The week in review

Social marketing’s key strength is that it is a respectful practice. World leading social marketers centre people at the heart of everything they do.

This week we explored how marketing can be used together with other behavioural change approaches to deliver social change.

You have:

• been introduced to many of the common tools and techniques that are used by marketers
• learned that marketing is evidence based, stakeholder oriented and that marketers operate with a deep understanding of the setting they work within

Marketers start by getting a deep understanding and they ensure they know the bigger picture. From there they make sure that every decision taken, matches the needs and wants of the people they are trying to change.

Social marketers acknowledge that people at the heart of the problem reflect the wider system they live in. Without understanding the bigger picture, actions taken can do more harm than good.

Wherever budgets and mindsets allow, social marketers will work on more than one influence, ensuring that a broad range of strategies are applied at the same time, to mitigate the problem.

We know that a sole focus, on points that are easy to change, fails to address multiple levels of influence. By targeting only the people at the heart of the problem blame can be centered on these people making them feel bad. A focus on one group creates further divide in our community and this should be avoided at all costs.

We have to acknowledge our shared responsibility and there are many tools and techniques that can be used to do this.

It’s been great working with you this week and I look forward to hearing more from you next week.

Your task

Take a moment to think about what was most surprising to you this week?

Please share your thoughts using the comments link.