Tourism, sustainable consumption and the limits of social marketing

Context• Since the term “social marketing” was first coined (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971), it has been applied in various fields:– public health, – family planning, – driver safety – smoking prevention – waste recycling, and – environmental protection

• little research attention has been paid to the potential of social marketing in the field of tourism

Behavioural change in tourism

• This is despite widespread attention being given to the importance of changing the behaviours of both tourists and tourism businesses, especially with respect to the development of sustainable tourism

• Although some researchers have explicitly noted the potential role of social marketing in improving the sustainability of tourism practices (Dinan & Sargeant 2000; Peeters et al., 2009; Scott et al. 2012), the general situation is well summed up by Lane (2009: 26):– “the whole area of Social Marketing, of how to promote behavioural change, seems to be a blank for sustainable tourism researchers”.

Potential areas of behaviour change in tourism

• Travel behaviour: destinations, distances, modes, activities, actions

• Sustainability: water and energy use, reducing pest introductions

• Climate change: offsetting• Visitor management: crowd and queue control, dispersal, demarketing

• Communication of benefits of participation

• Better matching of products with markets

What is it?• Social marketing is the use of commercial marketing concepts and tools to create behavioural change.

• The term ‘social marketing’ was first used in 1971 (Kotler and Zaltman, 1971) in a special issue of the Journal of Marketing (vol. 35(3)) on marketing’s changing social/environmental role

The changing dynamics of social marketing

There is a great degree of overlap with significant expansion

SocialMarketing Non-profit

marketing

Environmental marketing

Sustainable marketing

Health marketing

political marketing

Sustainable consumption

Interest groupmarketing

Societal marketing

placemarketing

Social Marketing

• Social marketing is not usually regarded as a theory in its own right but instead draws upon a range of other theoretical bases to explore behavioural change – an interdisciplinary or even a post-disciplinary method?

• Issue of the extent to which SM goes beyond conventional commercial marketing tools and is more inter-disciplinary and even becomes engaged in ‘anti-consumption’

The application of commercial ideas and methods to promote social goals will be seen by many as another example of business's lack of taste and self-restraint. Yet the application of the logic of marketing to social goals is a natural development and on the whole a promising one. The idea will not disappear by ignoring it or railing against it (1971: 3).

Definitions• ‘the design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communications, distribution and market research’ (Kotler & Zaltman 1971). – ‘The design, implementation, and control or programs seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause or practice in a target group(s). It utilizes market segmentation, consumer research, concept development, communications, facilitation, incentives, and exchange theory to maximize target group response’ (Kotler 1983)

• ‘Social Marketing is the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences in order to influence their personal welfare and that of their society’ (Andreasen 1995). [in Andreasen’s (1995) view, having the end target audience as the focal goal distinguishes social marketing from commercial marketing and aligns it more closely with non-profit marketing].

Definitions• Donovan and Healy (2003) argued that social marketing includes not just the targeting of individual voluntary behaviour change but also changes to the environment and structures that facilitate change.

• This upstream (structures) and downstream (target consumers) approach was also adopted by Andreasen (2006) who also suggested three further principal features in social marketing– 1.An audience-centred approach rather than an organization-centred or introspective mindset.

– 2.A process for implementing social marketing campaigns which is somewhat similar to the launching of a new product. The elements of Andreasen’s (2006) process include listening, planning, pre-testing, implementing, monitoring and revising.

– 3.A set of concepts that make the process effective. These concepts include the “stages of change” model used in health behaviour interventions (Luca and Suggs 2013) that use tactics to move target audiences through various stages to achieve behaviour change.

Shifts• the UK National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) defined SM as:– The systematic application of marketing, alongside other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioural goals, for a social good. (Accessed 27 March 2008).

• Updated more recently to– Social Marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for their benefit.

– Whereas marketing in the commercial world ultimately seeks to influence consumer behaviour for profit, social marketing encourages behaviours that provide benefit for individuals and society as a whole (Accessed 1 April 2013).

• Definitions have changed over time. What we can say is that social marketing is about the application of marketing concepts and tools to enact behavioural change.

