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IMC and Social Marketing
IMC and Social Marketing
www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-6763.htm
JSOCM
5,3
Integrated marketing
communications and social
marketing
226 Together for the common good?
Received 17 July 2012 Stephan Dahl
Revised 24 November 2014
Accepted 11 May 2015 Hull University Business School, University of Hull, Hull, UK, and
Lynne Eagle and David Low
School of Business, James Cook University, Townsville,
Queensland, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the view of integrated marketing communications
(IMC) by social marketing practitioners. Specifically, the paper furthers the discussion how a symbiotic
relationship between IMC and social marketing can lead to both practical improvements of
health-related social marketing campaigns, as well as theoretical advancement of the IMC construct.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with practitioners,
the authors provide exploratory evidence for support for IMC within the social marketing community
and highlight potential differences and similarities when transferring IMC from a commercial to a social
context.
Findings – Three main differences emerged when transferring IMC from a commercial to a social
context. These include differences of customer-centric approaches between commercial and social
marketing, the need to weigh out the application of IMC to the charity brand or the use of IMC at a
behavioural level and, finally, different complexity levels of desired behaviour as a mediating factor.
Research limitations/implications – As with all qualitative data, the findings may not be
generalisable beyond the interview participants and organisations studied.
Practical implications – Many practitioners expressed that they liked IMC as a concept, but they
lacked guidance as to the application with a social marketing context. This paper contributes to
providing this guidance and establishing a body of knowledge how IMC can be applied in a
non-commercial setting.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the practical development of guidance how the largely
commercially applied IMC construct can be modified to be used in a social marketing context, while
correspondingly highlighting how IMC needs to evolve to grow beyond purely commercial application.
Keywords Charities, Social marketing, Integrated marketing communications, Practitioners’ view,
Evolve, Commercial application
Paper type Viewpoint
Social marketing
Social marketing has come into focus because of recognition that many expert-led
information and education-based campaigns aimed at changing behaviour in relation to
health and well-being challenges, such as smoking, obesity, binge drinking and
domestic violence, were ineffective; the knowledge-behaviour gap is well-documented in
the literature (Moraes et al., 2012). The need for more effective social marketing
interventions is evident: in England alone, the cost of preventable illness was estimated
in 2006 as in excess of £187 billion (US$298 million) or some 19 per cent of total gross
domestic product (National Social Marketing Centre, 2006).
Using social marketing has proven to be successful in achieving sustained behaviour
change in a diverse range of health-related behaviours: including smoking cessation
(Fishbein and Cappella, 2006), safe sex (DeJong et al., 2001), responsible drinking
(Goldberg et al., 2006) and immunisation (Opel et al., 2009).
However, although many social marketing campaigns have been successful, the
overall need for social marketing approaches to improve both the efficiency and
Figure 1.
The original IMC
model
effectiveness of achieving desired outcomes has been a focus of academic and Social
practitioner debate since the late 1990s. marketing
Results
Familiarity with IMC
All respondents expressed some familiarity with IMC as a concept, and all six
respondents linked IMC to message consistency across media channels. Five
respondents mentioned branding or brand as a central concept related to IMC. Likewise,
five respondents named customers as important actors in IMC, but only two
respondents mentioned internal stakeholders without prompting. This result suggests
relatively high familiarity with the basic concept of IMC, although mostly
conceptualised at the customer involvement and marketing levels, i.e. consistent with
the first two levels of the Schultz and Kitchen model. The emphasis on media
integration, branding and customer involvement expressed by the social marketers is
not similar to results obtained by Laurie and Mortimer (2011), who evaluated
commercial marketing communication practitioners’ views on IMC. Four respondents
indicated the topicality and contemporaneousness of IMC, although mostly within a
commercial context. This implied that respondents showed an awareness of issues in
the commercial sector. Moreover, all participants agreed that integrated messages are
an important way of achieving outcomes, both in terms of brand benefits to the
individual charity or in terms of behaviour change objectives.
