social marketing social marketing social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on influencing behavior with the primary goal of achieving "common good." it utilizes the elements of commercial marketing and applies them to social concepts. however, to see social marketing as only the use of standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals is an oversimplified view. social marketing has existed for some time, but has only started becoming a common term in recent decades. it was originally done using newspapers and billboards and has adapted to the modern world in many of the same ways commercial marketing has. the most common use of social marketing in today's society is through social media. marketing marketing marketing management key concepts distribution pricing retail service activation brand licensing brand management co-creation consumer behaviour consumer culture dominance effectiveness ethics promotion segmentation strategy account-based marketing digital marketing product marketing social marketing influencer marketing attribution annoyance factor horizontal integration vertical integration promotional content advertising branding corporate anniversary direct marketing loyalty marketing mobile marketing on-hold messaging personal selling premiums prizes product placement propaganda publicity sales promotion sex in advertising underwriting spot promotional media behavioral targeting brand ambassador display advertising drip marketing in-game advertising mobile advertising native advertising new media online advertising out-of-home advertising point of sale product demonstration promotional merchandise promotional representative visual merchandising web banner word-of-mouth research market research marketing research mystery shopping consumer research traditional commercial marketing aims are primarily financial, though they can have positive social effects as well. in the context of public health, social marketing would promote general health, raise awareness and induce changes in behavior. social marketing is described as having "two parents." the "social parent" uses social science and social policy approaches. the "marketing parent" uses commercial and public sector marketing approaches. social marketing has started to encompass a broader range of focus in recent years and now goes beyond influencing individual behavior. it promotes socio-cultural and structural change relevant to social issues. consequently, social marketing scholars are beginning to advocate for a broader definition of social marketing: "social marketing is the application of marketing principles to enable individual and collective ideas and actions in the pursuit of effective, efficient, equitable, fair and sustained social transformation". the new emphasis gives equal weight to the effects (efficiency and effectiveness) and the process (equity, fairness and sustainability) of social marketing programs. together with a new social marketing definition that focuses on social transformation, there is also an argument that "a systems approach is needed if social marketing is to address the increasingly complex and dynamic social issues facing contemporary societies" applications the first documented evidence of the deliberate use of marketing to address a social issue comes from a 1963 reproductive health program led by k. t. chandy at the indian institute of management in calcutta, india. k.t. chandy and colleagues proposed, and subsequently implemented, a national family planning program with high quality, government brand condoms distributed and sold throughout the country at low cost. the program included an integrated consumer marketing campaign run with active point of sale promotion. retailers were trained to sell the product aggressively, and a new organization was created to implement the program. in developing countries, the use of social marketing expanded to hiv prevention, control of childhood diarrhea (through the use of oral re-hydration therapies), malaria control and treatment, point-of-use water treatment, on-site sanitation methods and the provision of basic health services. health promotion campaigns began applying social marketing in practice in the 1980s. in the united states, the national high blood pressure education program and the community heart disease prevention studies in pawtucket, rhode island and at stanford university demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach to address population-based risk factor behaviour change. notable early developments also took place in australia. these included the victoria cancer council developing its anti-tobacco campaign "quit" (1988) and "sunsmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer which had the slogan "slip! slop! slap!" since the 1980s, the field has rapidly expanded around the world to include active living communities, disaster preparedness and response, ecosystem and species conservation, environmental issues, development of volunteer or indigenous workforces, financial literacy, global threats of antibiotic resistance, government corruption, improving the quality of health care, injury prevention, landowner education, marine conservation and ocean sustainability, patient-centered health care, reducing health disparities, sustainable consumption, transportation demand management, water treatment and sanitation systems and youth gambling problems, among other social needs (see). the impact of such social marketing campaigns are not always well documented. one study found that health awareness days can potentially raise knowledge about the causes of public health problems and promote an environment that supports policy changes, but noted that the accuracy of information shared is critical. on the other hand, there is some evidence to show that species awareness days meant to increase biodiversity and conservation awareness can lead to an increase in awareness through internet search for information, and an increase in conservation fund-raising by charities and advocacy groups. on a wider front, by 2007, government in the united kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health. in 2010, the us national health objectives included increasing the number of state health departments that report using social marketing in health promotion and disease prevention programs and increasing the number of schools of public health that offer courses and workforce development activities in social marketing. two other public health applications include the cdc's cdcynergy training and software application and smart (social marketing and assessment response tool) in the u.s. social marketing theory and practice has been progressed in several countries such as the us, canada, australia, new zealand and the uk, and in the latter a number of key government policy papers have adopted a strategic social marketing approach. publications such as "choosing health" in 2004, "it's our health!" in 2006 and "health challenge england" in 2006, represent steps to achieve a strategic and operational use of social marketing. in india, aids controlling programs are largely using social marketing and social workers are largely working for it. most of the social workers are professionally trained for this task. a variation of social marketing has emerged as a systematic way to foster more sustainable behavior. referred to as community-based social marketing (cbsm) by canadian environmental psychologist doug mckenzie-mohr, cbsm strives to change the behavior of communities to reduce their impact on the environment. realizing that simply providing information is usually not sufficient to initiate behavior change, cbsm uses tools and findings from social psychology to discover the perceived barriers to behavior change and ways of overcoming these barriers. among the tools and techniques used by cbsm are focus groups and surveys (to discover barriers) and commitments, prompts, social norms, social diffusion, feedback and incentives (to change behavior). the tools of cbsm have been used to foster sustainable behavior in many areas, including energy conservation, environmental regulation, recycling and litter cleanup in recent years, the concept of strategic social marketing has emerged, which identifies that social change requires action at the individual, community, socio-cultural, political and environmental level, and that social marketing can and should influence policy, strategy and operational tactics to achieve pro-social outcomes. other social marketing can be aimed at products deemed, at least by proponents, as socially unacceptable. one of the most notable is people for the ethical treatment of animals (peta) which for many years has waged social marketing campaigns against the use of natural fur products. the campaigns' efficacy has been subject to dispute.