiary will be the individual within society and not the campaign. The aim of the campaign is to influence a target audience to “voluntarily abandon a behaviour for the benefit of the individual or groups in society as a whole.” (Kotler et al 2002). To understand what the target audiences or smokers already know believe or do, market research will need carrying out. This will allow social marketers to determine the market segments and what each segments potential needs, wants, beliefs, problems concerns and behaviours are. The marketers will then find the best suitable target market and can establish clear marketing goals and objectives. Segmentation is important as certain groups might find the service appealing and others not so appealing. The diversity of the people’s needs and wants will surely make it difficult for the campaign to maximise its benefits it can offer its customers. Kotler defines market segmentation as “the task of breaking down the total market (Which is typically too large to serve) into segments that share common properties.” Clearly, by achieving segmentation it will be clear to the campaigns that the smokers are and how can they be manipulated. The aim of the NHS is to try and reduce the number of smokers to better the health of individuals. The segmentation will help target the different age groups and help the marketers learn more about the people they are dealing with. Audiences are segmented, helping marketers develop strategies which will be tailored to the unique wants and needs and current behaviours of different market segments. The different types of segmentation are “Demographic, Geographic Behavioural and Psychological.”(Adrian Sargeant 1999) Demographic variables include attributes such as age, gender, income, religion, nationality, education or occupation. These tend to be used in consumer markets since consumer wants, needs and preferences are related to these characteristics. For instance age can be used to identify how long a consumer has been smoking and also determine how much education the person has received before carrying out the habit. It could be argued with the lack of education or understanding the person is not aware of the specific defects of smoking. So in the marketing mix, the marketing team of the campaign can educate the specific group. However, this might not be an easy message to put across to an elderly person who has been smoking for the past thirty year’s with no major defects. Geographic segmentation is the location of the potential consumers, in the case of the NHS stop smoking campaign it is crucial. As it is known every where in the U.K there are hospitals which promote the service making it easier for the consumers to access the support they require. Also marketers can study the different neighbourhoods to analyse the different types of consumer behaviour. If a person came from a suburban area would the service be any different from the individual coming from a council estate area. This information is crucial in the marketing mix when addressing the different types of people. Behavioural Variables, Kotler defines by saying, “dividing buyers on the basis of their knowledge, attitude, use, or response to a product.” If an individual is addicted to a certain brand of cigarette we can see how loyal that person might be to the specific brand of cigarette. Again this information is used to identify how addicted the individual is to the cigarette and how many he or she might consume in any given length of time. This information can help identify the time it would take for the person to withdraw with relevant amounts of nicotine supplements. Finally psychological segmentation is the personality and attitudes of an individual. According to Koponen, purchasing habits appeared to be linked to personality habits. “He found, for example heavy male smokers expressed higher needs for sex, aggression and dominance over their non smoking counterparts.” “from a non profit perspective this could be highly significant since it paints a very clear picture of a segment of customers that might wish to target with an anti smoking campaign,” (Adrian Sargeant 1999). The market segmenting allows the marketer to pinpoint the lifestyles of the target audiences in order to gain information on patterns of behaviour. However, Arian claims, “this may not offer the same utility as the non profit sector.” This is because many of these systems were initially made for the commercial sector of profit making organisations. This does not mean it is irrelevant information as the campaign needs the specific information to systematically work out their target market. To help determine the behaviour of the target audience, in the participation and non participation of reacting to a health issue the use of a “health belief model (HBM),” (rob donovon et al 2003) might be necessary. The model uses a series of factors that could possibly influence an individual’s behaviour change. The individual must see the susceptibility of a disease and the severity of damage that smoking can cause. The individual must see the perceived cost of receiving the treatment to stop smoking and how this could affect their day to day life. This type of model would be a useful for research and for message strategy planning. In the case to help stop smoking it would give the information the marketing team so they could build strap lines which give strength to the images which are against smoking. Other factors which determine the behaviour of individuals is not only physical but also social and psychological. These are factors whereby individuals are motivated to protect themselves. Rogers explains, “protection motivation theory (PMT) was developed originally as a model of fear arousal to explain the motivational effect resulting from threat communications.” PMT describes that individuals undertake two major