httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8gqgZQPS28
ColaLife, is a non-profit that is lobbying Coca-Cola to leverage its worldwide distribution channels to provide social products that help sustain life and improve public health. How exactly? –With some creative packaging in the form of “Aidpods.” With the help of these aidpods, Cola Life hopes to help achieve the following three goals:
You can read more about the organization’s aims and objectives, but overall, I think the idea is brilliant. At just about any public health conference I’ve been to, someone always references Coca-Cola as having the classic place (distribution) marketing strategy. Now, that same strategy can actually be leveraged to make a difference. There’s just one hitch…
Coca-Cola, or a similar corporate organization, has to sign on first. ColaLife has already had a successful trial of the program in Tanzania, and currently it’s focusing on spreading awareness of the project and gaining influence by talking with stakeholders and reviewing the strategy and overall plan. If interested, here’s five ways we can help:
Take away: This is one example of using a place strategy to do social marketing and in effect, create social change for the better. Thought: What distribution channels currently exist in your community that can be leveraged for social good?
]]>I’m not the first to ask this question, as I was inspired a bit back by Bill Smith of AED who challenged us social marketers to balance the scales more between the promotion side of marketing and the product side of marketing. And it was again highlighted in the Social Marketing Quarterly’s Summer issue.
Now, some people when they hear products–the hairs on the back of their neck raise. How can marketing products be in line with social marketing behaviors? This is because some people align a “product” with “revenue.” Then, it just gets sticky–often, these arguments are short sighted in my opinion. Before I get completely side tracked from my original purpose of this post, let’s keep moving forward.
I like the concept of “social products” also because it’s a moment to be creative. What products could exist that would help us live healthier, happier? Thus, instead of creating yet another 30-second PSA, take time in the conference room to consider the product side of marketing.
There’s more research available about leveraging products in a social marketing strategy, but I like how Nedra Weinreich sums it up on her company Web site:
“In order to have a viable product, people must first perceive that they have a genuine problem, and that the product offering is a good solution for that problem. The role of research here is to discover the consumers’ perceptions of the problem and the product, and to determine how important they feel it is to take action against the problem.”
Some Examples
Do you know where all the social products have gone? Feel free to share examples or future ideas.
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