Social Marketing Downunder Conference 2007
Sustaining Social Marketing

Abstracts and presentations for keynote speakers

Professor Gerard Hastings
Dr Jeff French
Professor Tim Jackson
Panel
Wrap up - Professor Gerard Hastings

 
Professor Gerard Hastings
Abstract

The Devil Went Down to Wellington: The Power of Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis is a vital tool in commercial marketing: it helps a company to respond more effectively to customer needs and gain not just ad hoc, but sustained advantage, thereby driving growth. This is no great revelation when we think of the cut-throat rivalry of Wall Street or the City of London: red in tooth, claw and braces. Perhaps surprisingly, however, competitive thinking can also be applied in social marketing. We can, as with other aspects of behaviour change, learn from commerce in this area as well.

Competition disciplines commercial marketers to raise their game and focus more accurately on customer needs. The fact that, as the airline staff put it, they know we have a choice, does concentrate their minds on matters of customer service. And the choice is not just between airlines, but other forms of transport (the Train de Grand Vitesse may get me from Paris to Marseille more comfortably than the red eye) – or even recreation (a domestic holiday rather than flying to foreign climes) or communication (a video conference rather than a face to face meeting). Similarly the fact that in social marketing we have to compete with attractive alternative behaviours – taking it easy rather than exercising; a calming nicotine fix rather than an arduous quit attempt – puts us on our metal and can provide a useful fillip. This presentation will discuss the insights and techniques that business can provide to help us respond to the challenge.

It will also confront business. An examination of competitive forces compels us to recognise and respond to the fact that there are direct challenges to many social marketing efforts – the alcohol, tobacco and fast food industries offer obvious examples. The same commercial sector, from which so much can be learnt, also, at least in some guises, represents very direct competition to social marketing. We will examine the evidence base that supports this analysis and discuss the implications for social marketing. Is cooperation an option, for example?  And at what point does cooperation end and confrontation begin? When does it become necessary to advocate for - and guide policy makers and the legal system about - suitable sanctions and controls on commercial marketing?

In this way we will move into the field of critical marketing: the debate about the role and values of commercial marketing in a modern democracy. It examines the sort of concerns raised by commentators like Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Joel Bakan, about power, integrity and consumption in a finite world. Because we social marketers understand marketing, and its capacity, if properly used, to do good as well as harm, we are ideally positioned to make a constructive contribution to this debate; to offer solutions as well as find fault. 

Download presentation 15.5 MB pps

 

Dr Jeff French
Abstract
‘Time for the patricians to die’- social marketing as if people were in the driving seat.

This presentation will argue that the time has come for social marketing to move beyond its focus on citizen informed programmes for behaviour change dictated by political and professional elites to  becoming the default approach to  policy and strategy development in the public, private and NGO sectors.
 
The presentation will consider both the political and technocratic drivers that are producing a growing disconnect between the state and citizens. The need to redefine the civic relationship in order that rights, responsibilities and choice in relation to personal behaviour are explicitly considered and resolved in order that the state does not become ‘the enemy of the people’.
 
Myths associated with changing behaviour will be explored as will the need to move beyond the rhetoric of consumer focused policy development and implementation. The paper will make the case that social marketing represents a form of state facilitated intervention that sits more comfortably with modern market democracies and sophisticated citizens than traditional elite dominated approaches to population influence.
 
Social marketing it will be argued is an approach that will help to build empowering states that can add value by encouraging and enabling the co production of health and well being based on deep insight about that will help people as well as on expert opinion and evidence. The need to use social marketing to develop policy, strategy and interventions focused on ‘up stream’, ‘in stream’ and ‘down stream’ determinants of health and well being will be reviewed. The paper will conclude with a look at what this means for government leadership and professional practice and the challenges ahead.

Download presentation 17.8MB pps


Professor Tim Jackson
Abstract
‘I will if you will’ - a few top tips for a sustainable society

Erich Fromm once described the modern consumer as ‘the eternal suckling, crying out for the bottle’. It’s clear that weaning us off our ‘addiction’ to material commodities is no easy task. Yet this is precisely what sustainable development – and in particular the environmental threat posed by climate change – calls on us to achieve. In this talk, Tim Jackson will summarise some of the key lessons emerging from two recent studies in the UK – one a review of conceptual approaches to behaviour change; and the other a Government-sponsored Round Table on sustainable consumption. Tim will explore in particular the complex role played by material commodities, the limits of persuasion as a route to behaviour change, and the vital role of Government as a ‘co-creator’ of the culture of consumption.

Download presentation 8.9MB pps

 

Panel
Prof. Gerard Hastings, Professor of Social Marketing, Stirling and the Open University
Pattrick Smellie, Manager Brand Strategy, Contact Energy
Ian Mathieson, Divisional Manager, Heart Foundation Tick Programme
Ian Sutcliffe, Director of Marketing, McDonalds
Linda Clark (facilitator)
Abstract
Rules of engagement: involving the private sector in social marketing initiatives

In the session we will explore the involvement of the commercial marketing sector in social marketing. This involvement can take the form of partnerships between social marketing agencies (government & NGOs) & the private sector; at other times the commercial sector develops and implements its own strategies independently. The session will help delegates identify the benefits and risks of working (and not working) together to address social and public health problems and how and when this might best be done.

Download Prof. Hastings’s presentation 471.5KB pps

Download Ian Mathieson’s presentation 220.5KB ppt

 

Wrap up - Professor Gerard Hastings

Download slides from Professor Hasting’s closing comments 40KB pps