Innovations in Social Marketing and Public Health Communication: Improving the Quality of Life for Individuals and Communities

Abstract

Social marketing and public health campaigns offer audiences ways to improve their quality of life by taking action or changing their behavior for healthier living and improved longevity. Unfortunately, these campaigns are often ineffective. In this chapter, an approach is presented for developing more effective communication strategies for the purpose of influencing greater audience compliance with social marketing and public health campaigns. A two-phase process is recommended. First, a process for analyzing structural (upstream or environmental) and internal (individual) causes of the public health or social problem is described for the purpose of identifying targets for emphasis. Second, a process for understanding how target audiences perceive different message arguments is described for the purpose of refining the public health message for improved persuasiveness.