Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches

This chapter comments on marketing and social marketing principles and how they may or may not apply to major public health challenges. Marketing insights make it clear that the primary focus of public health efforts needs to be on upstream rather than downstream approaches. In the typical absence o...

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Main Authors: Pettigrew, Simone, Jongenelis, Michelle
Format: Book Chapter
Published: x 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/37455
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author Pettigrew, Simone
Jongenelis, Michelle
author_facet Pettigrew, Simone
Jongenelis, Michelle
author_sort Pettigrew, Simone
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This chapter comments on marketing and social marketing principles and how they may or may not apply to major public health challenges. Marketing insights make it clear that the primary focus of public health efforts needs to be on upstream rather than downstream approaches. In the typical absence of adequate funding to undertake the basic principles of marketing at the downstream level (e.g. segmentation and competitor analysis) and the inappropriateness of delivering to consumers what they say they want (a fundamental assumption of the marketing concept that doesn’t usually work in public health), marketing knowledge needs to be applied in different ways to improve well-being at the population level. The two health issues of ageing and obesity are presented as examples of cases in which (social) marketing strategies will not be effective unless implemented as recommended in the literature—they need to be thoroughly researched, strategically implemented, well-resourced, and persistent in nature.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-374552017-09-13T16:08:46Z Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches Pettigrew, Simone Jongenelis, Michelle This chapter comments on marketing and social marketing principles and how they may or may not apply to major public health challenges. Marketing insights make it clear that the primary focus of public health efforts needs to be on upstream rather than downstream approaches. In the typical absence of adequate funding to undertake the basic principles of marketing at the downstream level (e.g. segmentation and competitor analysis) and the inappropriateness of delivering to consumers what they say they want (a fundamental assumption of the marketing concept that doesn’t usually work in public health), marketing knowledge needs to be applied in different ways to improve well-being at the population level. The two health issues of ageing and obesity are presented as examples of cases in which (social) marketing strategies will not be effective unless implemented as recommended in the literature—they need to be thoroughly researched, strategically implemented, well-resourced, and persistent in nature. 2016 Book Chapter http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/37455 10.1007/978-981-10-0464-3_5 x restricted
spellingShingle Pettigrew, Simone
Jongenelis, Michelle
Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title_full Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title_fullStr Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title_full_unstemmed Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title_short Promoting public health: Understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
title_sort promoting public health: understanding the limitations of marketing principles and the need for alternative approaches
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/37455