What is Social Marketing?

The use of modern marketing to influence positive social change for the purpose of societal benefit rather than commercial profit.

Eat your vegetables.   Come to our clinic or workshop.   Stop smoking.   Talk to your kids about sex.   Vote.

Each of these actions can benefit an individual or the entire community, but in order to make it happen, people have to change their behavior. The key is to realize that underlying all their decisions is an exchange: if you do this, then you’ll get that.  Social marketing is about understanding the barriers to and motivations for changing behavior and helping people move forward by making that change easy for them, popular for their group, and full of positive consequences.

Social marketing is most often used in public health, safety, and the environment. Find out more about us, then look at our services to see how Upstream can help.