appraisals when confronted with a threat: the threat appraisal and a coping appraisal. Like the HBM it uses the “perceived severity of the threatened harmful event if it occurs and the likelihood of the threat if the recommended behaviour is not adopted.” (Rob Donovon et al 2003). The individual in another sense, will think about quitting smoking depending on how bad the persons health could get and would think about the problems which will follow if the decides not to quit smoking. The coping threat is the “perceived effectiveness of the promoted behaviour to avoid or reduce the likelihood of the threat and the individuals’ ability to carry out the recommended behaviour.” (Rob Donovon et al 2003). The smoker will determine how effective quitting smoking will be by using the medication and the person will see if they can carry out the medication in order to stop smoking. By understanding the individuals’ habits behaviours and thinking methods marketers could start to put the campaign into action. The target audiences at this stage would be segmented and categorised into groups which will help marketers to specifically target a certain group. Promoting behaviour specifically to a group could help manipulate the thought pattern of the individuals in that segment. For instance smoking causes many symptoms it could break down a person’s health and can result in death. Smoking also causes individuals to lose their breath during exercises or sport. Physical appearance is also affected causing darker eye bags and even wrinkles. Heart disease and lung cancer are common within middle aged smokers which cause fatalities. So the campaign of quitting smoking reaches a diverse audience it is known to affect a wide age group from really young and really old. Promoting the stop smoking campaign within such a wide age range would mean having to target young children, teenagers, adults and the elderly. Promotion involves a mix of advertising, sponsorship, publicity and public relations, free giveaways and personal selling. It will also involve mass media, local media, in store promotions, incentives, internet cross promotions with other organisations such as the cigarette companies themselves (Rob Donovon et al 2003) The stop smoking campaign will distribute their messages across through various channels listed above. This will then target the relevant audience they wish to change in way of behaviour and attitude. There are various ways of addressing the target audience these are categorised by Kotler as “Rational, Emotional, Moral and Nonverbal elements. Rational elements are the focus of delivering straightforward messages and facts to individuals. A typical message would be on an advertisement on television saying to “quit smoking” otherwise “you will die.” This type of advert could be called as a two sided message explaining the benefits and drawbacks of quitting the bad habit. In some cases one sided messages are used to describe a major benefit such as a longer life expectancy neglecting the drawbacks of smoking. The uses of emotional elements are effective when trying to attribute fear, guilt or shame to individuals. Also positive emotion such as humour, love, pride or joy, could be used to motivate behaviour. Stopping smoking adverts may use the element of fear to people by exploiting images of lungs which are dark and affected by the tar in cigarette smoke. The positive image could be shown by having a healthy set of lungs which look bright in colour. Morally correct behaviour is recognised by the people to be good and responsible in society. The right and proper thing to do is directed to the audience making the smoker feel like an outcast in a social context. In a recent advert by the department of health shows a new legislation being implemented. It shows how a smoker can cause harm to others in society by polluting others when smoking in public places. This alienates the smoker making them feel guilty of the third hand smoke they blow out. Finally the use of non-verbal elements relies on visuals, still imagery to target the audience. The stop smoking campaign generated an image of a very ill looking individual which has suffered from the defects of smoking. This type of scare tactic can put a smoker into distress causing the person to try and quit and change the thought of smoking. The stop smoking campaign had used various marketing tools in order to grasp the attention of their target audience. Before they could establish a niche or target market, the market needed segmentation to segregate the various groups of smokers in society. This was achieved by analytically working out the demographic, geographic behavioural and psychological attributes of the diverse market. Furthermore, the HBM and PMT models were used to gain an understanding of the thought patterns of their target audience. Finally, in working out the mentality of their audience the marketers could use the marketing mix to promote their ideas on achieving their goal, of try and to stop smoking. References: • Donovon R, Henley N. (2003) Social Marketing principles and practice. IP Communications Melbourne. • Koponen, A. (1960) ‘Personality Characteristics of Purchasers’, journal of advertising research. • Kotler P, Roberto N, Lee N. (2002) Social Marketing improving the quality of life. Sage Publication. • Rogers R.W, (1975) A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change. Journal of psychology. • Sargeant A. (1999) Marketing Management for Non profit Organisations. Oxford University Press. Bibliography: • Earle, R. (2000) The art of cause marketing. McGraw Hill. • Koponen, A. (1960) ‘Personality Characteristics of Purchasers’, journal of advertising research. • Bertrand M, Mullainathan S, Shafir E. (2006) Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision Making Among the Poor. Journal of Public Policy and Management Vol 25. •