Assessing Resistance to Social Marketing Programs

When the principles of commercial marketing were introduced to social change management in 1970s the concept of social marketing emerged. Since then, the success/failure of social marketing programs has been debated. That success should not be based solely on awareness and attitude shift assessment but on behavior change, has increasing academic and practitioner acceptance. Though behavior is the final objective of social programs, tools to diagnose and to direct behavior change strategies are few.  Rothschild (1999) proposed a diagnostic framework based on motivation, opportunity and ability and argued that change strategies can be based on education programs, regulation and incentives. This paper accepts the logic of Rothschild’s approach but argues that his framework needs refining and extending. An argument for the refinement of Rothschild’s and a diagnostics/strategic framework drawn from the diffusion of innovations theory that extends Rothschild’s framework is presented. 

Citation:

Margaret Craig-Lees (2007) ,"Assessing Resistance to Social Marketing Programs", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 487-490.