Sustainability through Service Marketing- Below the Line Bangladesh

Abstract

Social Marketing is a zero-sum game as it begets a dilemma to the marketer in terms of risk, benefit and cost. The descriptive paper covers the social Marketing concept from the facet of a Bangladeshi Company SMC, and its possible contribution to the below the line consumers. Attempt has been made to highlight various marketing programs and communication tools to cover the unidentified segments and ways to isolate them to better focus the strategic goals. Keywords - Sustainability, Social marketing, Promotion, Positioning I. INTRODUCTION Bangladesh has embarked on major strategies to advance its social marketing approaches. Their main focus is to facilitate sustainable consumption through social marketing. Notably, social marketing involves the use of various techniques and concepts with the aim of changing a specified behavioral change for the benefit of the society. In addition, it aims at promoting the society's well being. Therefore, only products and services that are of benefit to the society are promoted while at the same helping the public to avoid harmful products. Social Marketing Company (SMC) is a marketing organization in Bangladesh that plays a great role in maintaining a productive social marketing. It has greatly contributed in reproduction and provision of child health services in the country (Weinreich, 2010). SMC has started various social marketing programs. Some of these programs include the following: family planning, prevention of diseases, and child health among others. Their main aim is to promote quality of life of the less privileged population in the country. The company which is privately managed works closely with the national and international governments as well as donors. Its sustainable efforts on social marketing have benefited its population significantly. In this case, various commercial management techniques are usually applied in order to market, popularize, buy and sell product and services that are of benefit to the people. They also advocate for fair prices of goods and services which people can afford. Indeed, social marketing in Bangladesh focus on high availability and affordability of the product and services to the common public. Social marketing in Bangladesh uses two major strategies in order to achieve their objects. They include: multi-strategy communication as well as sustainability to enhance changed behavior among the members of the society (Weinreich, 2010). The communication is aimed at facilitating adoption and initiation of a positive behavior change. Virtually, commercial marketing technique is mainly used to support the change of behaviors on the use of products. The model of social marketing used in Bangladesh has achieved remarkable success. For this reason, it has become a best practice not only in Bangladesh but also in the international scenes. This has made United States together with other Asian countries to include the social marketing program in their curriculum. SMC has made major contributions in the national program. In the health sector, some of the major contribution has been seen in the social marketing of family planning through the use of contraceptives. This has played a great role in meeting the objective of the Bangladesh government on population control. Social marketing has greatly been achieved through the use of an innovative communication that facilitates behavior change. The company is able to offer large scale dissemination of information regarding the use of contraceptives. Moreover, it takes a major role in advertising these products to the larger population. Some of the barriers that have faced SMC in its endeavor of social marketing included: the larger illiterate members of the Bangladesh society, majority of the population was poor therefore access to media or buying the contraceptives was received with skepticism. In order to deal with this situation, SMC has to embark on strong and innovative sense of communication to facilitate behavior change. The major approach was on family planning and the use of contraceptives. The innovative modes of communication led to the success of these programs. This has made this company to gain a worldwide recognition. Its success is also based on its effort to promote health messages as well as enhance the sale and buying of the branded products only. Their advertisement and promotion is carried out not only through media but also through any means that will make the target audience receive the intended message. Thus, messages are found on billboards, buildings, shops, banners, water tanks among others.