MY INITIAL QUESTION

What influences have social marketing strategies on the development and

implementation of health promotion?
The initial question here is how would the social marketing as a strategy, help to
influence the development and implementation of health promotion.
The steps involved after the initial question was formulated includes,
1. Exploration
2. Construction of a problem
3. Construction of an analytical method
4. Observation
5. Data analysis
6. Conclusions
The exploration work for the initial question Ive chosen to research on could be done
by using either of these two forms of resources, namely
1) Lectures (Through the review of existing related research work).
2) Interviews.
EXPLORATION.
The exploration is a critical look at the existing research that is significant to the work
that the person is carrying out. Obviously, at this point one is not likely to have read
everything related to the initial research questions, but he or she should still be able
to identify the key texts with which he will be in conversation as he writes the
research. Exploration often includes the theoretical approaches to ones research.
Writing this exploration allows me to understand:

How other people have written about my proposed topic.

The range of theories people use to analyze their primary materials or data

How other people connect their specific research to larger issues, questions,
or practices within the field.

The best methodologies and research techniques for my particular topic.

The exploration has four major functions that I keep in mind as I write:

It situates the current study within a wider disciplinary conversation.

It illustrates the uniqueness, importance of and need for my particular project

by explaining how my research questions and approach are different from
those of other people.

It justifies methodological choices.

It demonstrates my familiarity with the topic and appropriate approaches to

studying it.

Appropriate exploration I believe should:

Spelt out the Introductions brief description of the background of my study.

Critically assess important research trends or areas of interest relevant to my

study.

Identify potential gaps in knowledge.

Establish a need for current and/or future research projects.

THE EXPLORATION WORK FOR MY INITIAL QUESTION.

How would the social marketing as a strategy, help to influence the development
and implementation of health promotion?
Was carried out using the review of the existing related research work as follow,
The health promotions field has been rapidly changing over the past two decades. It
has evolved from a one-dimensional reliance on public service announcements to a
more sophisticated approach which draws from successful techniques used by
commercial marketers, termed "social marketing." Rather than dictating the way that
information is to be conveyed from the top-down, public health professionals are
learning to listen to the needs and desires of the target audience themselves, and
building the program from there. This focus on the "consumer" involves in-depth
research and constant re-evaluation of every aspect of the program. In fact, research
and evaluation together form the very cornerstone of the social marketing process.
One of the standard definitions of social marketing states that it is the design,
implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of
social ideas and involving consideration of product planning, pricing, communication,
distribution, and marketing research (Kotler and Zaltman 1971, 5). More recently,
Andreasen (1994, 110) has defined it as the adaptation of commercial marketing
technologies to programs designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target
audiences to improve their personal welfare and that of the society of which they are
a part. Others have defined it as the application of management and marketing
technologies to pro-social and nonprofits programs (Meyer & Dearing 1996).

Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and
Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to
sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors.
Kotler and Andreasen define social marketing as "differing from other areas of
marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her
organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the
marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society." This technique
has been used extensively in international health programs, especially for
contraceptives and oral rehydration therapy (ORT), and is being used with more
frequency in advance countries especially the United States for such diverse topics
as drug abuse, heart disease and organ donation.
Social marketing strategies are becoming more sophisticated and are assuming a
greater role in efforts to improve health outcomes. One of the biggest mistakes the
society we are living today make is that they assumed that promotion of health
needs no marketing plan. Increasingly, health professionals today are turning to the
field of social marketing to develop and implement health promotion plans. Social
marketing is a technique that has been used since the early seventies to increase
public awareness of the relationship of behaviours to diseases and to influence
people to take action. This is an important mechanism for emphasizing how certain
health behaviours can prevent diseases.
Social marketing has been used in developing countries in many interventions such
as condom use, breast-feeding, and immunization programs. According to Chapman
Walsh and associates (1993, 107-108), early health applications of social marketing
emerged as part of the international development efforts and were implemented in
the third world during the 1960s and 1970s. Programs promoting immunization,
family planning, various agricultural reforms, and nutrition were conducted in
numerous countries in Africa, Asia and South America during the 1970sThe first
nationwide contraceptive program social marketing program, the Nirodh condom
project in India, began in 1967 with funding from the Ford Foundation. The
substantial increase in condom sales was attributed to the distribution and promotion
of condoms at a subsidized price. The success of the Indian experience informed

subsequent

social

marketing

interventions

such

as

the

distribution of infant-weaning formula in public health clinics.

One of the main challenges in the design of effective health promotion programs is
to identify optimal context, channels, content and reasons that will motivate people to
pay attention to and use health information available for promotion of health. It is in
view of the above that i decided to choose this marketing plan on health promotion
using social marketing strategies because, to infuse a plan with life, requires making
it interesting, relevant to peoples lives, understandable, doable, and capable of
motivating people to action, hence this is what social marketing strategies can do. It
seeks to influence social behaviours not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the
target audience and the general society therefore realizing that the same marketing
principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell"
ideas, attitudes and behaviours hence the reason for my choice for this plan.
The emphasis on prerequisites for health, such as peace, food, income, housing,
education or health care expresses the human right aspect of health promotion.
Values of equality, social justice or the appeal to human rights can be considered as
consensus values and thus politically feasible for a variety of actors. As such they
often tend to be taken for granted, however, it is precisely the considerations of
ethics, equality and human rights that make it possible to base practical policies and
programs on appropriate moral reasoning. (Bryan & Khan & Hyder 1997).
REFERENCE.

Kotler, P. & Zaltman, G. (1971) Social marketing: An approach to planned

social change, Journal of marketing, 35, 3-12.

Andreasen, A.R. (1994) Social Marketing: Its Definition and Domain, Journal
of Public Policy & Marketing, 13 (1), 108-114.

Chapman Walsh, D., Rudd, R.E., Moeykens, B.A. & Moloney, T.W. (1993)
Social marketing for public health, Health affairs.

Bryant, John & Khan, Kausar & Hyder, Adnan: Ethics, equity and renewal of
WHOs health-for-all strategy. World Health Forum, WHO Geneva. An
International Journal of Health Development, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1997.