Creative Marketing Campaigns

Terminology can quickly take us into a swamp of definitions, but, simply put, marketing is matching up what people want or need (or are made to think they need) with a person or company that wants to supply the product or service — usually for money. 

This bulletin is about an offshoot of marketing called social marketing. Social marketing uses many of the same techniques as its more commercial cousin, but according to the International Social Marketing Association, the purpose of this kind of marketing isn’t cash. Rather it is “to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.” Surely, that would include urban forestry. 

Some of the first social marketing campaigns promoted human health, such as disease prevention and disaster preparedness. But social marketing has been alive and developing in environmental fields since the first fire prevention and litter prevention campaigns. In 1964, Dr. Douglas Gilbert urged wildlife managers to promote what is now known as social marketing in his pioneering book, Public Relations in Natural Resources Management. In 1984, his work was expanded to address the forestry professions, including urban forestry. Today, the field of social marketing has progressed to new levels both in importance and sophistication. 

This bulletin presents some practical ideas for successful social marketing and some examples from communities where it is being applied in ways worth adopting more widely.