What Makes Social Marketing Different?

Marketing Mix

Example

The product is physical activity and all the benefits that tweens truly want: having fun, being with friends, being cool, and trying new skills. Long-term health benefits are not motivating to tweens at this time in their lives and therefore are not part of the product.^†

†From CDC's VERB™ campaign (a national campaign designed to influence tweens aged 9—13 to be physically active every day).

Product
In social marketing, the product usually refers to the desired behavior and all of the benefits, services, and tangible items that lead the target audience to adopt the desired behavior.

Kotler and Lee speak of three levels of a social marketing product.* The "core product" or innermost level is made up of the benefits of the desired behavior, the "actual product" is the behavior itself, and the "augmented product" contains any objects or services created to support behavior change.

For example, the behavior of eating fruits and vegetables would be the actual product, the fruits and vegetables themselves and a new farmer's market that sells fruits and vegetables would be augmented products. Whatever the product, you will use formative research to learn from the audience what will make it appealing to them.

*Kotler P, and Lee N. Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good. (3rd edition)