• But differences with respect to targets, the focus of programmes, the degree to which behaviour change is voluntary, and the appropriate change agency.

The social marketing process

Social marketing benchmarksBenchmarks

Description

Behaviour change goal

Program interventions consider behaviour change as an objective and adopt measures for evaluation.

Audience research and segmentation

Interventions are designed based on understanding of audience needs and wants. Formative research is conducted and intervention elements are pretested. The audience are divided into homogenous segments.

Social marketing mix

Interventions attempt to use the 4Ps in the marketing mix. Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Interventions that only use the Promotion element are social advertising or communications. Other Ps may include People and Policy. The use of these elements should be flexible.

Exchange Something the target audience are interested in or want is offered to motivate behaviour change. It may be tangible (financial incentives, rewards) or intangible (emotional satisfaction, community pride).

Upstream targeting

Program interventions seek to influence other people relating to the target audience (e.g. local authorities, professional organisations, policy makers)

Competition

Competing behaviours are considered by program interventions. They include internal (e.g. the target audience’s current behaviour) and/or external factors (e.g. policies). Strategies are used to eliminate or minimise these factors.

Adapted from Andreasen (2002); McDermott, Stead, & Hastings (2005)

A continuum

of behavioura

l interventi

ons

Intervention

mechanisms and types

of regulation

ECO-EFFICIENCYMore productive use of materials and energy.

Increased Product Life Spans Changed Consumer

Behaviour

SLOW CONSUMPTIONChanged consumption patterns leading to reduced throughput of products and services and less energy.

Reduction in personal demand. Fundamental change in demand to emphasise ‘local’ destinations, short supply chains and reduce resource consumption and distance travelled: ‘Reorientation’. Recessionary if implementation if used in isolation from other measures.

Same or increased personal travel demand. ‘Business as usual’. No fundamental change in destination choice or consumption choices: ‘Green Growth’ Continued run down of natural capital if only policy approachSUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION

Efficiency

Sufficiency

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

PRODUCER BEHAVIOUR

CONSUMPTION

PRODUCTION

INTERNALValue

change; Ethical & social

responsibilities

EXTERNALRegulation;

Cost of energy;

Competition

DRIVERS FOR

CHANGE

Source: After Hall 2009

From “carbon literacy” to “carbon capability”

Or ‘To what extent is the public “carbon capable”’? (Whitmarsh et al. 2011)

• Many models, theories and studies of climate change and tourism, sustainable tourism, sustainable mobility (etc?!) have underlying assumptions about an individual’s capacity to act.

• These are also related to assumptions about governance.

• Such assumptions determine not only “solutions” but also “problem definition”

Why?• Need to understand the situated meanings associated with climate change, sustainability, mobility, environmental behaviours; that is, how individuals translate and apply knowledge to their daily lives

• Applies to consumers, but also to policy-makers, business people and researchers. As connected not only to consumption per se but also to policy and business decision-making

Why? Research indicates…• Low salience of climate change, energy, sustainabie mobility, and sustainable consumption in individuals’ day-to-day choices and actions

• Growing awareness of environmental problems at an abstract or general level tends not to be translated into personally relevant cognitions or motivating attitudes

• Understanding about environmental issues tends to be limited to abstract or vague concepts

• Awareness of concept of ‘carbon footprints’ and use of carbon calculators is growing but is not widespread– Relevant information is individually and socially contextualized.

– Concepts and tools do not necessarily motivate behaviour change where individuals are not motivated to change or perceive barriers to doing so.’ …amongst users of carbon calculators, many (though by no means all) use such tools to offset their emissions rather than to change their energy consumption behavior’.

‘Carbon capability’ (Seyfang et al., 2007) • ‘The ability to make informed

judgments and to take effective decisions regarding the use and management of carbon, through both individual behavior change and collective action’ (Whitmarsh et al., 2009).

• Three core dimensions:1. Decision-making (technical, material

and social aspects of knowledge, skills, motivations, understandings and judgments);

2. Individual behaviour or ‘practices’ (e.g., energy conservation); and

3. Broader engagement with systems of provision and governance (e.g., lobbying, voting, creating alternative social infrastructures of provision).

