While I did have Wifi in Mexico, it wasn’t that great. In fact it was quite spotty. Subsequently I could not read all of my favorite feeds. Well, after three days, all the vacation laundry is done, all is caught up at the office and now I’ve had a good bit of time to catch up.

The first thing of note is that I’ve found a series of articles in the May 20th British Medical Journal (BMJ) that discusses the use of social marketing to influence health behaviors. Thankfully the “Blogging Doc” has a subscription so I was able to get the articles.

The final article in the series by Hastings & McDermott discuss putting social marketing into practice. They use marketing examples of Coca Cola and Nike of how public health endeavors should be crafted. The key to success being that the marketers should spend time learning about and understanding their audience’s values, motivators, and overall point of view.

Often the picture is much more complex than ignorance of the public health facts. Most people know, for instance, that smoking is dangerous or that diet can be improved. They continue with unhealthy behavior because they see some other benefit in doing so — relaxation, perhaps, or a treat. The secret of the social marketer is to devise a way of getting the same benefit more healthily. In this sense, social marketing has a great deal in common with good, patient centered care.

I think the points made in this article perfectly compliment the my post over at the Medical Blog Network about knowing your audience. It also reflects one of the key points that Katya Andresen makes in her book Robin Hood Marketing. She makes the point that you don’t get too far when you try to be preachy about your cause. In fact her Robin Hood Rule 2 is:

The most important values are those of our audience, not our own. The closer we align with our audiences’ values, the higher our chances of motivating them to take action.

Hastings and McDermott are quick to point out that social marketing is much more that simple advertising. It works because it meets the person where he or she is at and then meets a real and valued need.

Social marketing is likely to be the most important process in the implementation of health policy and meeting important benchmarks of success. I agree with Hastings and McDermott, it is much more than just simple advertising. Success also depends on having trusted health professionals being the footmen for the policy. They will need to build the relationships and partnerships with patients that will foster healthy change.

Believe me, the policymakers will soon be using social marketing messages to promote healthy lifestyles. This, in turn, will set the expectation and further promote that consumers need to be more involved in their own healthcare. I fear that healthcare providers and organizations will be blind-sided by these dramatic shifts. If healthcare professionals are poorly prepared, poorly equipped and/or resistant to this new type of relationship, progress will certainly be stilted. Certainly, everyone will be even more frustrated.

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