Victor

Mari C. Baguilat Jr.

INDIVIDUAL JOURNAL 1

Session 1
In Session 1 of this Social Marketing Research course, we were introduced to the journal article by Sally Dibb
titled “Up, up and away: social marketing breaks free”. The article explores three themes: first is the
legitimacy of social marketing as a field in its own right1; second is the broadening and deepening of the field
and the consequences for social change2; and last, is the strengths and opportunities arising out of social
marketing’s relationship with mainstream marketing3.

There are three key ideas that I find interesting and helpful from this reading. First is the definition of social
marketing.

According to Dibb, there are various definitions of social marketing but the definition that is based on agreed
social marketing principles which were refined in consultation with the memberships of the International
Marketing Association, the European Social Marketing Association and the Australian Association for Social
Marketing is: “Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to
influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.”4

A real world application of this definition would be the “Save Paper, Save the Planet” campaign of the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Figure 1. Source: adforum.com5

1 Dibb, Sally. “Up, up, and away: Social marketing breaks free”. Open University Business School, UK. Journal
2 Ibid, p. 1168
3 Ib., p. 1171
4 Ib., p. 1162
5 Retrieved from https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/6705993/save-paper-save-the-planet/wwf, on July 29, 2020.
This is social marketing because the WWF is using marketing concepts such as this marketing campaign of a
paper towel dispenser that depicts South America where the Amazon Rainforest is located. The image of
South America becomes less green as more paper towels are consumed, which reflects the direct correlation
between excessive paper use and deforestation. This is a classic marketing case of “meeting your audience
right where they are”, which in this case is in the pubic restrooms. The behavior that this campaign seeks to
change is people’s excessive use of paper towels, where it is instilling the message that a small choice of
using the dryer instead of paper towels can go a long way in protecting the environment.

The second key idea is market segmentation in social marketing. Dibb citing Darnton (2008) said that,
“[a]lthough segmentation was originally developed with commercial application in mind, it is now widely
adopted in the targeting of behavior change interventions”6. An example of segmentation is the seven
population segments that the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has devised
to improve its interventions that encourage environmentally responsible behavior.7 DEFRA segmented the
population based on their individual lifestyles, attitudes, behaviors, values, motivations and the barriers
they perceive that prevent them from behaving sustainably.

The third key idea is the stakeholder challenge in social marketing wherein different ways of
conceptualizing the problem behavior to be changed can cause conflicts in agreeing priorities or approach8.
A good real world example of this is when a “health charity seeking improved eating practices may be
motivated by epidemiological evidence, while a faith organization helping to deliver the program will have
greater awareness of the acceptability of certain approached on the ground.”9 Another example of this
stakeholder challenge is when my social enterprise views the practice of slash and burn or “kaingin” to clear
the forests for commercial gardening is an issue of lack of alternative livelihoods, while the Local
Government Unit of Kiangan, Ifugao merely views it as a law enforcement issue.

Dibb suggests that the way to address this challenge is to agree for ways of working that respect the diverse
specific skills and capabilities so that the value that each stakeholder brings to the project is not
undermined.10

Session 2
In Session 2, we defined social marketing as the “use of marketing principles and techniques to advance a
social cause, idea, or behavior”. As compared to the “consensus definition” offered by Dibbs, this definition
expands the realm of social marketing from influencing behavior to advancing not just behavior but also a
cause and idea.

The three key ideas that I find interesting are: First, the components of social marketing, which are a cause, a
change agent, and a target adopter. Applying this to my social enterprise, which is a real world example, the
cause would be the empowerment of women through livelihood programs and various workshops; the
change agent would be Kandama Social Enterprise, which aims to forward the aforementioned cause; and
the target adopter is the community of indigenous weavers whom we, in Kandama, have engaged to partner
with to bring about our social mission of empowering indigenous women.11

6 Ib., p.1174
7 Ib., p.1175
8 Ib., p. 1172
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Session 2, Slide 4
Second key idea is about the conventional marketing mix elements that need an adaptaion to fit social
marketing. Dibb also addressed this by proposing a model for developing social marketing interventions, i.e.,
the COM-SM framework, as opposed to 4Ps/7Ps, which is a relationship –based approach to enable greater
citizen engagement.

In the class discussion on this key idea, we discussed the adaptation of one of the 4Ps, i.e., promotion, into a
campaign, and the rationale is that it is meant to educate and influence and not necessarily to drive
consumers to purchase a product. A real world example of this is the above-mentioned “Save Paper, Save a
Planet” campaign by the WWF, which aims to educate consumers about the negative environmental
outcomes of excessive use of toilet paper. Another example, is my social enterprise’s “Save the Weave”
campaign, which encourages weavers to continue practicing a dying tradition of hand loom weaving.

The last key idea is the idea on fundamental principle in research that is visually represented in the
following diagram:

Figure 2. Source: Session 2, Slide 9

Essentially, this diagram shows that a goal oriented research stems from the activities of an organization
that are aligned with a strategic goal, which ultimately flow from that “one overarching development goal”
that the project seeks to achieve.

This is an important diagram because it stresses that our research in MDM should not just be for the sake of
knowledge creation, instead, it should be goal oriented and serve a practical value for the proponents of our
research.

A real world application of this is my research on our social enterprise, wherein the development goal of one
of our programs, i.e., the “Weaving a Culture of Empowerment” (WACE) program, is to empower indigenous
women. This strategic goal is carried out by our several activities, one of which is giving the women in our
partner community livelihood, skills training and workshops on autonomy and self-confidence. Hence, my
MRR is about exploring the needs of these indigenous women in order to better design our program.

Session 3
In Session 3, we applied the RADAR framework to an organization of one of our LT members. I have three
key takeaways from this session:

First is the use of the strategic intent. During our presentation we were asked what our strategic intent is, to
which we responded by saying that it is column 2, i.e., to intervene and implement the Residential Care
Program of SPECS Foundation, Inc. After a dialogue with the class, we realized that our Strategic Intent
should instead be the first one, which is to explore the needs of the community.

In applying the Strategic Intent framework to a real world example, our research on SPECS Foundation, Inc.
was streamlined when we adopted the Strategic Intent of “exploring the needs of the parents of the children
in the Residential Care Program so that the proponents can design a better and shorter program that the
said parents can complete”.

Second is the use of the RADAR framework, specifically the Review phase where we have to “understand the
context, analyze the situation, review policy environment and scan past work”. An application of the Review
phase can be seen in our group presentation on SPECS foundation where we researched the pertinent laws
such as the Philippine National Strategic Framework for Children for 2000-2025, Revised Standards on
Residential Care Services of DSWD, etc and various studies by other foundations similar to SPECS, Inc.

In this session, we were also reminded about the importance of respecting the data and information coming
from the community, hence we greatly took into account pre-existing SWOT Analysis and Affinity Matrix
done by the community to make the research more bottoms-up that top-down.

Last is the “Articulate” phase of the RADAR framework, which is about articulating the problem leading to
research questions or a hypothesis. To apply this in a real world example, our Team shortlisted the
problems in the context of the Strategic Intent of exploring the needs of the parents/ guardians of center
based clients towards designing an improved family care program. The team used the Affinity Matrix, Root
Cause: 5 Whys tool, and the Problem Tree. In line with the results of these tools, the research question that
the Team arrived at changed into: How do we shorten the family care program without compromising its
effectiveness?

Conclusively, it was a meaningful first three sessions with a lot of focus on technical skills and refinement of
how we approach our respective researches, but more important the sessions transmitted the important
value of having a big heart for the community.