Carbon capability vs Carbon literacy

• Carbon capability is not defined in a narrow individualistic sense of solely knowledge, skills and motivations (although these are important); rather, the concept implies an understanding of the limits of individual action and where these encounter societal institutions and infrastructure, and prompt the need for collective action and other governance solutions.

• Also suggests an appreciation that much consumption (and hence GHG emissions) is inconspicuous, habitual and routine, rather than the result of conscious decision-making

• Individual cognitive decisions about consumption are mediated through socially shaped lifestyle choices, resulting in sets of practices which are in turn delimited by social systems of provision and the rules and resources of macro-level structures.

Dimensions of Carbon Literacy

ActorLifestyleConsumption

Decision-making e.g. knowledge, judgements, skills

Individual behaviours & practices

Travel

Housing

Food

Other consumptive practices

Educationsocial

marketing

StructureDimensions of Carbon

Capability

ActorLifestyleConsumption

Decision-making e.g. knowledge, judgements, skills

Individual behaviours & practices

Broader engagement with

carbon governance e.g. institutional change

Travel

Housing

Food

Other consumptive practices

Social Practices

Systems of provision

Sustainable consumption policiesApproach Scale Understanding

of decision-making

consumption is…

Tools to achieve sustainable consumption

Dominant forms of governance

Utilitarian(consumer sovereignty; green economics)

individual

Cognitive information processing on basis of rational utility-maximisation

The means for increasing utility

Green labelling, tax incentives, pricing (including carbon trading), education

Markets (marketization and privatization of state instruments)

Social & psychological (Behavioural economics / green consumerism / ABC model)

individual

Response to psychological needs, behaviour and social contexts Dominant paradigm of “ABC”: attitude, behaviour, and choice

Satisfier of psychological needs; cultural differentiator; marker of social meaning and identity

Nudging - making better choices through manipulating a consumer’s environment Social marketing to encourage behavioural change and promote sustainable lifestyles and behaviour

Markets (marketization and privatization of state instruments) Networks (public-private partnerships)

Systems of provision / Institutions(degrowth, steady-state tourism)

Community, society, network

Constrained / shaped by socio-technical infrastructure and institutions

Routine habit, inconspicuous rather than conspicuous

Short-supply chains, local food, local tourism  

Hierarchies (nation state and supranational institutions) Communities (public-private partnerships, communities)

Utilitarian approach• Conventional neo-classical micro-economic view of consumption by individuals as rational utility-maximisers

• Assumed that individuals consume goods and services in free markets with perfect competition and information to decide a course of action that delivers the greatest utility to the individual.

• Approach underlies neo-liberal economic policy – the neo-liberal consumer

Utilitarian approach• Efforts to promote sustainable consumption/mobility tend to rely on government intervention (or self-regulation) to correct “market failure” and ensure that private and corporate individuals have greater information on which to base their decisions.

• Appeal to rational actor with information to overcome “information deficit” and encourage “rational behaviour”

• Issues of “value-action gap” and awareness not being matched by behavioural change

Social / Psychological approaches

• Critique of neo-classical / rational models

• Realisation that behaviour does not change simply because of better quality information

• Behavioural Economics – bounded rationality and satisficing behaviour. Recognises the role of social norms and routines that are not subject to rational cost-benefit calculations, including public spirit and fairness in economic outcomes.

– “willingness to accept” compensation for asset loss greatly exceeds “willingness to pay”

– Too much choice in market leads to information overload and subsequent difficulties in decision-making

Social / Psychological approaches

• Key insight is that people do not act as isolated individuals, consumption is socially situated and habits and norms are significant.

• Consumption Studies– Consumption is multilayered and full of meaning(s)

– Signifier of identity, allegiances (consumption tribes), and relationships

– Positional goods and services– Symbolic value of consumption

• Social marketing as a tool Utilisation of the tools of generic marketing to solve social (and environmental) issues - goal of social marketing is voluntary behaviour change

Infrastructures / Systems of provision / Institutional approaches• Focus on the contextual collective societal institutions, norms, structures and infrastructure that constrains individual decision-making.

