Mediaboss Marketing

During the coverage of the #INSM09 conference, I mentioned a difference between the social and societal marketing concept. Twitter doesnt give a lot of space for details, so I figured Id follow up @Nedras question with a little more depth.

Societal marketing concept is evident when an organisation determines consumer needs and wants and then integrates all activities in the firm to serve these needs while simultaneously enhancing societal well being (McColl-Kennedy, Kiel, Lusch & Lusch, 1994)

Social marketing is 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. Andreasen, (1995)

Societal marketing is the business driven, profit orientated way of changing the world as a means of developing revenue based product. Societal is about the direct benefits for the organisation (profit) and secondary benefit for the community. Social marketing is about changing behaviours for the benefit of the broader society. Social marketing is about the social gain, target markets gain, and the flow of benefits where profit may not actual exist, or if it does, then its just an incidental secondary benefit for the campaign.

Its a technical separation thats becoming less evident in the literature heading into 2010, and possibly a dichotomy that may have come to the end of the useful shelf-life as more emphasis is placed on sustainability, corporate social responsibility, environmental consideration and ongoing behavioural adjustments that permeat the commercial, government, non profit and social change applications for marketing.

That said, it may be worth re-examining the dividing line between for-societal gain and for-organisational gain as we move forward to ensure that societys needs arent being re-routed towards individual corporate profit-making solutions when theres a socially beneficial outcome that doesnt need the pay-per-use model to support it.

References

McColl-Kennedy, J., Kiel, G., Lusch, R., Lusch, V. (1994), Marketing: Concepts and Strategies, Nelson Australia, Melbourne

Andreasen, A. 1995, Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development and the Environment, San Francisco: Jossey Bass

Read this article:
Societal Marketing v. Social Marketing Stephendann.com