(With apologies to Pete Seeger)
Where has all the marketing gone?
Long time passing
Where has all the marketing gone?
Long time ago
Where has all the marketing gone?
Gone to health comm and social media
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
What better time to recommence blogging than at the National Health Communication Marketing and Media conference?! What better time to write a therapeutic rant than at this conference?!
Events at the last two days of the conference put me in mind of folk singer Pete Seeger's wonderful ballad--with a few changes of my own! Out of over 100 workshops, plenaries and poster sessions, I have only found social marketing mentioned three times. Most of the conference content has been about social media, and a bit about communication. Now, I have not experienced every offering here. I do not know the content of the abstracts sent to reviewers. And this conference is one of my anchors. But where is the third leg of the stool promised in the title???
Social media is magical! We all need these channels available in our communication portfolio, with a strategy and goals. Communication is often a necessary factor in social change, but rarely is it sufficient, by itself. We need a marketing mindset!
Marketing is about making it possible for people--and communities--to receive real Benefits they want in Exchange for doing (or not doing) something. Marketing is about Lowering Barriers to actions and Increasing Facilitators. It is about Enabling people to Use all that good knowledge and awareness communication engenders. It provides a Strategic Framework and logic model to bring together all of our services, advocacy, communication, outreach and policy change.
Most of all, MARKETING IS A BASIC HUMAN FUNCTION. We have been doing marketing ever since our early human ancestors came out of the swamp; and the tribe by the river had plenty of tasty fish, but no way to cook them; and the tribe on the hill had trees for fire, but no fish--and then, they got together on the plain and traded three logs for five fish!
Let's bring tastiness and warmth back to this conference--and into our practice! Let’s have more marketing!!
Mike - just now seeing this and could not agree more!
Posted by: Kim Laramy | September 20, 2013 at 12:42 PM