Strategic Social Marketing in

BY Jennifer Allyson Dooley; Sandra C. Jones; Kendra Desmarais
ABSTRACT
Abstract
Social marketing has gained prominence among researchers and practitioners working
in social issues. Campaigns labeled as social marketing are implemented worldwide by
governments, nonprofit organizations, and private industry. However, there is evidence
that the concepts and processes associated with these campaigns are misunderstood
and not consistently applied. This article describes social marketing benchmark criteria
and follows with an overview of a strategic process for social marketing, specifically:
planning, research, campaign development, implementation, monitoring, and
evaluation. The main focus is the social marketing development process undertaken by
the Alberta Health Services to plan and implement cancer prevention and cancer
screening campaigns. Unique to this process is an internationally recognized panel of
social marketing experts to review and provide consultation. Improvements in planning
and implementing campaigns are outlined, including stakeholder engagement, use of
audience-centred strategies, and endorsement of campaigns by management. The
primary outcome of bringing together a clear and organized social marketing tool for
cancer prevention and cancer screening in Alberta is the development, implementation,
and evaluation of campaigns that follow a systematic best-practice process. The
learnings from this process will have important implications provincially in Alberta,
nationally in Canada, and worldwide for the advancement of the social marketing
discipline.