Saturday 21 March 2009

Social marketing!



Never ever thought that there is something like 'selling the ideas attitude and behaviour'. Social marketing the brainchild of Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman talks about using marketing principals that were used to sell products to consumers to sell ideas , attitudes and behaviours.According to Kotler and Andreasen, 'social marketing seeks to influence social behaviour not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.'
When I read these lines, it reminded the father of our profession, Edward Bernays.He said,

' The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the ruling power of our country.'

Berney used his idea for his clients in commerce and in politics, and he though his manipulation was for positive reasons ' Berney believed ,' The 'good' is not defined but the implication is that which serves order in society is 'good'.'
Social marketing seemed the newer version of Berneys model to me. Berneys was more focused on making his clients happy using 'white propaganda ' . He had cautioned the manipulative part of propaganda and have talked about ' orderly life'. So isn't social marketing some how similar to Berneys version of propaganda, trying to sell ideas, attitude and behaviours for an orderly life.Is n't it positive manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses to serve them.
Berney lacked his focus on the welfare of the public, though he had talked about the orderly life. He was more focussed on 'creating consent , sometimes for benign purposes'(Rethinking Public Relations, Moloney Kevin 2006), that makes him different from Social marketeers, who try to sell ideas and manipulate people's views for positive outcomes in the society, for example smoking cessation programs, health awareness programs.

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