Andreasen ("Challenges for the Sciences and Practice of Social Marketing," by Alan R. Andreasen, pp. 3-20 in Social Marketing; Theoretical and Practical Pespectives. M.E.Goldberg, M. Fishbein, S.E. Middlestadt, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997) synthesizes a number of propositions from the social science literature to develop a model for social marketing programs. His model is as follows:

1. The behaviors that social markets attempt to influence are high involvement behaviors.

2. Consumers typically following a four stage model in considering high involvement actions:
   1. Precontemplation
   2. Contemplation
   3. Action
   4. Maintenance

   The Contemplation Stage can be further divided into Early and Late Contemplation stages.

3. At the Precontemplation Stage, the major social marketing challenge is to overcome one or both of two problems. Target audience members may not see the proposed behavior as relevant to their own needs and wants either through unawareness of because of a belief that the behavior is not appropriate for someone like them. The consumer may selectively ignore or screen out social marketing messages. Useful techniques for the social marketer are educational programs and media advocacy.

4. After the Precontemplation Stage, behavior is driven by a number of factors: perceived benefits, perceived costs, perceived social influences, and perceived behavioral control.

5. To move consumers from the Contemplation Stage to Action, marketers must increase perceived benefits, decrease perceived costs, increase perceived social pressure, and increase perceived behavioral control.

6. After the consumer has taken initial action, then behavioral models become more important than cognitive models. To maintain new behavioral patterns, consumers must feel rewarded. They need regular reminders until the new behaviors become habitual and old behavior is no longer an option.

This framework is useful for both research and strategy. For research, it suggests what to ask about when studying consumers. It encourages the marketer to know the stage in which the target market is, what the consumers perceive the consequences of the behavior to be, what they think others want them to do, and whether they think they can actually make the behavior happen. The model can be used as a checklist of what needs to be done that is grounded in how people act.

Andreasen suggests lifestyle segmentation is better than (or used in addition to) simple demographic segmentation. It may help in portraying how a representative of the target market might be portrayed in an ad or how he/she might be spoken to.

In addition to the four elements in the model (benefits, costs, the influence of others, and self-efficacy (e.g., can I do it?)), some other factors that influence behavior can also be used.

• Environmental constraints are the conditions in the target audience's surroundings that make it impossible for the behavior to be performed. These are especially important in moving from Contemplation to Action. If behavioral constraints are the critical component, then action must be taken to remove the constraints.

• Skills needed to perform the behavior are also important and have a major influence on self-efficacy, that is, the consumer's perception that he/she can actually carry out the behavior. If skills are crucial, then training must be provided directly or indirectly.

• Another component is self-standards. People decide what to do in part based on whether the action fits with their conception of who they are. A person must perceive that performance of the behavior is consistent with he/her self-image and doesn't violate personal standards. Messages that show the individual that the behavior is "something people like you are doing" are useful. Self-regulation and self-reward play into this as well. The role of others in influencing behavior is important. Sometimes social pressure can be brought to bear.

• Yet another factor is emotion. People are more likely to perform a behavior if they have a positive rather than a negative feeling about doing it. Public service advertisements (PSAs) can work through empathy. Researchers have found that the stronger the negative emotion (anger, sadness, fear, and tension), the stronger the empathetic response. Positive emotions like love, happiness, etc. can work as well.

Some of the factors to consider in social marketing include:

• Is the behavior new to the world or is it new to the individual? If so, the innovators and early adopters may find it more attractive than the late majority and laggards.

• Does the behavior face competition or is there no serious competition? The competitive behavior might be thought of as the status quo. For example, those who are not exercising don't think of the decision to start as a choice between one desirable alternative and another, rather they think of it as doing something vs. doing nothing. The drug user thinks of stopping using the drug as a choice between two lifestyles, each of which has its pros and cons.

• Does the behavior have a personal benefit or does the benefit accrue to a third party? Some social marketing behaviors have personal benefits (losing weight, getting off drugs, spacing children); others have costs to an individual although the benefit may accrue to others (observing the speed limit, recycling, wearing seat belts). the role of significant others may be critical for the latter.

• Is the behavior public or private? Sometimes the behavior is observable by others (recycling, stopping smoking) or its outcome is observable (weight loss). Other behaviors are mostly private and not observable (exercising, voting). Self-rewards will probably be more important in private behaviors than external rewards.

• Is the behavior one-time or continuing? A vaccination is a one-time event but quitting smoking requires repeated actions (or substitute actions). The belief that not taking the action is "wrong" is more important in the former, while the risk that accrues over time is more important in the latter.

• Is the behavior carried out alone or does it require the participation of others? Driving within the speed limit is totally within the control of the individual but other behaviors (condom use) require the participation of another, so that self-efficacy (can I do it?) may involve interpersonal competence. Skills will be different in each case.

3/1/2000.