Behavior change in social marketing and social movement marketing

As we've seen, in modern definitions, behavior change is an important aspect of social marketing. Kotler and Lee continue on this point, saying:

...Social marketers are selling behaviors. Change agents typically want to influence target markets to do one of four things:

1. Accept a new behavior (e.g. composting food waste)
2. Reject a potentially undesirable behavior (e.g. starting smoking)
3. Modify a current behavior (e.g. increase physical activity)
4. Abandon an old undesirable one (e.g. talking on a cell phone while driving)

Now, besides this making me want a "change agent" badge, this list of specific types of behaviors moves social movement marketing further outside the realm of social marketing.

Eliciting a specific behavior is a common goal of marketing campaigns. Consider the AIDA model (Attention - Interest - Desire - Action) used in commercial marketing. As a communicator, you need to make people aware and interested in your product, so they desire it, and then take action (purchase it). The goal here is to elicit a behavior, but it isn't really behavior change, as outlined above.

Similarly, in social movements - the short-term goal is get people to undertake a specific action (e.g. call their representative, write a letter to the editor, attend a public protest, etc.), but in many cases, this does not constitute as a change in behavior.

Consider the types of targets in a social movement campaigns. In addition to any psycho-demographics specific to the nature of the campaign. Target audiences can be broken up as follows:

1. (Hard) Core Audience - These are the people who are passionate and committed to a cause. The ones who protest in the freezing rain, or who get arrested or beaten. These are the people who need the least amount of motivation and inspiration to keep fighting the good fight.
2. Main Audience - These are the people who ideally should be in the core group, but for whatever reason don't have the same level of intensity. This can include people who have a vested interested in the cause, people who are peripherally active on so many issues, and people who care but have so many other things going on its just not high on their priority list.
3. General Audience - The general public, including the uninformed, the disinterested, and the apathetic. For many campaigns, its essential to reach out to this group and bring them into the movement.
4. Opposition - These are the people who actively oppose the overall goal of the campaign.
   

Generally speaking, the communications goal for a social movement campaign is to bring people to inner audience levels - similar to the AIDA model, you want your opposition to become apathetic, apathetic people to become peripherally involved, and people who are peripherally involved to become more actively involved.

In social marketing, the goal is to convince someone to change their behavior - quit smoking, wear a seat belt, etc. then they are no longer a target for the campaign. But in social movements, the goal is to draw people in, using actions as tools to get them more and more involved until they ultimately become outspoken activists themselves.