Social Marketing

Course description
Social marketing focuses on creating social change and social innovation through behavior change achieved through effective communication, policy, and economic, and environmental changes. It addresses health of people and planet and relevant social issues.
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the principles, practices, and evidence in the discipline of Social Marketing. It aims to provide students with an understanding of the theoretical as well as practical aspects of Social Marketing.
Key concepts, conceptual frameworks, and theories in social marketing and their implications on social issues will be examined through a problem-centered approach to learning. Thus, students will not only listen to lectures and read academic papers, policy reports, news articles, and other public communication, they will do hands-on work to gain valuable lessons that come from experiential learning.

Throughout the course, students will be provided with real-life social issues and will learn to use Social Marketing to address them. They will learn from theory and case histories to understand problems, identify strategies for improving these issues and develop critical thinking on social marketing principles and practices. Students will work both individually and in groups to critically analyze problems and potential solutions. Teams will share processes, challenges, changes in thinking, and outcomes throughout the course, and receive feedback from instructors and peer groups.

Required material
Required papers: A schedule for reading papers/reports/news will be available on iCorsi. 
Additional resources (some required others recommended) will be posted to iCorsi that cover a variety of:

• social issues (e.g., gender equality, social inclusion, health challenges, environmental challenges, xenophobia, social justice, responsible institutions, biodiversity, sustainability, good governance, and infrastructure). 
• settings (e.g., workplace, community, government, business, cities and communities, etc.), perspectives (marketing, promotion, public management, ethics, communication, economics), 
• techniques (e.g., education, nudging, informing, supporting, design, enforcing), and countries (all across the world, including high-, middle- and low-income countries).

Course objectives
Upon completion of Social Marketing students will know:
1. The development of Social Marketing as a discipline
2. The principles and key concepts of social marketing
3. The importance of situational analysis
4. The role of exchange
5. How to conduct formative research
6. The importance of quality evaluation
Upon completion of Social Marketing, students will be able to:
1. Describe Social Marketing
2. Understand causes of social problems
3. Conduct a situation analysis
4. Describe prominent theories in social marketing
5. Develop a monitoring and evaluation plan
6. Develop an implementation plan
7. Address real-life, local social issues with a social marketing framework
8. Demonstrate critical thinking about social marketing concepts and principles
9. Write a detailed proposal for a social marketing project

In presence

Learning methods
Lectures will be coupled with problem-based learning, discussions, and case study methods of teaching. Students will be introduced to real-life social issues that they will then study and address during the course through in-class study, assigned readings and assessments. Learning is reinforced by constructive feedback during class discussions synchronous and asynchronous; online and offline.

Examination information
The mark for this course will consist of:

• 30% group work during semester. 
• 70% individual examination during the exam period. Administered online and composed of short answers, multiple choice questions, and case studies.

Note: The best way to do well in this course is to attend “class” and actively participate. Everything on the exam will be covered in class and the readings; the topics are listed in the learning objectives. Not every answer will be written on a slide that is distributed. If you miss a class, you are responsible for all content covered in class and you must get this from a peer, not the Professor or Assistant.