Importance of Values in CBSM?

Hi Elizabeth,

I have never heard of CBSM being used to foster bad environmental practices. So I disagree with the premise of your question.

Can you provide an example of CBSM being used to foster bad environmental behaviors?

Cheers,

Ken


Ken Donnelly
Vice President, Atlantic Canada
Lura Consulting
Canada
www.beyondattitude.com

Hi Elizabeth,

For several years, WWF-UK has been putting out really excellent reports on behaviour change. I highly recommend a recent one, "Common Cause: The Case for Working with our Cultural Values" which can be downloaded here:

Common Cause devotes a great deal of time discussing your question, and finds a strong link between certain sets of values. One of the linkages they find is between image and consumerism.

So, their research would suggest that using, and therefore reinforcing, extrinsic values such as personal image would also reinforce consumerism.

At my former workplace, Metro Vancouver, we were trying to incorporate this research into our communication work. So, our more recent holiday campaigns emphasized intrinsic values like community, sharing holiday meals, giving gifts of time together, etc.

Please contact me if you have any questions on our research or work.

Best,

Ruben.


(here is the link for cut and paste in case my link didn't work)
http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/campaigning/strategies_for_change/?uNewsID=4224

Ruben Anderson
Canada

Ken and Elizabeth,
Social marketing can be used for purposes that benefit a particular company or organization. A few years ago when one of the computer manufacturers paid students to "brag" about and recommend their product to other students, they were using the same techniques we employ to spread the values of sustainability. The company's practice was decried by professionals in marketing and public relations as unethical and were generally disclosed.
Joette Storm, APR

Joette Storm, APR
Facilitator and Public Relations practitioner
Wordwright LLC

You might be intersted in the Weathercocks and Signposts report published by the WWF in 2008. It addresses the point you made about social marketing encouraging consumption. http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/weathercocks_report2.pdf

Sean Kennedy
Australia

Surely the simple definition of social marketing is using marketing techniques for social good. So without the social good it is not social marketing it is just marketing. It is crucial in any planned social marketing intervention that, when designing the campaign, you conduct a risk analysis to consider ethical and moral issues as well as unintended consequences.

Jo Horsley
Environment Wales Development Officer
Wales

I agree with Jo's comments about the difference between marketing and social marketing.

As far as the unethical use of such things as hiring people to establish (perhaps fake) social norms, that has been going on for a long time. In my youth, cigarette salespeople were told to smoke the company's cigarettes. Beer company representatives were paid to go to bars and buy rounds of the company's beer. Vacuum cleaner and encyclopedia salespeople would say "I have just been to see Mrs. Jones up the street." These days, look at car ads and beer ads to see how this type of marketing is still used.

That kind of marketing has been around for much, much longer than CBSM. While it does use peer pressure and the establishment of social norms, it is not CBSM. CBSM, by definition, is used to foster positive environmental behaviours.

If someone is using social norm techniques in ways in which "it perpetuates concerns about image (keeping up with the Jones')that often lead to unsustainable consumption and concern about self vs the common good", they are simply not conducting a CBSM campaign. They are conducting a different kind of campaign.

Cheers,

Ken

Ken Donnelly
Vice President, Atlantic Canada
Lura Consulting
Canada
www.beyondattitude.com

Thanks for all the comments. I have read the Common Cause material on values-based behaviour change, and so am interested in how the community based social marketing embraces the need to strengthen instrinsic values (about community,global concerns) which inherently support sustainability and weaken extrinsic values (personal image, status). This can be done through campaigns that are explicitly strengthening social norms that are about community benefit, not about being the most fashionable, or saving the most money, as Ruben suggested in his comment. Many of the examples of CBSM on this website do this, though it is not a part of developing the strategy as far as I can see.

Elizabeth Leighton
Policy Officer
WWF Scotland
United States

I think this thread highlights one of the very important aspects of social marketing, CBSM, etc. It's about changing behavior, plainly put, manipulation. By definition it should be social good that is effected, but this is a value judgement. As social marketers, particularly those of us in public sector, we must always consider 1) whether our values reflect those of the community we serve and 2) whether they merit being imposed upon those who do not share them. This applies to significant beliefs such as the role of humans in nature (e.g. challenging religious beliefs that we feel result in negative impacts) but also to less significant beliefs about the role of government in society, public purpose/trust, etc. (e.g. We may be able to make people take the bus by inhibiting/frustrating the other modes of travel, but is that abuse of the public trust?) I'm not attempting to answer this here, just pointing out how the idea of what is good in a given situation is in itself biased and therefore needs careful ethical consideration.

j mcgee
Chief Environmental Scientist
Hillsborough County Specialized Services
United States
www.hillsborough.wateratlas.org

This is an interesting discussion. It will likely take me a week before I get through the report Ruben posted, but I look forward to doing so, and to read any more offerings from people.

Elizabeth, thanks for starting it! :)

Cheers,

Ken

Ken Donnelly
Vice President, Atlantic Canada
Lura Consulting
Canada
www.beyondattitude.com

Here is an interesting article in which the Common Cause authors challenge a related values-mode approach to behavior change - the values mode approach (promoted by Chris Rose, formerly of Greenpeace UK). http://valuesandframes.org/value-modes-and-common-cause-the-dangers-of-appeals-to-money-image-and-status/
It is interesting food for thought on how we use or foster values and attitudes to encourage sustainable behaviors now and in the longer term - with the best community based social marketing.

Elizabeth Leighton
Policy Officer
WWF Scotland
United States

Manipulation is kind of a loaded term. Briefly,it is defined as artfully managing. The real difference that I see between CBSM and just marketing is that generally CBSM provides both the costs (extra effort, money, time, etc) and the benefits (less pollution, use less land fill space, etc). Straight marketing only focuses only on the benefits

Gerald Slothower
HSE Superintendent
Kennecott Land
United States