Food for thought
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Social Marketing, Volume 3, Issue 2
Science is facts, just as houses are made of stone […] But a pile of stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily science(Poincarre, 1983 cited in Whetton, 1989).
Over time social marketers have been criticised for their lack of theory and this criticism continues (Luca and Suggs, 2013). In simple terms, theory provides a guide or a framework to design and evaluate an intervention (Whetton,1989). Of particular importance, empirical evidence suggests that effective social marketing campaigns use theory (Stead et al., 2007). To overcome the “lack of theory” criticism social marketing researcher’s first need to understand what exactly is meant by the term theory:
Theory is […] an ordered set of assertions about a generic behaviour or structure assumed to hold throughout a significantly broad range of specific instances (Wacker, 1998).
According to Whetton (1989) a theory seeks to answer questions of how, when (if longitudinal data is available), where or why, which is distinct from description, which simply answers the questions of what or who. In other words,theories consist of a set of factors which should be considered to explain a social phenomenon and outlines how the factors are related. These can be illustrated graphically to visually represent the authors thinking. If all links have been empirically identified then the model is ready for the classroom to teach future social marketing practitioners (Whetton, 1989). The mission for a social marketing researcher is to challenge and extend existing knowledge, not to simply re-write it. To do this, you have to be able to answer why. Why did social marketing form? How did the social marketing journey start? Why are we collectively working in this field? The goal of a good theory is to provide a clear explanation of how specific relationships lead to specific events and why we should expect these relationships. Without theory to explain or predict phenomena, social marketers risk the potential of failing to translate their work in a way that can be easily taught to future generations of social marketers (Walsh et al., 1993).
In a systematic literature review of social marketing interventions Luca and Suggs (2013) identified:
A total of eight out of 17 papers reported theory use with seven papers reporting how theory was used.
The transtheoretical or stages of change model was used most often (n=4)in social marketing papers in the Luca and Suggs (2013) review.
Theories such as the theory of planned behaviour (n=3), theory of reasoned action (n=2), health belief model (n=2), social network theory (n=2), social learning theory (n=2) were all reported to be used on more than one occasion in the Luca and Suggs (2013)review.
The Luca and Suggs (2013) systematic literature review suggests that social marketers borrow ideas from psychology and sociology. For example, extending upon the theory of reasoned action (attitudes influence behaviour through behavioural intentions), the theory of planned behaviour links beliefs to behaviour. The health belief model, also originating from psychology suggests that your belief in a personal threat together with your belief in the effectiveness of the proposed behaviour will predict the likelihood of that behaviour. The transtheoretical or stages of change model assesses an individual’s readiness to act on a healthier behaviour while social learning theory explains how people learn within a social context. All are theories that originate in psychology. Alternate theoretical lens are used in social marketing. For example, a sociology approach, social network theory, provides an analytical perspective to consider social relationships in terms of a network of interrelationships between the actors involved (Dann et al., 2007).
Exploration of psychological and sociology theory enables social marketing researchers to challenge assertions, which may permit a broad reconceptualisation of theory to occur. For example, Holdershaw et al.(2011) challenged the theory of planned behaviour by considering blood donation behaviour (the desired outcome for a social marketer) and intentions to donate blood as asserted in the theory of planned behaviour. Their findings identified that consistent with theory of planned behaviour assertions the theory of planned behaviour predicted intentions to donate (R2=0.52)but was less effective in predicting blood donation behaviour which yields medical supplies (R2=0.19) suggesting that other factors were explaining 81 per cent of the variance in blood donation factors. The Holdershaw et al. (2011) study is not alone in low levels of variance explained. This raises the question whether the reliance by social marketers on psychological theories is limiting our ability to achieve social change?
The pervasiveness of theories such as social cognitive theory and the transtheoretical model of change reinforce social marketers need to step out of their comfort zones. Alternative thinking is required for social marketers seeking to change behaviours. Consider Ehrenberg’s (2005) Dirichlet theory of repeat buying and brand choice, a commercial marketing theory that has been tested in a wide variety of commercial marketing contexts. Dirichlet theory asserts that rather than changing what people think about your brand, which is hard to achieve, you need to have more people think about your brand on more occasions than competing brand alternatives. The key assertion in Dirichlet theory is to remind people rather than informing them. Think about Page and Sharp (2012) who employed marketing metrics that have been used in commercial settings to examine market penetration to assess the effectiveness of an intervention targeting schools. Their study identified the program had penetrated approximately 30 per cent of schools targeted suggesting considerable room for improvement in terms of program efficacy. While an unknown alternative presents more ambiguity for researchers, it also represents a shift that can contribute meaningfully to the body of knowledge.
Let us now consider a social marketing context, namely eating which is an important issue to consider in light of the global obesity epidemic. Social marketing is a field that address real social problems such as eating. Eating is influenced by a multitude of variables. For example, eating behaviour is influenced by previous food intake, genetic predispositions, socio-economic status, health status, access to transport, living arrangements, physiological aspects (e.g. cravings, hunger), demographic characteristics, situation specific factors such as mood, body image, habit, cost, price promotions, beliefs,culture, religion, taste preferences, parental influence, peer influence,benefits of food (e.g. health), availability, convenience, package size, package appeal, food advertising and food environments. The wide array of factors suggest that social marketers can turn to biology, physiology, retailing, brand choice and commercial marketing theory to build and apply social marketing theories which may be capable of accounting for the missing 80 per cent in variation in blood donation behaviour that was missed by restricting a study to psychological models (see Holdershaw et al.’s, 2011 results). For social marketers to be effective in changing eating behaviour thought needs to be given about exactly where to turn – the individual, environment, family homes, schools, restaurants, supermarkets and the list goes on.
I encourage researchers to delve into theories to develop frameworks for describing and enhancing social marketing. Taken together, social marketing researchers need to use theory taking care to report how theory was used in empirical studies. Further, to extend beyond current boundaries in social marketing thinking, which are largely relying on psychological and sociology theories, social marketers need to expand the theoretical base of social marketing. Finally, social marketing researchers need to ensure current social marketing frameworks are tested empirically to ensure our current understanding of the social marketing process is valid.
By building good theory we can ensure that other social change disciplines will turn to social marketing in time to understand how they can achieve behaviour change.
Sharyn Rundle-Thiele
