Inch by Inch (Part III)

The Social Movement Marketing Mix
As with any marketing campaign, social movement marketers must develop strategies and tactics to elicit the desired behavior from their target audience. Having evaluated the target audiences and the types of actions to be undertaken, the next step is to determine what needs to be done to convince the target audience to act.

In commercial marketing, the marketing mix – product, placement, promotion, price - is the guide for managing the customer/product relationship. This mix, commonly called the four Ps, can be adapted to serve as a guide to social movement marketing. Each item in the mix should be evaluated both in terms of the movement’s overall goal and the specific actions it is asking people to undertake.

Product - How audiences perceive the ultimate goal and the specific actions taken by the movement. The “product” is formed through a combination of existing attitudes, messages from the movement, and any opposing messages.

Placement – Where actions are taken, what audiences are exposed to the action, and what systems are in place to allow for a successful action. This also includes external factors that may influence how a cause or action is perceived.

Promotion – Similar to commercial marketing, this includes all the communications strategies and tactics used to make the goal or action accepted and desired by the audience.

Price – For the overall goal of the movement, price is the cost of the goal being – or not being - achieved. Each action also has a price attached to it, which is determined by each individual deciding whether or not to participate. Wiebe calls this “distance” and defines it as an individual’s “subjective estimate of the intervening energy expenditure required” to take the action (Wiebe, 1951).

Product, placement, and promotion all depend heavily on the specific social movement considered. While there are some factors of price that will vary between causes, there are many that can be generalized as well.