Social Marketing in the 21st Century

Offers applications for a contemporary approach to social and behavioural change through social marketing. This book encourages social marketers to think beyond the "downstream" market of individuals whose behaviour they are trying to influence to include the "upstream" market of individuals whose participation is needed to make changes.

"This is a brilliant explanation of how social marketing can address upstream issues...  As the author points out, too often people think of the downstream applications of social marketing.  This book is the only one in this camp, and it does a very good job of it."
—Mike Basil, University of Lethbridge, Canada  

Most observers and many practitioners see social marketing as a downstream approach to influencing people with "bad behaviors"—smoking, neglecting prenatal care, not recycling. However, this narrow view hugely underestimates social marketing′s real potential. Social marketing is simply about influencing the behavior of target audiences. There are many more target audiences who need to act besides "problem people" if we are to solve major social problems.    

The goal of this cutting edge book is to reposition social marketing so that foundations, government agencies, and various nonprofits will approach social change in a way that reaches both upstream and downstream individuals in society. Author Alan R. Andreasen outlines potential roles, restates fundamental principles, and then suggests how social marketing might be applied to a sample of nontraditional challenges.  

Key Features:

• Emphasizes Broad Social Change: Repositions social marketing as an approach to social change that reaches both upstream and downstream.
• Reviews Social Marketing Concepts and Tools: A number of different strands of scholarship are used to provide an accessible introduction to social marketing including the evolution of social problems, the science of framing, the process of social change, and social marketing history and elements.
• Presents Frameworks for Influencing Behavior: Three simple frameworks are provided that anyone can use whenever there is a situation where one needs to influence another′s behavior— stages of change, the BCOS model and competition.

Social Marketing in the 21st Century is an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Health Promotion, Social Marketing, Social Enterprise, Social Change, Public Health, Social Welfare, and Communications. In addition, it is a valuable resource for social marketing practitioners, public health communicators, nonprofit managers, social workers, and social enterprise programs.