Social Marketing
Social marketing is about making people do things they don’t want to do – stopping smoking, cutting down on alcohol, eating better, taking more exercise. This is why social marketing methods have become some of the most powerful in the PR industry.
In the end it’s about helping people to get better. Here are the principles to be learnt from social marketing.
1. Look at how people really behave If you can understand how people live, including the voices and pressures all around them, you can better help them adapt to often unappealing life changes
2. Understand how people think Not just on the surface, but deep down. For example NHS could learn about how to get closer to patients – actually understanding and living in their lives – rather than dealing in generalisations and high-level market research. People are complicated. We find that our audiences often believe several contradicting ideas at once. If you can get to grips with this complicated psychology, you can use it.
3. Plan rigorously Social marketing combines principles, approaches and practices from both marketing and social sciences, and uses them in a rigorously structured way. The strict planning built into social marketing vastly increases its chances of success.
4. Put the patient at the centre Social marketing demands that people are the focus, not the brand. This means strategy and channels are used appropriately, rather than simply because they’re built into the plan (e.g. from service redesign to in-store presence to social media to above the line)
5. SM appeals to the people who hold the purse strings Social marketing in its true sense (not a major national advertising campaign with patchy local support, as has sometimes been the case recently) will appeal to a new Tory government, with its prevention and smart-spending agenda. Agencies who are working with the NHS in this area will have a privileged understanding of where the NHS is going and will be well positioned to spot where pharma can identify opportunities to benefit patients and the bottom line.
In the end it’s about helping people to get better. Here are the principles to be learnt from social marketing.
1. Look at how people really behave If you can understand how people live, including the voices and pressures all around them, you can better help them adapt to often unappealing life changes
2. Understand how people think Not just on the surface, but deep down. For example NHS could learn about how to get closer to patients – actually understanding and living in their lives – rather than dealing in generalisations and high-level market research. People are complicated. We find that our audiences often believe several contradicting ideas at once. If you can get to grips with this complicated psychology, you can use it.
3. Plan rigorously Social marketing combines principles, approaches and practices from both marketing and social sciences, and uses them in a rigorously structured way. The strict planning built into social marketing vastly increases its chances of success.
4. Put the patient at the centre Social marketing demands that people are the focus, not the brand. This means strategy and channels are used appropriately, rather than simply because they’re built into the plan (e.g. from service redesign to in-store presence to social media to above the line)
5. SM appeals to the people who hold the purse strings Social marketing in its true sense (not a major national advertising campaign with patchy local support, as has sometimes been the case recently) will appeal to a new Tory government, with its prevention and smart-spending agenda. Agencies who are working with the NHS in this area will have a privileged understanding of where the NHS is going and will be well positioned to spot where pharma can identify opportunities to benefit patients and the bottom line.
E-CIGARETTE
One of the more extreme uses of social media is by ecigarette brand blu Smart Pack. Each blu Smart Pack store links to your Facebook profile, Twitter account, or any other social networking account you may have. Other blu smokers can get your link and other contact details so they could check you out later on.
What’s more, a blu Smart Pack also carries a radio signal. If you come within 50 feet of another blu smoker, your pack will flash a blue light and vibrate. Helping you meet more people.
A National Institutes of Health study titled “Quitting in Droves: Collective Dynamics of Smoking Behavior in a Large Social Network” has found that people are better able to quit smoking if they have a few friends who are also quitting. Just as most people often start smoking due to peer pressure, the researchers led by Nicholas Christakis found that people quit in droves too.
Because ecigarettes are seen to be the first step to quitting smoking for most people, the social networking feature certainly enhances this benefit. If people stop smoking in droves, then why not make it easier for an individual to find similar minded individuals?
Ingenious, isn’t it?
What’s more, a blu Smart Pack also carries a radio signal. If you come within 50 feet of another blu smoker, your pack will flash a blue light and vibrate. Helping you meet more people.
A National Institutes of Health study titled “Quitting in Droves: Collective Dynamics of Smoking Behavior in a Large Social Network” has found that people are better able to quit smoking if they have a few friends who are also quitting. Just as most people often start smoking due to peer pressure, the researchers led by Nicholas Christakis found that people quit in droves too.
Because ecigarettes are seen to be the first step to quitting smoking for most people, the social networking feature certainly enhances this benefit. If people stop smoking in droves, then why not make it easier for an individual to find similar minded individuals?
Ingenious, isn’t it?
blu Smart Pack
Social networking is the current in thing right now – with all sorts of devices and apps aiming to bring people together. We have the Nintendo 3DS communicating with each other whenever they’re found in close proximity, and we have apps like Colors that shares photographs with anybody with other users of the app that happen to be in the same area as well. Now we have a new one to add to the list – electronic cigarettes.
Blu, the makers of electronic cigarettes (that emit nicotine-laden vapor instead of smoke) have come up with a new way to implement social networking into smoking. As if smoking wasn’t sociable enough – people already gather around in smoking areas just to have a puff in public. But now, Blu wants Blu cigarette smokers to get in touch with other Blu cigarette smokers.
Blu has released “smart packs” for their e-cigarettes. In addition to charging their cigarettes, the smart packs come with devices that emit and search for the radio signals of other packs. When two packs are within 50 feet of one another, the packs will vibrate and flash a blue light. Blu smokers can then choose to acknowledge that there is the presence of another Blu smoker in the vicinity and they’ll be able to easily start a conversation with each other. “Oh hey, you smoke Blu too?”
