Conceptualising failure in social marketing

Social marketing concerns how people live their lives and how behaviour may be changed to benefit society – it is, by definition, part of the fabric of life. There is a tendency to share successes in social marketing, particularly from a programme’s perspective, rather than discussing programmes that yield inadequate results. Empirical literature identifies a range of factors that cause social marketing programme failures (Akbar et al., 2021; Cook et al., 2020, 2021), including poor formative research, poor strategy development; mismanagement of stakeholders; practitioner bias and preconceptions, and external influences such as power dynamics. However, despite the descriptions of failure in the literature, there is no theoretical construct of failure in social marketing. This study aims to conceptualise failure in social marketing by seeking the opinions of social marketing academics and practitioners across the globe. The results will enable open discussion of failures its triggers, facilitating reflection and learning for future best practice.

A pilot study using a semi-structured questionnaire examined the views of 49 social marketing experts. The participants were well placed to reflect on failures in social marketing practice, with 28% describing themselves as academics, 35% as practitioners and 37% as both. Nearly 60% of respondents had more than 10 years of relevant experience, ranging from public health and the environment to food waste and recycling. The questionnaire sought views on two key questions: how failure is defined and how it is measured.

More than a third of respondents (18/49) defined failure as not meeting objectives. Aside from this, definitions varied widely, covering failures in strategy, design and implementation. Only one response referred to numerical indicators (‘less than 15-20% change from baseline at least 12-18 months after intervention’) and many were vague, for example, ‘if nothing changes’ and ‘lack of success in achieving something’. The question arises: how far short of the original objectives must a social marketing programme fall for it to be considered a failure?

Many issues were raised, including communication, organisation, lack of adequate measurement, funding, poor messaging, design or implementation, lack of sustained change, strategy not being based on research, not meeting quality/ethical standards, not understanding the audience or using local knowledge, factors outside the programme, unintentional negative consequences and post-evaluation data not explaining why behaviour has not changed. Definition of failure presented a complex picture.

Nearly 30% of respondents (14/49) felt that failure is not measured at all, is ignored or not described. A further 35% felt that failure was measured in terms of poor adoption of the desired behaviour. Methods of measurement vary widely and may be closely linked to the individual programme. Few answers considered numerical and/or more nuanced measures. Some felt that failure was more often presented as ‘lessons learned’ or measured unintended consequences of behaviour change programmes. Some respondents confused ‘failure’ with ‘measurement of failure’ in their responses, indicating that a clearer concept of failure may be helpful.

This research will investigate the issues raised in the pilot study and result in a nuanced concept of failure.