Expanding the formative research toolkit

Abstract

This chapter introduces the Formative Research in Social Marketing book. First, we reflect on the role and importance of formative research which is recommended in social marketing within different frameworks to guide social marketing practice. We then highlight several systematic literature reviews indicating incomplete use of formative research in social marketing, and programs relying on surveys and focus groups as a means to understand what consumers think. However, arguing that programs designed and implemented with no or limited formative research are the anti-thesis of social marketing, we complete this introduction with an overview of each of the chapters included in this book.