Social marketing: A theoretical perspective

Social marketing as a technique of influencing voluntary human behaviour had a quiet genesis in the family planning program implemented by the Indian government in the mid 1960. In the nearly five decades that followed there was considerable theoretical development of the concept. Also the practical application of social marketing grew well beyond the health sector where it was initially used. An analysis of the theoretical development in the field of social marketing will show that it has successfully adopted the planning and segmentation strategies of commercial marketing to suit the requirements of complex social issues. In applying the segmentation technique to social marketing, one has to overcome many barriers that prevent the application of segmentation to social marketing. Social marketing process has successfully adopted the four P's of commercial marketing.