Ethical issues in nonprofit mission-driven soap marketing

The interesting interview with William Novelli illustrates the main tenets of social marketing. Social marketing refers to the application of marketing tactics and strategies to the promotion of social justice causes. When Novelli first got into social marketing after working in standard product marketing at Unilever, the initial challenge was to “marry the academic and the practical,” (p. ). Yet the fusion of theory and practice is inherent in standard marketing too. The real difference between marketing and social marketing is that nonprofits are not market-driven; they are “product-driven,” (p. 32). There may also be a public perception that social marketing is deceptive or manipulative. While not an ethical concern per se, it is the perception of unethical behavior that challenges social marketers to frame their messages in ways that are consistent with audience attitudes and beliefs.

The first step in social marketing is to get the audience to realize the “difference between understanding and doing,” (p. 31). Granted, the same is true for regular marketing in that the goal is to get the consumer to take action. With social marketing, though, the goal is to actually change social norms. Therefore, social marketing can seem a lot more challenging than simply achieving the short-term goal of getting consumers to jump on the latest trend. Social marketing frequently entails long-term changes to the ways people think and behave. Novelli uses the examples of smoking cessation and increased physical activity to show how social marketing needs to be built on the principle of “positive deviance,” (p. 32). Although Novelli does not explain exactly what positive deviance is, Spreitzer & Sonenshein, (2004) define it as “intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways,” (p. 828). Vegetarianism or veganism would be current examples of positive deviance. Unless a person has the social support required to make positively deviant behavioral changes, those changes will be difficult to make. It takes a few rogue trendsetters—such as celebrities—to represent the cause, which is one technique that can be used in social marketing. Novelli uses the example of Oprah, but any high profile celebrity who endorses the desired behavioral change can kick start a revolution in social norms.

There are several types of persuasion in marketing, including the difference between product-driven and market-driven marketing, and the difference between deliberative and oppositional persuasion. Deliberative persuasion uses positive tactics to illustrate the benefits of taking action, whereas the oppositional method highlights the negative effects of the status quo. These different models are based on basic behaviorism. The marketer needs to focus on the consumer base: those who already buy into the product. For example, the marketer needs to know what motivates people who are already exercising regularly, eating right, or refraining from using drugs. The same deliberative, positive motivations for doing those behaviors are the same appeals that can be used in a social marketing campaign.