SOCIAL ISSUES MARKETING

Social Marketing, also sometimes called Health Marketing or Behavior Change Communication, came about from applying general marketing theories or concepts to health and social issues. Instead of marketing products or services, the campaign markets health and social behavior/lifestyle. For this reason, social marketing theory has been studied in health and social sectors.

Three closely related sectors are Health Communication, Risk Communication, and Environmental Communication. These three are similar in that they apply communication theory to communicating with patients/clients about their health, health condition, their responsibilities, their behavioral risks, and their environmental risks. Sometimes they are itemized to certain conditions, like "cancer communication".

The following keywords can be used for information searches:

  • Social Marketing
  • Health Marketing
  • Public Health Marketing
  • Social Change Communication/Marketing
  • Behavior Change Communication/Marketing
  • Health Communication/Journalism
  • Risk Communication
  • Environmental Communication
  • Cancer Communication (or other itemized sectors of specific conditions/diseases)
  • Life Science Communication
  • Public Service Announcements (PSA)
(another related sub-field that sometimes gets confused with social marketing is Social Norms Marketing - using social norms theory as a base for the marketing campaigns.)

Browse through Social Marketing campaigns
and success stories in the following categories:

Social Issue Marketing Consultants


Information and tools for
Social Marketing campaign development


Websites of Interest


For a comprehensive list of books on Social Marketing and Cause Marketing please click here .