Citation
Rundle-Thiele, S. (2014), "Editorial", Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 4 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSOCM-12-2013-0078
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Social Marketing, Volume 4, Issue 1
The prevalence of obesity has doubled over the last 30 years (Finucane et al., 2011). Obesity is associated with early deaths and chronic illness such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension (AIHW, 2010).
Queensland has the highest rate of adult obesity in Australia at 30.4 per cent, compared with 27.5 per cent Australia wide (Queensland Minister for Health, 2013). Obesity is now the leading preventable cause of premature death in Queensland, overtaking tobacco.
In response to the obesity challenge faced, the Queensland Government committed to spending $8.5 million on a communications campaign (Queensland Minister for Health, 2013). Over the next three years an advertising campaign will be rolled out to encourage everyone, no matter what their size, to lead a healthier life and reduce the risk of chronic disease. On 27 October 2013 messages aired on TV, and these will be supported with messages on radio, press, online and outdoor advertisements.
Is communication enough for Queenslanders to become happy and healthy? Can a very traditional advertising campaign lead to a change in eating and physical activity behaviour?
Social Marketing @ Griffith (http://www.griffith.edu.au/social-marketing) research says no.
Our research shows that higher use of Andreasens (2002) social marketing benchmark criteria has been shown to increase a social marketers’ chance of changing the targeted behavior (Carins and Rundle-Thiele, 2013).
This implies social marketing extends way beyond one factor (e.g. advertising).
The most successful businesses throughout history have been those using marketing. Marketing focuses on making customers happy – and doing it better than competitors can.
Food and drink manufacturing companies are frequently criticised for the role they play in the obesity epidemic. But let us think about how they work.
Food and drink manufacturers create products that we desire. They offer us products that are cheap, taste good and often lead us to want more. Did you stop at one square of chocolate, soft drink, beer, chip or biscuit when you last ate or drank?
Commercial marketers are very good at delivering products to us at times and places that are convenient.
The very fact that food and drink companies do a whole lot more than advertising was recognized in the 2009 roadmap for preventative health action (see page 56) commissioned by the Australian Government (NPHTF, 2009).
The Australian Governments vision for a Healthy Australia in 2020 recognised that a comprehensive approach offered the best way forward. In fact, social marketing via a "sustained, appropriately funded and well implemented, including approaches that reflect the specific needs of individual groups and communities" was called for.
Social marketing is far more than a communications campaign. Social marketers seek to offer a solution that is attractive to the target market.
Effective social marketers adopt a full marketing mix of techniques that include providing favourable environments and products, changing pricing, providing sensory appeal, product bundling, promotions, packaging and retail displays to change behaviours for the better (Lefebvre, 2011). Similar to commercial marketing social marketing can focus on the individual (downstream) but it can also extend beyond the individual to influence key decision makers (e.g. the governments).
The Journal of Social Marketing will continue to showcase research demonstrating social marketings effectiveness and in time our governments and practitioners will understand that social marketing is far more than communications.
The transition into Volume 4 leads to change, a concept that any social marketer is very familiar with! Professor Andrew McAuley is stepping down as Co-Editor of the Journal of Social Marketing. On behalf of the social marketing scholarly community I want to thank Andrew for extending his entrepreneurial expertise to social marketing. Your efforts leave social marketing scholars with a very influential publication outlet.
This issue concludes with Andrews reflections on social marketing.
I hope Volume 4, Issue 1 continues to challenge your thinking.
Sharyn Rundle-Thiele
References
AIHW (2010), "Premature mortality from chronic disease", AIHW Bulletin No. 84. Cat. No. AUS 133, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra
Andreasen, A.R. (1994), "Social marketing: its definition and domain", Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 108–114
Carins, J. and Rundle-Thiele, S.R. (2013), "Eating for the better: a social marketing review (2000-2012)", Public Health Nutrition, available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
Finucane, M.M., Stevens, G.A., Cowan, M.J., Danaei, G., Lin, J.K., Paciorek, C.J. and Global Burden of Metabolic Risk Factors of Chronic Diseases Collaborating Group (2011), "National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9.1 million participants", Lancet, Vol. 377 No. 9765, pp. 557–567
Lefebvre, R.C. (2011), "An integrative model for social marketing", Journal of Social Marketing, No. 1, pp. 54–72
NPHTF (2009), "Australia: the healthiest country by 2020", Technical Report No. 1. Obesity in Australia: A Need for Urgent Action, Including Addendum for October 2008 to June 2009, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, National Preventative Health Taskforce, available at: http://www.preventativehealth.org.au/internet/preventativehealth/publishing.nsf/Content/nphs-roadmap/$File/nphs-roadmap.pdf
Queensland Minister for Health (2013), "Time to stand up against obesity", available at: http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2013/10/24/time-for-queensland-to-step-up-fight-against-obesity?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter