Social Marketing

Marketing Mix
Advertising
3. Can they pull it off? Do they, or one of their partners, have the ability to produce breakthrough,
memorable creative and manage whatever media buys you might have planned?
4. How do their goals fit with yours? Everybody will say that they care about traffic safety,
whether they really do or not. What you want to figure out is what really turns your agency on.
Winning awards for funny TV spots? Showing everyone how wacky advertising can be? Actually
changing a behavior? None of these is necessarily bad. But these motivations will play a
part in what kind of advertising you get. For some efforts, they help. For others, they may not.
Managing an advertising agency
Once you secure a strong social marketing firm or advertising agency, you cannot just let them
go on their way. It is your job to fit their work into your overall marketing strategy and ensure
that their work is “on-strategy” and effective.
Throughout the advertising process, numerous opportunities exist to check in, but the first
meeting is the most critical. Before any work begins, you should start talking with your agency
about the key questions in the BEHAVE framework or whatever framework you decide to use.
You can do this by following the steps in the chapter, Creating a Marketing Plan. By working
through your marketing plan together with your contractor, you can jointly decide on issues
such as where you may need more research or what determinants you may need to target.
Spotlight on Social Marketing
Projects
A hip and irreverent student-driven
campaign developed by AED and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
convincingly highlights the superior
benefits of moderate drinking over
getting wasted.
Partner: MIT
Once you have worked with your contractor to establish a shared strategy, it is your job to monitor
what it is producing and ensure its work fits the strategy. (Advertising agencies are especially
notorious for going off-strategy). How do you keep them on-strategy? Agree with an agency on