Reflections Writing

Assignment Description and Marking Rubric

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Assignment 1: Reflective Writing 15%

Description In this course you will be asked to make three (3) reflective writing entries. This is a self-directed reflective assignment. Link your reflection to research, feelings, personal experiences and online or class discussions. Substantiate your entries with details and/or examples. Use these four headings as you write. The questions are there to guide you.

Objective What is this quote or idea about? What caught your attention?

Reflective Why did you choose this quote or idea? How do you identify with it?

Interpretive What does it mean to you? What insights did you get from the quote or idea? How has your thinking changed by reflecting on this quote or idea?

Decisional How can this new or enhanced interpretation be applied to your professional practice?

The reflective writing entries will be responses to quotes from your course textbook,

“If you really loved me, you would . . .” The educational techniques, manuals, and accompanying videos that make up the curricula for Programs H and M are termed “social technologies,” a concept developed by Instituto Promundo and defined as “all educational material, methodological procedures or tested techniques, validated and with a proven social impact created with the aim of solving a social problem” (Instituto Promundo, 2008c). A top priority must be to address the prevention needs of women and girls . . . biologically, women are twice as likely as men to contract HIV. And many women—including those who are married—have little power to ensure their partners are faithful or use condoms. (Gates, 2007)

For the young men and women targeted by the interventions, the conclusion is that addressing unequal gender norms, especially machismo attitudes, is a vital part of HIV-prevention strategies. These changes can conceivably extend into future generations, leading to a culture with stronger, healthier personal relationships. “Young men don’t learn behaviors in isolation,” said Dr. Gary Barker, former executive director of Promundo and one of Program H’s creators. Just recently, a TB patient from a village called Morne Michel hadn’t shown up for his monthly doctor’s appointment. So—this was one of the rules— someone had to go and find him. The annals of international health contain many stories of adequately financed projects that failed because “noncompliant” patients didn’t take all their medicines. (Paul) Farmer said, “The only non-compliant people are physicians. If the patient doesn’t get better, it’s your own fault. Fix it.” —Kidder, 2004, p. 36

Aha moment!!!

What

So What

What is next

As an early adopter of social marketing, Canada has integrated social marketing into many of its public health strategies for more than 30 years. Initially, social marketing was primarily used by national government departments, such as Health Canada (Mintz, 2004), and nongovernmental agencies like ParticipACTION, a national physical activity promotion agency (Edwards, 2004). Social marketing is now used in a more extensive and sustained way at all levels by an ever-growing constituency of trained professionals to address a broader range of public health issues.

You can't rely on cold turkey alone...; “Cold Turkey,” emphasizes the importance of having a plan for organizing the quitting process. The star of the campaign is a real cold turkey, representing the difficulty of quitting “cold turkey” without a plan in place.

Social media and new technologies play an important role in how today’s teens live, play, and work. The truth® Web site, www.thetruth.com, has distinct interactive elements designed to engage and amuse teens, while sharing important information about tobacco use.

The truth® Campaign uses evidence-based research, research with teen audiences, marketing and social science research, and lessons learned from the most successful anti-tobacco campaigns to inform its strategies. “We’re not anti-smoker, or anti-smoking. We’re just anti-manipulations. With that in mind, we try to ‘out’ Big Tobacco’s tactics so everyone knows what they’re up to.”

Saskatchewan people will feel that they are part of a “movement” and that SIM is more than an organization or program (this feeling should translate to a strong and shared sense of belonging and accomplishment). Measures fall into three categories—output measures for program activities;outcome measures for target audience responses and changes in knowledge, beliefs, and behavior; and impact measures for contributions to the plan purposes (e.g., reductions in obesity as a result of many more people buying healthy foods and/or beverages due to a social marketing campaign).

Because different communication channels have different characteristics, it could be more effective and efficient to have a good idea of the media budget and media options that a social marketing campaign could have before communication elements are created. The fast-changing media landscape is both a blessing and a “curse” for marketers; social marketers are no exception. As a blessing, social marketers have more and more media choices to target their audiences more precisely and effectively. As a “curse,” the increasingly perplexing media landscape requires social marketers to think “out of the box”—not only considering those traditional media or the media they are familiar with, but also thinking about those non traditional and emerging media that their target audiences often tend to use or be exposed to.

