Stop AIDS, Love Life: An Example of Social Marketing

Social marketing is an important aspect of PR that all aspiring public relations professionals should be familiar with when entering the real world of public relations.

So, what is Social Marketing?

Social marketing is defined as: the application of commercial marketing technologies designed to influence the behavior of the target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society. - Alan Andreason.

Social marketing is:

* A social behavior change strategy
* Consumer-focused
* Most effective when it activates people
* Targeted to those who have a reason to care
* Strategic and requires an efficient use of resource
* Integrated, and work on the installment plan

Stop AIDS, Love Life a campaign, which took place from 1999-2003 in Ghana, South Africa, aimed to increase awareness and knowledge about HIV/AIDS, contribute to more positive social norms concerning the disease and its prevention, and increase the use of condoms through specific social marketing strategies. Project objectives included:

* Promote and model HIV/AIDS prevention behavior

* Increase adoption of safer sex behaviors

* Decrease the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS

* Encourage compassion, care, and support for people living with HIV/AID

To achieve these goals, grassroots organizations in Ghana engaged in the following activities:

* Development and distribution of print materials.
* Production of an HIV/AIDS music video featuring Ghanaian hip-life, highlife, and gospel musicians with safer sex messages of abstinence, fidelity, and condom use.
* Testimonies featuring HIV positive Ghanaians telling their stories.
* Peer counseling workshops.
* Launch of Journey of Hope campaign.
* Things We Do For Love television series.

Surveys have showed that the Ghanaian public has had high exposure to these communication activities: 60% of men and 55% percent of women interviewed were able to, without being prompted, identify a slogan associated with the campaign.

This campaign illustrates the importance of social marketing and its effect on social behavior change. To read more about the Stop AIDS, Love Life social marketing campaign visit: CCP: Stop AIDS. Love Life. Campaign in Ghana.

(Information from a class lecture by Kelli Matthews, professor of public relations at the University of Oregon.)

images from www.m-mc.org