Most observers and many practitioners see social marketing as a downstream approach to influencing people with “bad behaviors”—smoking, neglecting prenatal care, and not recycling. However, this narrow view hugely underestimates social marketing’s real potential. Social marketing is simply about influencing the behavior of target audiences. There are many more target audiences who need to act besides “problem people” if we are to solve major social problems. Alan R. Andreasen – Georgetown University – Social Marketing in the 21st Century
What is Upstream Social Marketing?
Since social marketing emerged in the 1970s, much of the focus in the field has been on individual behaviour change. However, in recent years, social marketing experts have proposed that social marketing should broaden its scope beyond individuals or groups of consumers and attempt to influence those who help shape the determinants of human behaviour, such as policy makers, regulators, managers, educators and the media.
Why it matters beyond individual behaviour change
The premise is that marketing concepts and techniques, alongside other tools, can be used to influence the behaviours of decision makers and opinion formers, for example, to induce policy change. This, in turn, can influence the environment in which individual behaviours operate. For example, upstream social marketing has been influential in changing the environment in relation to smoking, including bans on tobacco marketing and the introduction of smoke-free legislation (Ross, Gordon).
Case study: Health Canada’s Second-hand smoke campaign
Health Canada ran a campaign on second-hand smoke in the workplace. Health Canada had been delivering messages on the harms of tobacco use and second-hand smoke for many years, but the “Heather” campaign was aimed at a different target. The campaign featured Heather Crowe, a real Canadian who had been a waitress for 40 years. Heather never smoked, but worked in smoke-filled restaurants, and in the campaign materials, she explained that she was dying from lung cancer due to second-hand smoke. Heather became a well-known spokesperson on second-hand smoke and toured the country speaking about second-hand smoke in the workplace. The campaign and the work Heather has done personally in communities across Canada has had a major impact on provinces and cities invoking bans on smoking in workplaces, restaurants and bars.
Barriers to behaviour change and the role of policy
It is unfair to expect your audience to change their behaviours easily because their actions are determined by many factors, both internal and external. Sometimes, even if motivated, the barriers are difficult to overcome because some barriers are beyond the audience you are trying to influence and control.
Shifting from downstream to upstream approaches
In recent years, social marketing has shifted beyond its traditional focus on promoting individual behaviour change to acknowledge that the environment in which people live and work also partially constrains their choices. Upstream social marketing addresses how we change the policies, laws, regulations, and physical environments that can marginalize or render worthless our best efforts as social marketers at getting individuals to change their behaviour if there are too many environmental barriers.
Unlike downstream social marketing, which focuses on producing individual behaviour change, an upstream social marketing program is designed to change the macro-environment surrounding people’s lives to influence or change individual behaviour or attitude. Therefore, the focus on social marketing should move from downstream to upstream factors, making it easier to get results.
How social marketing supports change at all levels
Social Marketing can assist with the development of effective and efficient programs at each level by setting clear behavioural goals, conducting competition analysis, developing valued social exchanges, developing segmented interventions, and selecting the optimum intervention mix to bring about uptake and compliance.
Social Marketing’s systematic planning approach can also assist with the development of efficient and effective programs that can be evaluated in terms of their impact on specific behaviours at the upstream level, such as corporations’ behaviour related to promotions, such as citizen uptake of support services, and at the downstream level, such as changes in fruit and vegetable consumption.
The role of decision makers and institutions
There appears to be a widespread belief among social marketers that engaging upstream is as important as downstream intervention. Upstream social marketing proposes that influencing policymakers, regulators, managers, and educators can help address societal problems, and that these groups can be treated as target audiences, similar to conventional interventions.
Tools and approaches for upstream engagement
Recognized social marketing tools, such as consumer orientation, formative research, segmentation and targeting, and addressing barriers & offering incentives, can be utilized in this process. Other approaches, such as advocacy, stakeholder engagement, public relations, and political engagement, can also be used.
Advancing the field of social marketing
Social marketers should engage in research, development, and testing of theories, concepts, and ideas in this area, as well as disseminate the findings. Doing so would help social marketing operate effectively downstream, midstream and upstream
To learn more about social marketing, be sure to register for our next cohort of the Introduction to Social Marketing Planning for Attitude and Behaviour Change online workshop.
Want to bring the workshop in-house? Private bookings are available upon request.
