The Social Side of Marketing
Ogilvy PR Managing Director John Studdert set the scene and jogged a few memories with his opening remarks: “Life. Be In it; Slip, Slop, Slap; Click, clack, front and back; Arrive alive – don’t drink and drive . . . these are all memorable campaigns that raised awareness, shaped or changed opinion and impacted our behaviour.”
Studdert was speaking at the third in a continuing series of Ogilvy PR breakfast events designed to inform and stimulate a select group of guests.
This week’s topic was Ogilvy On…Profit vs Public Good with the subject being the value of social marketing.
Held in Sydney’s Establishment Ballroom, the 80 invited guests were treated to a lively panel debate, moderated in his usual entertaining, forthright style by Tony Jones, the host of ABC TV’s Q&A program.
On the panel were Peter Ritchie, the former chief executive and chairman of McDonald’s Australia, Dr Christine Bennett, the chief medical officer and director of healthcare leadership at Bupa Australia Group, Tim Gartrell, the CEO of newly launched not-for-profit group GenerationOne which aims to alleviate indigenous disadvantage, Tony Thirlwell, the CEO of the Heart Foundation of NSW, the NSW Shadow Treasurer Mike Baird, Tom Beall, the managing director of Ogilvy PR Worldwide’s global social marketing practice, and Greg Sam, the joint managing director of Parker & Partners, Australia’s leading bi-partisan public affairs company and a member of the Ogilvy group.
The discussion started with a debate about the definition of social marketing. Most thought it boiled down to promoting change for social and public good, without profit being a motive. Beall, while agreeing with that definition, recalled that 25 years ago when he was invited to join Ogilvy from the public sector to set up the social marketing practice in Washington he was assured that he would be “working on the side of the angels”. Ritchie, however, saw it as an organisation adopting a continuing positive social role within its community so that the organisation actually lived that role and came to be seen in a positive light.
Thirlwell related the concern within some parts of the Heart Foundation when they allowed McDonald’s to carry the foundation’s tick of approval on some of its products. Some were outraged at the charity being associated with a fast food outlet but Thirlwell said the reality was that an enormous number of people ate fast food on a regular basis so it made sense to try and encourage the industry to have healthy options on offer.
The talk around fast food led to a discussion of obesity levels, with Bennett, who also was chair of the Federal Government’s National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, pointing out that 50 per cent of our health burden relates to how we live our life.
The problem, of course, is how to change people’s behaviour. Gartrell said the difficulty GenerationOne faced was that there was widespread awareness of the disadvantages faced by Australia’s indigenous population – which meant that awareness campaigns were not needed – but attitudinal change by white Australians was essential before real change could occur.
Beall said the object of most social marketing campaigns was behavioural change and cited the Heart Truth campaign which he ran in the US. The campaign started seven years ago and its aim was to raise awareness of heart disease among American women.
At the time, even though heart disease was the No 1 killer of women, it was largely seen as a man’s disease.
The campaign, which is still running strong, has been shown to have raised both the awareness of heart disease and of the symptoms and has markedly decreased the female rates of death from the disease.
And, just in case you were thinking about it, the consensus was that fear campaigns generally don’t work.
After the panel session, Beall gave his top five tips for any organisation considering engaging in social marketing.
- Be audience-centric. Know who you are talking to.
- The importance of research. Research the market, but also know what other competitive forces are out there.
- Talk to other stakeholders. Extend your reach to other interested groups in the field and get them involved early on in the planning stages.
- Don’t depend on just one communication channel. Audiences hear messages in wide variety of places and media and it is important to have a presence in all those places.
- Assess what you are doing as it goes on and be open to change if the evidence suggest it’s not working as well as you thought it would.