Social Marketing

Social marketing is “the systematic application of marketing concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals, for a social or public good” (French and Blair-Stevens, 2006).

IIBSoR has a strong track record in academic and applied social marketing research, particularly around volunteer recruitment, community engagement, campaign development and evaluation.

Contacts

Current projects

A Comparison of Focus Group Methods: A Pilot Study.
This study compares different methods of group-based research. It aims to identify whether the information collected (and in turn the answers to the research questions) differs depending on the method used, and if so how.
Contact: Dr Melanie Randle

Example publications

Randle, M. and Dolnicar, S. (2011) Self-Congruity and Volunteering: A Multi-Organisation Comparison. European Journal of Marketing, 45(5): 739-758.

Randle, M. and Dolnicar, S. (2009) Understanding the Australian Environmental Volunteering Market – A Basis for Behavioural Change and a Sustainable Future. Australasian Marketing Journal, 17(4): 192-203.

Dolnicar, S., Freitag, R. and Randle, M. (2005) To Segment or Not to Segment? An Investigation of Segmentation Strategy Success Under Varying Market Conditions. Australasian Marketing Journal,13(1): 20-35 (won the Paper of the Year Award).

Rossiter, J. R. and Bellman, S. (2005) Marketing communications: Theory and applications. Chapter 18: 'Social marketing campaigns'. Pearson: Sydney, Australia.

Example conference papers and presentations

Randle M and Mackay H (2012) Group-based Research for the Social Sciences: Focus Groups or an Unfocussed Approach? Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences, Honolulu, United States of America.

Randle M, Mackay H and Dudley D (accepted 12.03.2012) Do Strangers in Strange Places Say Strange Things? A Pilot Study Examining Alternative Methods of Group-based Research. Australian Market and Social Research Society Conference, Melbourne, Victoria.

Randle, M. and Dolnicar, S. (2010) The Use of Positive Versus Negative Appeals for Foster Care Advertisements. Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference CD Proceedings. Christchurch, New Zealand.

Randle, M. and Dolnicar, S. (2010) Using Targeted Marketing to Increase Foster Carers: Making Smarter Use of Limited Marketing Dollars. Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference CD Proceedings. Christchurch, New Zealand.

Rintoul, D. (2010) Lamb Stew and Behaviour Change: Tasty morsels from the 2011 World Social Marketing Conference, Dublin. Australian Marketing Institute Government Communications Conference. Gold Cost; and Australian Market and Social Research Conference. Sydney.

Example consultancies

Rintoul, D. (2007, 2008 and 2010) Evaluation of the NSW Club Drug Campaign: 2007, 2008 and 2010. Prepared for NSW Health (while Duncan was an Associate Director at Urbis Pty Ltd).

Rintoul, D. and Fear, J. (2010) Formative Research for the 2011 NSW Anxiety Campaign. Prepared for NSW Health (while Duncan was an Associate Director at Urbis Pty Ltd).

Cameron, C., Ross, S., Rintoul, D. et al (2010) Provision of Adult Health Checks to Indigenous Australians by Mainstream and Indigenous-Specific Primary Care Services: Barriers, Enablers and Strategies. Prepared for the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing (while Duncan was an Associate Director at Urbis Pty Ltd).

Example Higher Degree Research Student Projects

Brereton, L. (2011-current) Consumer Behaviour: Children as Consumers. Masters by Research, supervised by Dr Melanie Randle and Professor Sara Dolnicar.

Media coverage

Marketer wins gong for engaging volunteers - interview with Dr Melanie Randle, Illawarra Mercury, 22 Dec 2012

Interview with Dr Randle: census results on volunteering,  2UE radio, Weekend Breakfast with John Stanley, 20 Jul 2012

What Makes Us Tick? - ABC Illawarra, Mornings with Nick Rheinberger (interview with Hugh Mackay), 15 May 2012

Links and resources

The Centre for Health Initiatives is another centre of excellence in social marketing at the University of Wollongong.

The Australian Association of Social Marketing is a professional organisation and peak industry body formed in 2010. Membership is open, and provides (among other things) access to the Journal of Social Marketing.

The UK National Social Marketing Centre provides a wide range of tools and resources, including a Value for Money Tool for use in planning and evaluation, the Showcase catalogue of case studies, planning tools and other resources.

The program of the 2011 World Social Marketing Conference (Dublin, April) has been annotated with videos of the keynotes and PowerPoint presentations from most presenters.