Academy for Educational Development

Social marketing is the use of commercial marketing techniques to persuade people to change their behavior to improve their own lives. To better understand the perceived benefits and barriers to behavior change, social marketers employ consumer research and competitive analyses and draw on marketing, product development and policy strategies to make change easier and more appealing for identified audiences.

As a pioneer in the field, AED’s social marketing programs have delivered positive results in health, safety, education and the environment around the world for more than three decades.

The new edition of “Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good,” which is hailed as the definitive book on the subject, opens with a case study of AED’s campaign “Save the Crabs, Then Eat ‘Em,” to introduce the discipline’s core principles and techniques. The story illustrates how AED used research to reframe the problem of the polluted Chesapeake Bay as a lifestyle issue, not an environmental one.

Specifically, that pollution of the nation’s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay, threatens a beloved regional icon and culinary gem, the Blue Crab. It also shows how AED’s savvy social marketers enlisted non-traditional partners, including renowned chefs, area restaurants and local lawn companies to help change residents’ lawn care behavior.

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