Page 14 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Introduction 7

environment. This focus is appropriate because many social marketing
programs grow from political agendas and are the result of the mobiliza-
tion of public opinion around the need to address particular social issues.
Explicit recognition of the political context of social marketing is also im-
portant grounding for the discussions of ethics, law, and public opinion
that are offered later in Volume 1. Chapter 4 also describes two approaches
to political persuasion, priming and framing, which are also explored in
chapters on theories relevant to social marketing in Volume 2 and applica-
tions of social marketing in Volume 3.
The focus of political persuasion is the crowd or public. However, the
crowd is composed of many individuals who influence one another
through formal and informal exchanges of information, modeled behavior,
and values. These exchanges, collectively called word-of-mouth commu-
nication, play an important role in many social marketing campaigns.
Chapter 5 describes the role of word-of-mouth communication and the
role it plays in persuasion. It also explores the growing importance of so-
cial media as a medium through which word-of-mouth communication is
spread. This is a particularly appropriate and useful discussion given the
growing use of social media among marketers in general and social mar-
keters more specifically.
Though some object to the characterization, much that is done in the
name of social marketing is a form of social control. This control may be
subtle, as in the selection of an opt-in default for retirement savings, or
quite visible and coercive, such as the imposition of fines for those not
wearing seatbelts while driving. Chapter 6 focuses on social control and its
role in social marketing. The author uses examples related to health care
to make the point that social welfare may be better served through overt
control rather than more subtle forms of persuasion. It is certainly the case
that many social marketing campaigns can be characterized as efforts at
social control. The author of the chapter argues that social control, em-
ployed with the consent of the citizenry, is an important contributor to
social welfare and the quality of life. This is most certainly true in many
cases, but it also raises important philosophical, ethical, and legal issues
that are the topics of the latter portions of the volume.
Implicit in all of the chapters in this volume are ethical dilemmas asso-
ciated with decisions about influencing the behavior of others. Chapter 7
of this volume addresses these ethical issues. The authors ask the question
“What could be unethical about persuading people to do good?” The
chapter suggests that ethical issues are at least as important, and perhaps
even more important, in the context of social marketing as in commercial
marketing. There are two broad classes of ethical dilemmas raised in the