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Date: | Tue, 30 Nov 1999 14:26:37 -0600 |
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>"Short Course in Social Marketing." Its about: "the design,
implementation and control of programs aimed at increasing the
acceptability of a social idea or practice in one or more group of target
adopters." In other words, they are talking about creating a demand for an
idea or product concept. They talk about targeting the
>specific group(s) and using psychological profiles(my word)to motivate
them to accept a different social idea or practice.
As someone who works closely with a specific division of Novartis on
programs to improve child health in Mali, I wanted to comment about the
above paragraph posted to LactNet (it was posted in another context).
Social marketing is the selling of an idea or practice, rather than the
selling of a product. It involves using the marketing techniques that
companies use to sell products, but selling ideas instead. As far as I
know, social marketing was developed in the mid-late 1980s in the context
of international health and development. In Mali, they use social
marketing to sell such ideas as:
-- children's health depends on their nutritional status, which in turn
depends on the QUALITY of the food they eat, as well as the quantity
-- pregnant women can prevent or cure Vitamin A deficiency by eating more
of commonly available foods
-- kwashiorkor can be prevented or treated by feeding children relatively
small amounts of commonly available high protein foods
-- putting cow dung on a newborn's umbilical stump is not such a great idea
-- washing your hands with soap and water before eating is a great idea
-- husbands should give their wives extra grain when they are pregnant
(which can then be traded for higher protein foods)
and so on, and so forth. Some of these "ideas" were developed directly
from my research. It is possible in developing world contexts to make huge
strides in infant health by selling ideas, rather than products.
Social marketing can be used for good, and Novartis is doing a lot of great
work in Mali.
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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX 77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html
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