Social marketing – creating behaviour change

Change, change, change… we’ve seen lots of changes at Hemisphere over the past 12 months. What hasn’t changed is our passion for social marketing — using our skills and experience to create social good.

But what is social marketing?

It’s a question we get a lot. We use the definition of social marketing adopted by the global social marketing associations:

Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviour that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.

We integrate research, best practice, theory, mātauranga, audience insight, stakeholder advice and social change techniques to create effective behaviour change programmes.

Social marketing has had a renaissance in recent years following the decline experienced up until 2017. It’s one we’ve been glad to be part of. We see emerging examples of social marketing across the public sector. Including, the recent feature on Hemisphere client, the Ministry for Primary Industries in Success in Social Marketing: 100 Case Studies From Around the Globe by Nancy Lee and Philip Kotler.

Social marketing is a proven approach to behaviour change. This matters because every year in Aotearoa:

• 3,300 people will die early as a result of air pollution
• Almost 5,000 people will die as a result of smoking
• We’ll throw away on average 750kg of rubbish for every person
• 93% of Māori will experience racism every single day.

Our passion for behaviour change marketing is rooted in our values and history. In our commitment to a healthy and thriving Aotearoa. We never take on clients that negatively impact our community. We’ve never promoted alcohol, tobacco, fast food or gambling.

There are many models of behaviour change (eg, stages of change, COM-B, etc). No single model is right for every audience and every behaviour. We know that most models, where they have been tested, are based on work in White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) settings, largely with university students in the UK, USA, Australia and Israel.

Our team are experts at weaving together Māori, Pacific and other knowledge to create approaches that are right for Aotearoa. Our experts are drawn from these communities. We work with communities to shape approaches built on whānau knowledge and experience — the true experts.

At Hemisphere, we use left and right brain thinking to win heads and hearts. Motivating and promoting behaviour change through authentic communication and engagement — it’s not just about an advertising campaign. Relationships, community engagement, stakeholder engagement, public relations, community activations, social media and more are central to what we do.

Want to know more about creating social change with Hemisphere? Get in touch today.