Sheridan Clemson Geog 456 – Issues in Natural Resource Management Don Alexander

WHAT IS SOCIAL MARKETING? “Social Marketing is the use of marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole.” (Kotler, Lee and Roberto 5)

WHAT SOCIAL MARKETING IS NOT  Communications and Public Education campaigns alone are not social marketing  Unaided these kinds of campaigns are ineffective  Faulty Logic involved: Simply educating and telling people they should change is enough to cause change  This approach fails to adopt a consumer mindset and understand public attitudes and values  It promotes a product the public is not enthusiastic about and spends a lot of time convincing the public of its value

WHAT IS EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MARKETING  Approach that puts great effort to understand consumers’ actions, perceptions and values of a product  Undertakes extensive research - Observing potential consumers, surveying, and creating focus groups  Does not spend all of its resources trying to educate  Becomes educated by its potential customers which helps to create and offer something that is perceived as valuable

THE “FOUR P’s” OF MARKETING (PLUS 0) People (Who is the ‘customer’?) 0. People (Who is the ‘customer’?) Product (What are we ‘selling’?) 1. Product (What are we ‘selling’?) Price (What is the cost?) 2. Price (What is the cost?) Place (Where are we marketing?) 3. Place (Where are we marketing?) Promotion (What channels and tools are we using?) 4. Promotion (What channels and tools are we using?)

CASE EXAMPLE Public Transit Promoting the use of public transit to and from Malaspina University-College

0. PEOPLE (What are the market segments ?) Social Marketing seeks to induce changes in people’s: Values Attitudes Behavior Examples: Refraining from drinking and driving Recycling Taking public transit

MARKET SEGMENTATION Segmentation of People into Target Markets  Mass marketing is ineffective  Marketing must target specific segments (categories) of people

MARKET SEGMENTATION (CON’T) Segmentation by demographics, lifestyle, attitude, geography, etc.  Think of all people involved  Identify appropriate audience – be precise as possible  Each subgroup requires different marketing strategies  Tailor approach to target group Malaspina Transit subgroups Malaspina Transit subgroups:  Students  Faculty  Support staff  Board of Governors  Executive  RDN Transit  City council and planners

GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION Malaspina Transit: Malaspina Transit: City of Nanaimo Nanaimo campus Regional campus communities Downtown or suburban residents? Malaspina Transit: Malaspina Transit: City of Nanaimo Nanaimo campus Regional campus communities Downtown or suburban residents?

DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION Focus: gender, education, income, age, etc. General environmentally friendly behavior: Weak or unclear correlation with gender, education, income and age Demographic are normally poor predictors of actual green behavior Malaspina Transit: Average age of students 27 Majority female Low income (poor students) Highly educated

PSYCHOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION Focus: Class, lifestyle, or personality Malaspina Students  Middle class  Auto-dependent  Hectic Lifestyle  Personality?

WHO, THEN, ARE THE TARGET AUDIENCES? Market Segments What are the Market Segments at Malaspina for promoting Public Transit again? Students and Faculty RDN - Transit

RESEARCHING MARKET SEGMENTS  What audiences should the campaign target?  Subgroups?  Demographic, psychographic, geographic?  Choose what to focus on  Students! – Biggest group performing behavior  Therefore tailor approach to student segment  What do we know about this segment?  Analyze behavior, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs  Analyze perceived benefits, barriers, and costs of behavior

1. PRODUCT (What is the product for this behavior change?) A product comprises of an Actual Product and a Core Product  In a social marketing campaign: Actual Product New Behavior An Actual Product is a New Behavior Stopping smoking Riding bicycles Taking Transit Core Product Benefit to the consumer A Core Product is a Benefit to the consumer of the product in the consumer’s mind Why is the Core Product important? Why is the Core Product important?

LET’S MAKE A DEAL!  For people to give something up, they have to feel they are getting something in return  Also,  Also, people must first feel that they have a genuine problem and that the product offers a beneficial solution

GENUINE PERCEIVED PROBLEMS Malaspina Transit Concerns: Effects on climate change Minimal parking available Pollution Cost of vehicle and upkeep Others? Others?

BARRIERS TO MALASPINA TRANSIT USE  Perceived Consumer Effectiveness – Addresses sense of competency and effectiveness  Feeling alone with the concern – no one else is doing anything  Lack of efficient and speedy transit services  Safety  Time crunch  Hectic schedules  Others?

PRODUCT ENHANCEMENTS What can we do to strengthen the transit behavior product? Highlight attractive features Positive or Negative Advertising Feedback explaining progress (Important for PCE)

2. PRICE (What is the price components of this behavior?)  What does public transit cost the consumer?  Monetary Costs  Bus tickets/U-Pass  Non-Monetary Costs  Time, effort, energy, discomforts, freedom, convenience  Academic Costs  Loss of studying/work time to riding bus Goal: to reduce cost of public transit relative to driving a car

PRICE STRATEGIES TO CONSUMERS What can we do to reduce costs or increase benefits for customers?  Increase parking fees to subsidize bus pass and tickets  Tuition bursary for non-auto-users – Reflecting infrastructure costs of parking  Lobby for government funding for increased transit infrastructure and new buses  Others?

3. PLACE (Where and when consumer contacts this behavior?)  Place is about distribution channels – Where is the behavior available to the target audience  How transit gets to students  Helps to determine where to put systems in place that facilitate adopting the behavior Goal: to make using transit as accessible and convenient as possible

Campus Main Streets Malls More Malls Not Often WHERE AND WHEN IS TRANSIT OFFERED TO STUDENTS?

4. PROMOTION (How to get message to target audience)  Promotions are persuasive communications conveying awareness, knowledge, benefits, and inspiration  Includes advertising, sales, publicity, public relations, endorsements, packaging, etc.  Promotion Strategies involve:  Creating key messages  Selecting Media – What media target watches and where get information Goal: to motivate people to change behavior and to continue the actions

PUBLIC TRANSIT PROMOTION  Information/education tools  Branding/Slogan – “A more human way to travel”  Credibility  Information must be credible to be effective  Source important – What sponsors are credible?  Create public recognition – package behavior as social norm  Example: Recycling  Timely prompts and reminders  Feedback to improve PCE

Craig Lefebvre's Five Keys to Changing Behavior 1. Know and understand the target audience’s perceptions of barriers 2. Focus on changing behavior rather than knowledge or awareness 3. Make the desired behavior more attractive than the current behavior 4. Try to remove the barriers so that the audience can try the new behavior – and sustain it 5. Engage the audience in relevant attention - getting ways to tap into existing motivations and inspiring action

Social Marketing is only one strategy to use for Natural Resource Management To be effective marketing tools should be utilized with other approaches Weaknesses: Can not be expected to solve every type of environmental problem - especially not as effective for complex problems Needs major commitment to follow through research

Works Cited  Bird, Tom. "We Have Ways to Make You Green." Alternatives Journal 34(2008):  Gardner, Gerald, and Paul Stern. Environmental Problems and Human Behavior. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon,  Kotler, Philip, Nancy Lee, and Ned Roberto. Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life. '2nd ed'. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publishing,  McKenzie-Mohr, Doug, and William Smith. Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing. Gabriola Island : New Society Publishers,  Weinreich, Nedra Kline. Hands-On Social Marketing. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1999.