Stakeholders – external
Major external stakeholders for the charities consist of the clients (or individuals
targeted by the social marketing campaigns) and funders, which can be both
governmental and quasi-governmental organisations (such as the National Health
Service in the UK) as well as private funders (individual donors, community members,
etc.).
Taking the lead from the client by engaging in consumer-focussed business and
marketing practices and offering consumer-relevant solutions and benefits is central to
IMC (Kliatchko, 2008).
All respondents agreed that client focus is at the heart of their activities, not least
because “the whole experience [of the staff and volunteers] is about improving peoples’
lives. It’s what drives every one of us here” (Respondent E). Extensive research and
expertise about the clients were achieved by being “really switched on” (Respondent A)
when it came to the target groups, not least because “most staff and volunteers have
shared experiences with the service users” (Respondent D). Therefore, “market
research”, though not always termed as such, was felt as coming “natural[ly] to us. We
[staff and volunteers] know what it feels like to be a client. Most have probably been
there” (Respondent B). In other words, client focus and understanding was derived
innately rather than resulting from an obligatory routine.
JSOCM An interesting role was attributed to funders and donors: three of the six respondents
5,3 commented that large funders, facing increasing pressure on resources, scrutinise
applications exhaustively, and that “extensive justification and data to back up that we
are delivering a lot of bang for each buck” (Respondent E) was critical to gaining
funding. This implied that funders are perceived as driving market research and
customer/client engagement. Funders also play a role in enhancing market research
232 quality, by “comparing what we claim we know and how we know it [the clients’ views]
” (Respondent F).
Individual donors on the other side were attributed a more central role in relation to
the main “charity brand”. The brand image of the charity, in turn, was described by four
of the respondents as a crucial antecedent for donations, i.e. building strong brand
recognition and creating trust-facilitated community fundraising activities:
We have huge brand recognition, which really makes it easy when asking for donations. […]
They [donors] see the logo; they immediately know what we do. We don’t need to explain
anything (Respondent D).
Community fundraising activities, in turn, represented more than just raising funds:
“When they see us out, it’s a reminder [to engage in safe sex]” (Respondent D).
However, not all external stakeholders influenced campaign design: all six
respondents acknowledged the role of funders and clients, while individual donors were
largely overlooked. Large funders were seen as typically influencing outcome
measurements and core messages of campaigns, whereas clients, either through formal
channels, such as user groups and surveys, or through informal channels, such as
personal contacts, had substantial influence on campaign details.
Stakeholders – internal
The narrative of the “shared experience” extended to the way charities communicated to
internal stakeholders. While one charity conceded that:
[…] we may mean different things to different people. Most of our funding comes from a gay
“background”; many of our volunteers are gay, and they see us as a typical gay charity. But
most of our service users are not gay, in fact some come from quite homophobic backgrounds
(Respondent C).
The same respondent also pointed out that “both groups rally around the cause”
(Respondent C). The “shared experience” of staff, volunteers and service users resulted
in what one respondent described as a “natural fit” (Respondent A), resulting in “much
less convincing to be done [than in the commercial sector]. People here are engaged in the
issue. It’s more than just a job” (Respondent D).
However, although the engagement, especially of staff and volunteers, was a strong
point, it also had some downsides. Especially, “when trying to do things professionally”
(Respondent B), i.e. giving consistent messages, as “nobody here reads a script […] they
[the volunteers] speak directly from their hearts” (Respondent B). All respondents felt
that internal stakeholder engagement was essential to succeeding, setting the charity
and health sector “well apart from the commercial sector” (Respondent A). As one
respondent (D) put it: “They [commercial sector] are doing it by dictate. We’re winning
hearts and minds”.
Media synergy Social
There was also agreement that charities were far more creative when using media than marketing
commercial organisations, although there was a belief that the use of data to leverage
media synergy was lacking behind the commercial sector, due to less sophisticated use
and a lack of availability of data:
We’ve only just started to use a content management system for one of our sites that can track
your progress on the site, and give you appropriate menu choices based on your profile 233
(Respondent F).
