[3] Social marketing has started to encompass a broader range of focus in recent years and now goes beyond influencing individual behavior.
Chandy and colleagues proposed, and subsequently implemented, a national family planning program with high quality, government brand condoms distributed and sold throughout the country at a low cost.
The program included an integrated consumer marketing campaign run with active point of sale promotion.
[8] In developing countries, the use of social marketing expanded to include HIV prevention, control of childhood diarrhea (through the use of oral re-hydration therapies), malaria control and treatment, point-of-use water treatment, on-site sanitation methods and the provision of basic health services.
In the United States, The National High Blood Pressure Education Program[10] and the community heart disease prevention studies in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and at Stanford University[11] demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach to address population-based risk factor behaviour change.
[12] Since the 1980s, the field has rapidly expanded around the world to include active living communities, disaster preparedness and response, ecosystem and species conservation, environmental issues, development of volunteer or Indigenous workforces, financial literacy, global threats of antibiotic resistance, government corruption, improving the quality of health care, injury prevention, landowner education, marine conservation and ocean sustainability, patient-centered health care, reducing health disparities, sustainable consumption, transportation demand management, water treatment and sanitation systems and youth gambling problems, among other social needs (See[13][14]).
[17] On a wider front, by 2007, the government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.
[citation needed] A variation of social marketing has emerged as a systematic way to foster more sustainable behavior.
The tools of CBSM have been used to foster sustainable behavior in many areas, including energy conservation,[23] environmental regulation,[24] recycling[25] and litter cleanup[26] In recent years, the concept of strategic social marketing has emerged, which identifies that social change requires action at the individual, community, socio-cultural, political and environmental level, and that social marketing can and should influence policy, strategy and operational tactics to achieve pro-social outcomes.
One of the most notable is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which for many years has waged social marketing campaigns against the use of natural fur products.
Public sector bodies can use standard marketing approaches to improve the promotion of their relevant services and organizational aims.
A campaign that promotes and reminds people to get regular check-ups and all of their vaccinations when they're supposed to encourage a long-term behavior change that benefits society.
They want to make potentially difficult and long-term behavior changes in target populations, which may or may not involve purchasing a product.
For example, reducing cigarette smoking or encouraging the use of condoms have difficult challenges to overcome that go beyond purchasing decisions.
Social marketing is sometimes seen as being restricted to a client base of non-profit organizations, health services groups, the government agency.
Many scholars ascribe the beginning of the field of social marketing to an article published by G.D. Wiebe in the Winter 1951–1952 edition of Public Opinion Quarterly.
Craig Lefebvre and June Flora introduced social marketing to the public health community in 1988,[11] where it has been most widely used and explored.
[14] For example, research now shows ways to reduce the intentions of people to binge drink or engage in dangerous driving.
Martin, Lee, Weeks and Kaya (2013) suggests that understanding consumer personality and how people view others is important.