National Social Marketing Centre

Social Marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for their benefit.

Whereas marketing in the commercial world ultimately seeks to influence consumer behaviour for profit, social marketing encourages behaviours that provide benefit for individuals and society as a whole.

In the UK, The NSMC has developed a set of Benchmark Criteria for social marketing, (available here). This is an eight-point guide with which to identify the key elements of social marketing, to ensure a consistent approach to behaviour change. It has also developed a planning process in order to guide implementation of social marketing programmes.