Differences in Social Marketing and Commercial Marketing - Term Paper Example

 Social, Commercial Marketing And Their Differences Literature Review Social marketing and commercial marketing are two important areas in life that overlap one another. The topic of discussion will be to introduce the two by defining the two strategies offering a brief history, dimension of social and commercial marketing and also looking at the various differences that exist among the two and the challenges the social marketing managers face. Introduction According to Anderson 1995, social marketing can be defined as a systematic way of applying marketing and other techniques and concepts in order to achieve behavioral objectives for a social good. Sometimes social marketing is seen as only applying the standard commercial marketing practices in order to achieve goals that are non-commercial but this is over-simplification. The primary goal of social marketing is to achieve a 'social good' .Social marketing is sometimes explained as having two 'parents' the first being a 'social parent' which includes social policies and social sciences and the second parent being a 'marketing parent' which includes public sector and commercial approaches. By 1970's social marketing had matured to become a more inclusive and integrative discipline which draws fully on the range of social policy and social sciences approaches as well marketing approaches. Social marketing practices in the health promotion campaigns was begun in 1980's with notable developments in Australia where the Victoria Cancer Council developed its anti-tobacco quit campaign and Sun Smart which campaigned against skin cancer. An occupational Health and Safety Organization in Australia called the Work safe Victoria adopted social marketing as the driving force in its attempt to curb the increase of social impact of workplace decline in safely measures. The anti-tobacco complain which was one of the social marketing strategy adopted by the Victoria Cancer Council was aimed at stepping up efforts to stop tobacco smoking products because it was ranked by the World Health Organization as the major cause of death in the world aimed for social good of the people. By 2007, the United Kingdom government made an announcement of the first social marketing strategies for all its health aspects. This practice has progressed is several countries like the New Zealand ,Canada, United State of America, where key government policy papers have also adopted social marketing strategies approaches, for example, the Health challenge England policy paper aimed at achieving both operational and strategic use of social marketing. The distinguishing feature in social marketing is the primary concern of 'social good’ and it can not be said to be a secondary outcome. It is worth noting that not all not-for-profit public sector marketing is social marketing. Commercial marketing is the application of marketing concepts with the primary being financial. A commercial marketer seeks to influence a customer or a buyer to purchase a product using the marketing concepts such as promotion which includes advertising, branding, carrying out personal sales, or direct marketing, developing public relations drives, publicity campaigns using the print media publication broadcasting internet marketing and digital marketing all aimed at convincing the consumer to purchase a product with a goal of getting finances. This should however not be taken to mean that commercial marketers do not contribute towards the social good, for example .the British American Tobacco company advertises its products with the aim of getting finances but it also cautions smokers that smoking may be hazardous to their own health which is a contribution to social good. Social marketing applies the commercial marketing tools, themes and techniques to social issues and should not be confused with societal marketing concept which integrates issues of social responsibility into commercial marketing strategies. Social marketing uses customer oriented approaches and strategies in pursuing social goals such as fund raising for NGO’s or Anti-smoking-campaigns. Commercial marketing is aimed at providing high quality range of innovative and competitive services to business people such as manufactures importers and exporters in advertising, marketing and promotion of their products with the primary objective of making profits in form of finances. The commercial marketing responsibilities are quite different from those of a social marketing manager because they include defining and driving vertical market and market penetration strategies for the companies products manage and develop programs that include customer references customer programs and case studies. Differences in Social Marketing and Commercial Marketing Several differences arise between social marketing and commercial marketing concepts. Firstly, social marketing principles are used to sell attitudes, ideas and behavior to consumers as opposed to the commercial marketing principles which are used to sell a physical product to be used by the consumer. Secondly, social marketing is aimed at influencing social behaviors which do not benefit the marketer but it is aimed at benefiting the general society and the target audience and it applies mostly in topics such as heart diseases, drug abuse and organ donation, contraceptives and oral re hydrating therapy (ORT).In contrast commercial marketing is aimed at influencing a buyer or a consumer to purchase an item by using marketing principles such as branding which makes the commodity attractive. Thirdly, social marketing aim is to achieve a 'social good ' such as reduction in deaths which results from tobacco smoking or drug abuse, reduced rate of HIV