5 - Principles of communication and persuasion

Summary

Social marketing is fundamentally concerned with bringing about behaviour change. However, in most cases this first requires bringing about changes in beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Furthermore, some components of an overall comprehensive campaign may have limited objectives, such as an increase in knowledge, or an increased belief that individuals’ conservation behaviours can make a real difference, or to create a positive predisposition to act in a certain way when a relevant situation arises. The desired behaviour may then occur some time later when an appropriate situation arises. For example, a campaign to change discriminatory racist behaviours may have a component that first increases people’s knowledge about a particular ethnic group, removes misperceptions about that group and creates a more positive predisposition towards that group. That might then be expressed in various ways, for example, in more friendly behaviours towards members of that group in social situations, or more positive word-of-mouth about that group in conversations with friends, or supporting anti-discriminatory legislation in a public opinion poll. That is, changes in beliefs and attitudes are usually a necessary precursor to these desired behaviours.