The potential application of social marketing techniques in health promotion

Abstract

Health promotion is increasingly considered to be the guiding principle of contemporary health care strategies. As a concept, health promotion concerns the development, implementation and evaluation of a realm of health enhancing activities. The composition and distribution of information on health, lifestyle and related services is crucial to the development of such activities. Social marketing is concerned with the application of marketing techniques to influence the acceptability of social ideas and practices.It is the aim of this article to draw out the potential advantages of employing social marketing techniques in the development of information campaigns, as a component of health promotion work. The article opens with the definition of health promotion and social marketing and then considers the application of marketing techniques to health information work. In the final section the relationship between social marketing and health promotion is illustrated and assessed. The authors conclude that with due recognition of the differing value systems and cultures of social marketing and health promotion, information campaigns might benefit from the application of skills and techniques from both perspectives in the design and implementation of projects.