A core product comprises the benefits that the target audience will experience or expect in exchange for performing the targeted behavior, or that will be highlighted in a social marketing campaign (e.g., a healthier life and the reduction in the risk of becoming obese or overweight). An actual product is the desired behavior, often embodied by its major features and described in specific terms (such as healthy foods or beverages available at vending machines). An augmented product refers to any additional tangible objects and/or services that will be included in the offer and promoted to the target market. An augmented product helps perform the targeted behavior or increase its appeal (e.g., information on healthy products available in vending machines).

A positioning statement describes what the target audience is supposed to feel and think about the targeted behavior and its related benefits. A positioning statement, together with brand identity, is inspired by the description of the target audience and its barriers, competitors, and influencers. It differentiates the targeted behavior from alternative or preferred ones. Effective positioning will guide the development of the marketing mix strategies in the next step, helping ensure that the offer in a social marketing campaign will land on and occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target audience.

The 4Ps should be developed and presented in the following order, with the product strategy at the beginning of the sequence and the promotion strategy at the end. Promotion is at the end because it ensures that the target markets become aware of the targeted product, its price, and its accessibility, which need to be developed prior to the promotion strategy.

A social marketing campaign also needs to establish quantifiable measures, called marketing goals, relevant to the marketing objectives. Marketing goals, responding to behavior objectives, knowledge objectives, and belief objectives should be ideally SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (Haughey, n.d.) in terms of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior changes. An audience segment is identified and aggregated by the shared characteristics and needs of the people in a broad audience, including similar demographics, psychographics, geographics, behaviors, social networks, community assets, and stage of change.

Typically, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is conducted at this step to provide a quick audit of organizational strengths and weaknesses and environmental opportunities and threats. Strengths to maximize and weaknesses to minimize include internal factors such as levels of funding, management support, current partners, delivery system capabilities, and the sponsor’s reputation. Opportunities to take advantage of and threats to prepare for include major trends and events outside your influence—those often associated with demographic, psychographic, geographic, economic, cultural, political, legal, and technological forces.

Any social marketing campaign for public health needs a clearly determined public health problem, which might be a severe epidemic (like SARS), an evolving issue (like the increases in teen smoking), or a justifiable need (like public education on the prevention of hepatitis B).

While “social marketing is one of the fastest-growing areas of marketing and communications, it is also frequently one of the most misunderstood” (Houghton, 2008, p. 1).

The confusion between social marketing and social media has given rise to a serious challenge to the identity of social marketing as a field of practice, research, and education. To clean this “muddy water” is a battle that all social marketers have to fight right now—and in the years to come.

Research has documented that “[i]n response to pressures to be more socially responsible, corporations are becoming more active in global communities through direct involvement in social initiatives” (Hess & Warren, 2008, p. 163). Defined as “a commitment to improving community well- being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources” (Kotler & Lee, 2005, p. 3)

Public health issues are often so complex that no single agency is able to “make a dent by itself.” No wonder some social marketers even deem partnership as one of the “additional social marketing Ps” (Weinreich, 2006, p. 1). Partners for social marketers can be nonprofit organizations (at local, national, or international levels), private sectors, governments, media organizations, local communities (or online communities), and even individuals (like volunteers).

Today, social marketing has been applied to an even broader array of public health activities and programs—from the safe drinking water campaign in Madagascar, to the promotion of mosquito nets in Nigeria, and then to the anti–drink driving program in Australia (yes, drink driving!)

“social marketing is about influencing behaviors”; “[s]imilar to commercial sector marketers who sell goods and services, social marketers are selling behaviors” (p. 8). As they elaborated, social marketers typically try to influence their target audience toward four behavioral changes:

the genius of modern marketing is not the 4Ps, or audience research, or even exchange, but rather the management paradigm that studies, selects, balances, and manipulates the 4Ps to achieve behavior change. We keep shortening “The Marketing Mix” to the 4Ps. . . . [I]t is the “mix” that matters most. This is exactly what all the message campaigns miss—they never ask about the other 3Ps and that is why so many of them fail. (Kotler & Lee, 2008, p. 3)

Social marketing is a process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate, and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society as well as the target audience. (P. Kotler, N. R. Lee, & M. Rothschild, personal communication, September 19, 2006)

Kotler and Levy clearly proposed that as “a pervasive societal activity,” marketing “goes considerably beyond the selling of toothpaste, soap, and steel,” urging marketing researchers and practitioners to consider “whether traditional marketing principles are transferable to the marketing of organizations, persons, and ideas” (p. 10).