Periodically, existential questions about the field of social marketing crop up on the Social Marketing Listserv. Are we more about marketing? Are we more social science? Where do communications fit in? How do we define the field? How do we even define the term “social marketing?” Heated discussions come and go, cropping up fairly regularly from year to year.

The field has a few pieces of infrastructure, including a journal, the listserv (which Alan Andreasen just reported has 1476 members from at least 31 countries), and a couple of conferences (the annual Social Marketing in Public Health conference and the less frequent Innovations in Social Marketing conference). I have been frustrated, though, that there is no formal professional association for social marketers.

At the ISM conference last month, an evening was devoted to discussing what the future of social marketing should look like. Greg Niblett of the Academy for Educational Development (the conference chair) and Michael Rothschild of the University of Wisconsin led the discussion. Some questions they posed included whether we need to first agree on a definition of what social marketing is, and who is a social marketer? What/who would be included or excluded?

What should a social marketing membership association look like — a chapter of the American Marketing Association? A resuscitated Social Marketing Institute? A new, standalone Social Marketing Association?

Should we create some sort of credentialing program that would certify people as possessing the necessary skills to do social marketing? Could we ever agree on what those criteria should be, and can we justify excluding people who may not have formal training but are excellent social marketers? Is social marketing an exclusive field of those who toe the clearly defined line, or should it be inclusive and encouraging of people from other disciplines to join us in our broadly ranging activities?

All of these are important questions, and not surprisingly, most everyone had very strong opinions, with often conflicting visions and prescriptions. I tend toward being as inclusive as possible of who can or should be doing social marketing, while at the same time being clear on how an effective social marketing program should be carried out. It’s the difference between the craftsman and the tools. Social marketing is an amalgam of so many different disciplines that we need to recognize that there is more than one path to transcendence. The field benefits from the melting pot of marketers, health educators, communicators, anthropologists, designers and random social agitators that come to it.

On the question of how a professional association should be structured, I lean toward an independent, standalone organization rather than affiliating with the American Marketing Association. I think that the field is not just another subset of marketing, and many practitioners would not be interested in joining the AMA to be part of the social marketing chapter. We’d likely be cutting out many of the people who come from the public health or social issue sides of social marketing, who would not be comfortable calling themselves marketers.

How to get this association off the ground was a big question that hung in the air, dampened by several people who felt that the need for funding obviated any possibility that this type of organization could sustain itself. Countering this negativity was the announcement later that evening that at least 11 of the organizations present at the conference had made a financial commitment to step up to the plate and fund this new organization. I would love to be a part of it, and hope that this time we have enough critical mass to support an ongoing association devoted to furthering the practice and promotion of the field of social marketing, we just need to be super careful with this, as managing a planning a business like the ones may required some professional help and some financial seminars courses.
What do you think about the future of the field? What should social marketing look like in the next decade?

Photo Credit: William Couch

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