infections in the society due to increased use of contraceptives such as condom, which is achieved through persistent campaigns by social marketers. On the other hand commercial marketing aims at getting finances from the sales of their products. Fourthly, just like the commercial marketing has four P's which are as stated below but the four P's have quite different meaning from those of commercial marketing. They include product, price, place and promotion. Product In commercial marketing a product is a physical offering, for example, sugar, bread and so on or a service such as medical examination or a practice such as breast feeding .In social marketing a product is not a physical offering but a perceived genuine problem in people in order for them to determine the importance of taking an action to alleviate the problem. Price Price in commercial marketing is the value of a product or a service that is offered to a consumer by a commercial marketer while in social marketing a price refers to the things that a consumer is supposed to do in order to obtain a social product. In some cases it may be monetary or a cost incurred when a consumer is required to give up intangible things like effort and time and to risk disapproval and embarrassment. For a consumer to obtain the product in social marketing he or she weighs between the benefits as well as the costs. If the benefits are perceived to be large than costs a consumer can opt to try and adopt the product. On the other hand if the costs are greater than benefits then the value of the product will be perceived to be low and the product will be adopted. In social marketing setting of a price is a challenge to managers because when a physical product for example a contraceptives is valued highly the consumer might not be able to afford it if it has low value then the product may be perceived to be as being of low quality. Therefore social marketers try to balance the two considerations and most often they charge nominal fee in order to increase consumers’ perceptions of dignity of the transaction and also increase the perception about the quality of the product. Place This describes the distribution system for a tangible product mostly in commercial marketing which includes trucks, ware house, retail outlets where the product is sold, sales force or even places where the product is given for free. In social marketing where most of the product are intangible. Place describes the channel decision through which information or training reaches the consumer. This includes shopping malls, doctor's offices, in-home demonstrations and mass media vehicles. Another important element of place in social marketing is ensuring accessibility and quality of the service or product delivered to the targeted audiences. This is done through determination of the habits and activities of the audience targeted as well as satisfaction and experience with the already existing system of delivery. Researchers in social marketing pinpoints the ideal ways of channels of distribution for the offering. Promotion This is another element that brings out differences between social marketing and commercial marketing. The focus of promotion is creating and ensuring a sustained demand for the product .It consists of an integration of public re3lations,advertising,media advocacy promotions, personal selling and entertainment vehicles. Paid advertisements and public service announcements are some of the ways in which information can reach the targeted audience. In social marketing research is very vital in order to determine the most efficiency and effective channels of reaching the targeted audience with an aim of increasing demand for the product. The social marketers have programs aimed at both primary and secondary audiences .The primary audience is composed of the general public while the secondary audience is composed of the internal public that is , those involved in approval and implementation of the set programs. Commercial marketing is aimed at mostly reaching the general public in order to create a market for the products manufactured or a service that is in the market. Sixth, partnership between social marketing and community organizations is inevitable and therefore social marketers have to team up with the community organizations with similar goals in order to achieve the desired objectives. This is not the case with the commercial marketers who are independent and they do not need to team up with the community organizations in order to achieve their set objectives. Seventh, most social marketing organizations operate their programs through funds provided by the foundations donations or governmental grants. Commercial marketers obtain its funds for marketing campaigns from profits gained by the company after the sale of its products. Challenges Faced by Social Marketing Managers of National health services institution (NHS) Due to the above differences between social marketing and commercial marketing, there are several challenges that are faced by the social marketing managers that revolve around the following, marketing analysis, market segmentation, marketing mix strategy and organization planning and design. Marketing Analysis This is a tool that plays a major role in the decision of the firm on its planning activities. For commercial marketers this tool is used in making decisions of various activities such as purchase, inventory, expansion or contraction, work force, purchase of capital equipment, promotional activities, facility expansion and several other aspects of a company. In commercial marketing forecasts in these areas, is of great importance because they are used by decision makers in understanding how they were arrived at. The social marketing managers of the NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES(NHS) which is a British health care funded institution for 'social good' faces several challenges in marketing of their products unlike in commercial marketing where a consumer has to see or touch the product in order for him or her to make a choice or a decision whether to buy or not to buy, for a social marketing manager in (NHS) he/she has to ensure that the attitude of the people is changed so that they can change their behavior. This is through adequate training where information and ideas are passed to the audience. For example a social manager needs to change the attitude of the people towards smoking being one area that the (NHS) institution seeks to dress by explaining to them why it is not good to smoke - for a commercial manager he or she has to avail goods and leave customers to make a choice. Habits are addictive and a social marketing manager at (NHS) has to ensure that he passes the right knowledge to the audience in order for them to change from one behavior to the other, for example, practicing sex without condom to using them in order to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS which is another area under sexual health that the institution seeks to address. Real statistics has to be presented to the audience about the effects of either smoking or failure to use these protective measures for them to be convinced. Market analysis in social marketing is therefore efforts carried out by the managers in (NHS) in compiling the statistics in areas such as deaths due to smoking per day/month/year, cases of cancer being reported as a result of smoking, rate of HIV infection as a result of failure to use condoms and reported deaths related to AIDS. The social managers of the institution in their efforts to achieve a social goal therefore faces challenges of trying to change the attitudes of people aimed at changing behavior. Market Segmentation For a commercial marketer, market segmentation is the process of making distinct subsets in a general market that has same needs. This is aimed at ensuring that products are directed to the right groups of consumers who need them. A commercial marketing manager therefore requires market data in order to ensure that he or she makes a conclusive decision on the segment of the market where different goods should be directed to. These decisions are as a result of demand and supply of the products in the market. The (NHS) social managers faces challenges because market segmentation is sometimes not possible because any campaign done is aimed for the social good of all the people , for example , smoking is a widespread behavior that cuts across all the sections of the society from poor, medium to rich classes of the people .The social managers have to research on the methods that they have to use in order to reach audience in order to pass anti-smoking campaign to all the people smoking and anticipating to smoke. Market Mix Strategy This is the acceptable specification and use of the 4p’s in order to describe the strategic position that a good has in the market place that is, the product, price place and promotion. For a commercial marketing manager a product is a service or an object manufactured on a large scale, for example, motor cars ,razors or bread to mention a few and a hotel industry as an example of a service. These are things that can be touched or seen and therefore a consumer is in a good position of making a decision as whether to acquire the product or not. For social managers in (NHS) institution a product is the information that they anticipate passing to the target audience and therefore can not be touched or seen. This makes it hard for them to influence the behavioral change through changing the attitude of people towards certain habits such as smoking. They have to use tangible supportive statistics that people can believe in order for them to change their behavior. These social marketing managers have also to do far much more than passing the information to the target audience. They have to make follow ups in order to ensure that the information they passed to the audience bears fruits seen through research on whether the audience have stopped smoking or not. For a commercial manager, price is the product value whereas for a social marketing manager in (NHS) price is the cost incurred in foregoing some behaviors. The managers have to ensure that they concur the consumers’ attitude for them to change their behavior which is a big challenge. Place is also another challenge. Channels used in distributing information and ideas could be limited, expensive because many social marketing institutions such as (NHS) depend on donations or funds from external sources for example government funds. Organization Design and Planning Commercial marketing organizational chart social marketing organizational chart managerss For commercial companies organization design and planning provides managers with the required information needed to make decisions about the structure of the organization and how to allocate resources. For a social managers in National Health services institution , allocation of resources are only dependent on funds available from donors, charity organizations or the goverment and therefore do not have to make decisions about the structure of the organization. If resources are sufficient, they are directed solely into achieving a social good and not organizational structure and they therefore depend mostly on volunteers to achieve their goals References Anderson, J. (2004).understanding creating and delivery value, (Pearson Education Inc.) Bradley, E. (2001). Social marketing as a planning process, (New York: New York Press) Brown, S. (1993). 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