In the great yin and yang of changing public consumption and behavior, social marketing often plays the role of “demarketing” the success of commercial marketing programs.
I tip my hat to Craig Lefevre for coining and defining the phrase in his article featuring the New York City Health campaign to discourage the consumption of pop.
Most marketing is asking us to DO SOMETHING: buy this product, use this service, visit our national parks, wear our seatbelts, climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, etc.
In contrast, demarketing campaigns are asking us NOT to do something we already do: do not smoke, do not ignore domestic violence, do not litter, and in the case of the NYC campaign, do not consume sugary drinks. It strikes me that these demarketing campaigns are generally the purview of social marketing campaigns, as a way to deprogram the audience out of behaviors that the traditional marketing world has programmed us to do.
I do not endeavor to explicitly pit social causes against commercial interests, but it is alarming to think of the number of social marketing campaigns where the goal is to undo a behavior that has been taught to us by commercial marketing powers of yesteryear (or perhaps…yesterdecade).
Take smoking. This is a behavior that had to be propagated by the tobacco companies, although admittedly, the addictive nature of nicotine sure helped the retention rates! Anti-smoking campaigns work to undo the addiction with messages rooted in improved health, better social behaviors, and…well….threats of cancer and death. (clearly, social marketing to address addictions requires the big guns of guilt and fear.)
Obesity? Same thing, in essence. I believe that the alarming rates of obesity in North America can be attributed to poor diet and lack of exercise. Diet is now a function of food producer
marketing (see photo that says it all) and the promotion of machines that keep us from exercising (cars, elevators, golf carts, ATV’s, etc). Campaigns to decrease obesity tend to target individual behavior that has become entrenched after years of marketing of products and behaviors that make us fat; these campaigns rarely target the products, they target the consumer.
As an aside, folks like Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore are targeting the corporations and institutions that have built our demand for things that are bad for us, but this is vigilante marketing, in many ways, and doesn’t represent the typical social marketing messages or methodology.
What about recycling? Again, the campaigns promoting consumer recycling are, in effect, trying to undo our own reliance on the convenience of plastic, glass, paper and other packaging materials. The packaging is, in large measure, the vehicle for product marketing, and is designed not only to carry its contents, but also to increase point of sale advertising, impulse purchasing, and ensure that the consumer can “advertise” their affiliation to that brand or product. If this were not the case, then every container would simply be labeled “beans” or “milk” or “salad dressing” without any artwork, color or logos.
I like to think of myself as a demarketer. I build campaigns with organizations who are trying to improve the social fabric, and in many cases this means addressing the accepted social mores, battling learned behaviors and beliefs, and generating incentives for individuals to work in the public interest.
In many cases, that means we need to undo what others have helped us to do.
I tip my hat to Craig Lefevre for coining and defining the phrase in his article featuring the New York City Health campaign to discourage the consumption of pop.
Most marketing is asking us to DO SOMETHING: buy this product, use this service, visit our national parks, wear our seatbelts, climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, etc.
In contrast, demarketing campaigns are asking us NOT to do something we already do: do not smoke, do not ignore domestic violence, do not litter, and in the case of the NYC campaign, do not consume sugary drinks. It strikes me that these demarketing campaigns are generally the purview of social marketing campaigns, as a way to deprogram the audience out of behaviors that the traditional marketing world has programmed us to do.
I do not endeavor to explicitly pit social causes against commercial interests, but it is alarming to think of the number of social marketing campaigns where the goal is to undo a behavior that has been taught to us by commercial marketing powers of yesteryear (or perhaps…yesterdecade).
Take smoking. This is a behavior that had to be propagated by the tobacco companies, although admittedly, the addictive nature of nicotine sure helped the retention rates! Anti-smoking campaigns work to undo the addiction with messages rooted in improved health, better social behaviors, and…well….threats of cancer and death. (clearly, social marketing to address addictions requires the big guns of guilt and fear.)
Obesity? Same thing, in essence. I believe that the alarming rates of obesity in North America can be attributed to poor diet and lack of exercise. Diet is now a function of food producer
marketing (see photo that says it all) and the promotion of machines that keep us from exercising (cars, elevators, golf carts, ATV’s, etc). Campaigns to decrease obesity tend to target individual behavior that has become entrenched after years of marketing of products and behaviors that make us fat; these campaigns rarely target the products, they target the consumer.As an aside, folks like Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore are targeting the corporations and institutions that have built our demand for things that are bad for us, but this is vigilante marketing, in many ways, and doesn’t represent the typical social marketing messages or methodology.
What about recycling? Again, the campaigns promoting consumer recycling are, in effect, trying to undo our own reliance on the convenience of plastic, glass, paper and other packaging materials. The packaging is, in large measure, the vehicle for product marketing, and is designed not only to carry its contents, but also to increase point of sale advertising, impulse purchasing, and ensure that the consumer can “advertise” their affiliation to that brand or product. If this were not the case, then every container would simply be labeled “beans” or “milk” or “salad dressing” without any artwork, color or logos.
I like to think of myself as a demarketer. I build campaigns with organizations who are trying to improve the social fabric, and in many cases this means addressing the accepted social mores, battling learned behaviors and beliefs, and generating incentives for individuals to work in the public interest.
In many cases, that means we need to undo what others have helped us to do.
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