Main obstacles for planned integration were budget constraints: “media planning is
really ad hoc. It’s mostly done when we have an opportunity [to get discounted or
donated space]. […] Planned synergy is difficult then” (Respondent A).
For example, we often get discounted rates we can afford over holiday periods. So we tie in
activities with that. It’s really rapid synergising then. […] possibly more creatively than would
be the case in for a well-planned campaign (Respondent A).
Discussion
Despite the exploratory nature of this study, and taking into account that care should be
taken in generalising the findings discussed beyond the parties interviewed, the overall
impression is of a clear appreciation of the benefits of IMC in a social marketing context.
Yet, there are some reservations regarding the uncritical adoption of the concept. With
regards to our first research question, we can conclude that IMC as a broad concept is
seen as relevant in the social marketing field by practitioners. However, with regards to
our second research question, there emerged subtle differences between IMC when
applied in the commercial or social sector.
The following main differences emerged around three issues:
(1) differences of customer-centric approaches between commercial and social
marketing, especially the centrality of a “shared experience”;
(2) application of IMC to charity brands or at behavioural level; and
(3) complexity of desired behaviour.
Several researchers have raised the issue of the inadequacy of customer-centric Social
approaches to IMC in commercial marketing (Eagle et al., 2007; Laurie and Mortimer, marketing
2011). In a charity-led, social marketing context the inverse appears to be true. Focus on
clients is both a common function of charities’ self-image, through shared experiences
between staff, volunteers and clients, and second, a result of funder-led control. Such a
finding is interesting specifically from a policy perspective: although this research did
not evaluate differences between social marketing campaigns led by governmental 235
bodies, charities and commercial social marketing agencies, it seems plausible that
competition within the charity sector drives more extensive outside-in direction of social
marketing campaigns, where different charities “compete” to achieve a better fit with
their perspective audiences. Thus, encouraging competition in preference to running
unified, national programmes may be a way to enhance client relevance of campaigns.
However, such competition has a potentially significant downside, in that it may
hinder message consistency in favour of message relevance. For example, in their
evaluation of a sexual health campaign emphasising the use of condoms as a way to
“keep the secret” about male-to-male encounters between Latino men identifying
outwardly as heterosexual in the USA, Fernández Cerdeño et al. (2012) credit the success
of the campaign with the cultural relevance of the message to the targeted audience. The
campaign emphasised that consistent condom use during male-to-male encounters was
a way to avoid someone else finding out about these “secret” encounters taking place,
using the slogan, “Nobody knows about it. And with a condom nobody will ever know
about it” (Martínez-Donate et al., 2010). Such a message is drastically different to
messages aimed at self-identifying homosexual men and could be seen as offensive to
the latter target group. However, one could argue that despite different
contextualisation, the advocated behaviour is alike (e.g. use of condoms and regular
health checks). Striking a balance between potential synergies through integrated
messaging and client-specific relevance will, therefore, be a challenge in case of diverse
target groups, which, arguably, may be the case for most social marketing campaigns.
A further potential challenge while using IMC in a social marketing context is where
the emphasis of the integration should lie. Within a charity-led context, there are likely
to be more parties involved than in traditional, commercial marketing operations for a
single brand or product. Thus, should integration focus on the charity brand or
branding behaviour? Are there ways in which both can be combined? For example,
major supermarkets in the UK use the “5 a day” brand to promote fruit and vegetables,
yet are doing so while also promoting their brand. In other words, can health-related
campaigns develop models of successful co-branding between different partners?
Finally, although commercial marketing largely focusses on a well-defined and
relatively easy outcome (purchase of goods or services), outcomes, ways to achieve
desired behaviours and existing client involvement and knowledge are likely to be more
multifaceted in many social marketing situations. Our research focussed on relatively
easy and well-understood behavioural objectives. However, many other social
marketing campaigns are likely to be more complex, with less clearly defined
behavioural outcomes, such as alcohol or drug consumption reduction, healthy eating or
environmental causes. Our respondents indicated that because of the relatively easily
understood desired behaviour of sexual health campaigns, there was room for a variety
of different messages and strategies with one uniting outcome. For more complex
JSOCM behavioural goals, however, having different messages may well lead to confusion
5,3 rather than achieving of outcomes.