The Blu smart packs can also be used to store your contact details or links to social networking sites that can be picked up by other Blue smokers with smart packs and then downloaded onto their computers so they can reach you. The company is integrating Smart Packs with sites like Facebook and Twitter so that e-cigarette users can exchange information easily after connecting via their flashing packs.
There will also be a desktop app that allows users to track their interactions with other e-cigarette users, the company said. Future plans include tethering the packs to a smartphone and a monitoring system to report to users how much they smoke.
The new Smart Pack will be released in June and it’s expected to be a huge hit with social smokers who have switched to e cigarettes. It’s no surprise since Blu Cigs is already technologically advance with the electronic cigarettes, but with technology and social networking becoming a bigger part of peoples lives, Blu Cigs is certainly making the most of current trends and technology.
Blu, the makers of electronic cigarettes (that emit nicotine-laden vapor instead of smoke) have come up with a new way to implement social networking into smoking. As if smoking wasn’t sociable enough – people already gather around in smoking areas just to have a puff in public. But now, Blu wants Blu cigarette smokers to get in touch with other Blu cigarette smokers.
Blu has released “smart packs” for their e-cigarettes. In addition to charging their cigarettes, the smart packs come with devices that emit and search for the radio signals of other packs. When two packs are within 50 feet of one another, the packs will vibrate and flash a blue light. Blu smokers can then choose to acknowledge that there is the presence of another Blu smoker in the vicinity and they’ll be able to easily start a conversation with each other. “Oh hey, you smoke Blu too?”
The Blu smart packs can also be used to store your contact details or links to social networking sites that can be picked up by other Blue smokers with smart packs and then downloaded onto their computers so they can reach you. The company is integrating Smart Packs with sites like Facebook and Twitter so that e-cigarette users can exchange information easily after connecting via their flashing packs.
There will also be a desktop app that allows users to track their interactions with other e-cigarette users, the company said. Future plans include tethering the packs to a smartphone and a monitoring system to report to users how much they smoke.
The new Smart Pack will be released in June and it’s expected to be a huge hit with social smokers who have switched to e cigarettes. It’s no surprise since Blu Cigs is already technologically advance with the electronic cigarettes, but with technology and social networking becoming a bigger part of peoples lives, Blu Cigs is certainly making the most of current trends and technology.
Social Media Drives Smoking Cessation Campaign in Singapore
With motivation being one of the key factors in smoking cessation, the campaign focuses on social media to connect quitters with supporters to give them a stronger chance of success. This is done through a dedicated web site built on Facebook technology, guiding individuals through the different stages of their quitting process to keep them focused on their goal. Kicking the habit is no longer a solitary journey as quitters will be able to share online their trials and tribulations in trying to quit, as well as receive support from other quitters, friends and families. Participants are also provided with daily tips and advice, and can track their progress of how much they have achieved during the course of this programme.
The initiative was
supported by a special advertising campaign built around the theme “Join The
Race To Quit”. Depicting different run images, the 12-week campaign will extend
across a wide range of print, online and direct mail executions. The theme is
symbolic of the quitter’s challenging journey to smoking cessation, how it
takes mental determination, physical endurance, motivation and emotional
support to get to the end of the run, and where the desire to just give up can
sometimes be very strong. The participant’s courage and success in embarking on
this very challenging personal quest is celebrated with the Nicorette Quitters
Run, the world’s first and only run to promote smoking cessation on 18th
September 2010.
wireWAX
wireWAX, an interactive video tool which allows users to create intuitive, interactive hotspots with dynamic, geo-specific information within moving video images. Opening up exciting possibilities for both storytelling and audience analytics. Thsi is all about how video content--traditionally, delivered via a lean-back, passive experience can translate to a lean-forward, engaging online medium.
wireWAX is the first taggable video tool, allowing content owners to add motion-tracking hotspots or ‘tags’ to people and objects in video and create their own interactive experiences.
Here’s a grab of a film full of lovely models sporting fashionable clobber. Click on the hotspot, and you’ll see deets of the clothes. Within the film the tagging allows you to look at the clothes, but also become a friend right there.
What can I do?
wireWAX is the first taggable video tool, allowing content owners to add motion-tracking hotspots or ‘tags’ to people and objects in video and create their own interactive experiences.
Here’s a grab of a film full of lovely models sporting fashionable clobber. Click on the hotspot, and you’ll see deets of the clothes. Within the film the tagging allows you to look at the clothes, but also become a friend right there.
What can I do?
- Add intuitive, motion-tracking hotspots to people and objects in video
- Add feature rich applications with video-in-video, image carousels and interactive apps
- Fully brand the experience for your own look and feel
- Offer viewers a reason to engage by offering further content and gameplay - within the video
- Add tags to people and objects with information, links, images and dynamic applications.
- This clickable functionality can extend to shout boxes, comments, voting and even community-uploaded videos, all within the video frame experience...
- Fast, lightweight plugin to Brightcove
- Fast and light iPad version, offering touchable video to the masses
- Embed across blogs, websites and whitelisted for Facebook walls (Add tags to people and objects with information, links, images and dynamic applications. Have live Twitter & Facebook feeds on your friends, add to wishlist/basket, listen to music, SMS from a button. All the functionality you can dream up, all in your own look and feel)
- iPad version... just touch people and objects in video and see dynamic information, graphics, tweets, profiles and click through to website and pages. iPad version released in a few months.