I’ve always considered myself a social animal. Just ask the folks in the hospitality business in any town I’ve spent time in. But it has suddenly occurred to me that my years of being a social animal may have put me at forefront of a new marketing thingee called Social Marketing.

According to the experts, social marketing was “born” as a discipline in the 1970s, when a few smart people realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Believe it or not I was around in the 1970s… and I thought Social Marketing was really all about Tupperware parties or the traditional get together in the back of the local hardware store around the hot-stove or… in the tents set up at carnivals – or was that more about Social Disease? Today the techniques and tactics have changed (inbound marketing, google search, twitter, blogs… yadda, yadda, yadda) but weren’t all the aforementioned also being used to “sell” ideas, change attitudes and behaviors?

The experts also claim that social marketing differs from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer. Social marketing, according to these same experts, seeks to influence social behaviors, not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and society in general. Say What?  While I doubt major brands are investing millions in social marketing for the benefit of general society, I think it is fair to say that some of those involved in more altruistic endeavours are using it to successfully reach people who share their views and attitudes.

In any event, here’s a little Social Marketing story from my less than expert communications past. It starts when… I was retained by an organization that had a need to communicate with a major group of influencers and decision makers about a product that was subjected to considerable adverse pressure.

Before we go any further, let’s be sure you get my drift…. the organization was involved in the manufacture of tobacco products; the so-called influencers and decision makers were parliamentarians of all political stripes. And, before you diss me getting in bed with Big Bad Tobacco and being naive enough to believe that the average parliamentarian has much influence on anything, remember the point of this missive is to examine the virtues of the new marketing craze called “Social Marketing.”

So… here’s what we did to help Big Bad Tobacco deal with the adverse pressures to which they were being subjected to by the nasty guys in government.  We set out to form a citizens group comprised of smokers who believed their rights were being trampled by an overreaching government. This gathering of like-minded individuals that was thirsting for, as Rodney Dangerfield would say, “a little respect” was encouraged to come together under the mychoice.ca banner. As the name implies…  their choice was to smoke wherever and whenever they wanted to.  And what better way to express themselves and get the politician’s attention than to have a presence on the net? Oh yeah, there was an office, but that was only used to distribute posters, bar coasters and other collateral materials designed to promote the individual’s right to enjoy their dastardly smoking habit even in public places. Traditional advertising tactics (newspaper ads and radio commercials) were employed to drive people to mychoice.ca. And guess what? It worked! Score one for traditional advertising!

All of a sudden 45,000 enraged smokers came out of the nicotine stained woodwork ready to do battle with anyone preventing them from enjoying a smoke. Protest demonstrations were planned and executed in roadhouses all around rural Canada… roadhouses being an obvious venue because beer and smokes are tied at the hip. Individual letters of protest were dispatched (all following a guideline written by writers mychoice employed} and…. the politicians were inundated. All right, maybe not inundated, but they did get a few letters.

OK so what? you ask. How did this so-called Social Marketing adventure work out? Did it “sell” ideas, change attitudes and/or behaviors?

In order to answer that we need to remember what the experts say social marketing was designed to do…. “seek to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer.”  So it did work because all the like-minded members of mychoice suddenly had a forum wherein they could become an important part of a social marketing program designed to get them some respect.  Remember, this was a program designed on the surface to benefit smokers, enabling them to purchase consumer tobacco products without impunity. However, if helped smokers gain a little respect, there is no doubt that the major benefits would accrue to tobacco farmers, tobacco manufacturers and even tobacco smugglers everywhere. Because God knows… there is less profit in Soya Beans than there is in Virginia Tobacco; and it costs a fortune to package smokes in warning laden packs that are hidden behind closed shelf doors and to find and exploit new channels of communication and distribution that were less regulated.

Yeah, but what was the “Sell” benefit? you ask. Did more people rush to the local Variety store to buy smokes? Well no… smoking actually decreased.

Did those decision makers in Ottawa reduce the onerous taxes on tobacco? No… and by not reducing taxes they made a conscious decision to help the bootleg tobacco industry thrive. Did Provincial and Municipal governments lift their smoking bans? Again no.  Did all those bar owners who had invested in smoke reduction equipment get reimbursed for their government dictated expenses? Naw. So what was the real benefit?

I guess the tobacco industry got some benefit in that they were able to find a new channel to engage addicted smokers and to inform them that they still had the right to purchase smokes (legally or otherwise), And to prove to at least 45,000 registered smokers that they deserved respect, as in r e s p e c t – I can hear Aretha now, can’t you? Respect, no matter the negative social cost in health and health care, personal dollars, not to mention the obnoxious dry cleaning costs required to remove the stench of tobacco smoke from that tux borrowed from a brother-in-law.  ‘So I guess, depending on your smoking preferences, the simple answer is… Yes & No.

There you have it – my myopic view of the potential impacts of Social Marketing. Whether this little story answered all you questions about Social Marketing or not, you could always use the paper you didn’t print it out on to roll some “good” smoke (come on, you know what I mean) and light up, sit back, inhale and hold, exhale slowly, smile… and whimsically contemplate how you too can employ this new Social Marketing thingee.

From People or Planes 1974 Gordon Willson

Al

Al Graham is a veteran of the advertising wars who once smoked like Mad Men’s Don Draper. He is also a veteran of many social conflict wars and has been actively involved in protesting dumps, airports, expressways and urban sprawl.

Tags: Al Graham, Anti Social Marketing, communications, Guest Blog, mychoice.ca, Smoking, Social Marketing, Tupperware