Based on these results, and addressing research Question 2, it is possible to
conjecture how an IMC “Triangle”, based on the original four-level triangle by Schultz
and Kitchen (2000), could look like:
We, therefore, propose a five-stage triangle, shown in Figure 2. At the initial level, we
236 locate “behavioural agreement”, i.e. charities working together on a given social
marketing outcome are likely to have broad agreement on the behaviours that should be
promoted (in this case, consistent condom use). The first stage is likely to be the result of
both the evidence base as well as funding policies, and integration among different
partners and organisations appears relatively straightforward as well as fundamental
for the achievement of a behavioural goal. For instance, taking the example of HIV
prevention, the vast majority of HIV organisations emphasise on consistent condom use
and regular testing as a means to reduce HIV transmission, although these
organisations may not work together in any other way.
The second level of integration requires partners to share information and insights
created through their engagement with end-users. Frequently, partners in social
marketing campaigns, especially in the case of HIV organisations, are likely to be
heavily engaged in activism on behalf of their core audience. Thus, sharing, or
advocating, and co-ordinating amongst interests of respective end-users are likely to be
a relatively early sign of achieving integrated communication. Using the example of HIV
prevention work, an example of Level 2 integration is co-operation partnerships
amongst a multitude of organisations working broadly in the area of HIV prevention,
such as the Pan London HIV Prevention Programme, mentioned previously, with 42
partner organisations. Although HIV prevention or advocacy may be part of some or all
of the work of these organisations, and they are likely to have broad agreement on the
behaviours required to reduce HIV transmission, there is no coordinated promotional or
communication activity amongst partner organisations. For example, some
organisations may facilitate access to particular target audiences; others may include
Figure 2.
The revised IMC
model
broad calls for condom use within larger projects related to health and well-being, while Social
others may engage in a consultative role, for example, through providing feedback marketing
about potential ways to reach targeted audiences or likely reception of prevention
messages.
At the next stage, we propose the tactical coordination of marketing communication.
In the original model, this stage is the earliest stage of IMC development. However, it is
likely to occur later in a social marketing context. We suggest that this later placement 237
is the result of two main factors: First, it requires the first two stages to be completed to
ensure message relevance to a variety of target audiences. Second, it requires partner
organisations to coordinate some of their activities and work together in the design and
delivery of their respective behaviour-relevant communications. For instance, using
similar taglines and campaigns and delivering these in different parts of the country, or
to different target audiences. An example of such a cooperation in the HIV sector can be
found in the coordinated activities under the umbrella term of “It Starts with Me” HIV
prevention project, with coordinated marketing activities amongst HIV Prevention
England, national partners such as National AIDS Manual and Terrence Higgins Trust,
as well as local partners including Yorkshire MESMAC, BHE for Equality and others.
Although the main campaign is coordinated nationally, each partner organisation
continues to operate separately and delivers the campaign to their respective target
audiences on a local and regional level.
The fourth level, consistent in following the tactical coordination of marketing
communications in commercial IMC, is the redefinition of the scope of marketing
communication. At this level, the focus would be on the integration of the customer
experience (Schultz and Kitchen, 2000). To continue with the example of the “It Starts
with Me”, this would require coordination of activities beyond the communication of
behavioural goals and the delivery of a consistent customer experience, for example, by
provision of shared testing services and coordinated activity in terms of branded
behavioural outcomes.
In the final phase, commensurate with the final and highest stage of commercial IMC,
emphasis is directed towards shared strategic planning, based on the data and
experiences from delivering the outcomes on the previous stages. An example of a
successfully integrated campaign is the Think! road safety campaign, where activities,
communications and insights are integrated across different partner organisations, each
working together in a defined partner framework to deliver strategic outcomes
connected to the campaign.
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Further reading
Andreasen, A.R. (2002), “Marketing social marketing in the social change marketplace”, Journal of
Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 3-13.
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