While failure in social marketing practice represents an emerging research agenda, the discipline has not yet considered this concept systematically or cohesively. This lack of a clear conceptualization of failure in social marketing to aid practice thus presents a significant research gap.

Achieving sustained behavior change takes a long time. I mean, hell, we’re still running ads about buckling seat-belts and most states made it a law 35 years ago! Beyond achieving behavior change, seeing the positive impact of said change on species, habitats and ecosystems can take even longer. So how can we balance these longer term goals with the need to show more immediate outcomes?

The 2012 review found 6 studies (combined N = 23 048). In a meta-analysis, the pooled odds ratio for condom use was 2.01 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.42-2.84) for the most recent sexual encounter and 2.10 (95% CI: 1.51-2.91) for a composite of all condom use outcomes. Studies had significant methodological limitations. Of 518 possible new citations identified in the update, no new articles met our inclusion criteria.

Based on benefit-cost analysis, increased productivity and employment may have substantial economic benefits over several decades: $1,251 to the state as a whole for each $1 invested in the SDR social marketing campaign. $36 in benefits to the state government for each $1 invested.

We applied a Hidden Markov Model* (see Figure 1) to examine how and why behaviours did or did not change. The longitudinal repeated measure design meant we knew about food waste behaviour at two points (the amount of food wasted before and after the program), changes in the amount of food wasted reported over time for each household (more or less food wasted) and other factors (e.g. self-efficacy). By using a new method we could extend our understanding beyond the overall effect (households in the Waste Not Want Not program group wasted less food after participating when compared to the control group).

Increases in condom use were larger for longer campaigns and in nations that scored lower on the human development index. Increases in transmission knowledge were larger to the extent that respondents reported greater campaign exposure, for more recent campaigns, and for nations that scored lower on the human development index.

in Hebrew

Supporting USAID's “renewed emphasis on the application of research and evaluation to inform strategic thinking about development for low- and middle-income countries with a focus on “achieving the social and behavior changes needed to end preventable child deaths and improve under five development“. All 1,313 papers identified can be accessed, searched and filtered to your interests