• ‘infrastructures of provision’ (Southerton et al., 2004): co-dependent relations between producer/supplier and consumer

• “systems of provision”: the vertical commodity chains comprising production, marketing, distribution, retail and consumption in socio-cultural context which mediate between and link ‘a particular pattern of production with a particular pattern of consumption” (Fine & Leopold 1993).

Infrastructures / Systems of provision / Institutional approaches• Systems constrain choice to that available within current systems of provision, and “lock in” consumers to particular ways of behaving

• “social practices” (Spaargaren, 2003) approach linked to lifestyle practices that are the interface between actor and structure

• Socio-technical regimes (Sanne, 2002) that limit choice. Consumption and lifestyle practices are subject to the rules and parameters established by a set of institutions, technologies and structures– Shift towards alternative systems of provision – alternative and anti-consumption – anti-capitalism

Linking Change Approaches in Consumption and Governance

• Utilitarian and Social / Psychological approaches to encouraging sustainable consumption are grounded in the ABC model.

• social change is thought to depend upon values and attitudes (the A), which are believed to drive the kinds of behaviour (the B) that individuals choose (the C) to adopt.

• resonates with widely shared, commonsense ideas about media influence and individual agency.

Linking Change Approaches in Consumption and Governance

• ‘The combination of A and B and C generates a very clear agenda for effective policy, the conceptual and practical task of which is to identify and affect the determinants of pro-environmental behaviour’ (Shove, 2010).

• Although recognises need to make major changes and while social norms are often cited as driving factors, there is no scope for wondering about how needs and aspirations come to be as they are, i.e. doesn’t fundamentally question structures / paradigms

Relationship of dimensions of “carbon capability” to orders of change in policy learning

Policy learning

Characteristics Carbon capability

Intervention

1st order change

Incremental, routine behaviour that is based around government officials and policy experts that leads to a change in the levels (or settings) of the basic instruments of policy, e.g. codes of conduct, voluntary instruments, new indicators

Focus on decision-making, e.g. knowledge, judgements, skills

Education

2nd order change

selection of new policy instruments and techniques and policy settings as a result with previous policy experience but the overarching policy goals remain the same - more strategic, e.g. green growth

Individual behaviour / practices

Social marketing

3rd order change

Policy paradigm shift, occurs when a new goal hierarchy is adopted by policy makers because the coherence of existing policy paradigm has been undermined, e.g. regulation & intervention, institutional change

Broader engagement with carbon governance

Lobbying, voting, protesting, create alternative socialinfrastructures of provision

The ABC research - policy relationship is mutual

• Policy makers fund and legitimise lines of enquiry which generate results which they can handle

• The result is a self-fulfilling cycle of credibility (Latour & Woolgar, 1986), in which evidence of relevance and utility helps in securing additional resources, building capacity in some fields (and not others), and doing so in ways which exacerbate disciplinary divides.

• What would it take to go beyond the first three letters of the alphabet?

Beyond ABC?• Be explicit about the extent to which state and other actors configure the fabric and the texture of daily life.

• While social / psychological approaches, including behavioural economics, do acknowledge the importance of social norms and routines, and identity and status in consumption behaviour, they do not then interrogate the systems of provision that give rise to the social practices of consumption of travel and tourism.

• The extent to which policy discourses circulate, and the manner in which they endure, depends upon the maintenance of policy coalitions and their accompanying coalitions – crisis may change this – and may not!

Beyond ABC? Do we even understand B?• While there is a reasonable partial understanding from a research standpoint, many campaigns and interventions are undertaken by governments, agencies and organisations on the basis of lay knowledge and assumptions, often without reference to theory or evidence-based methods of changing behaviour

• Significance of craft knowledge (but what the is successful change?)

• interventions are often characterised by a lack of a coherent language and sets of theoretical constructs to describe behaviour as well as what constitutes evidence of change

• there is lack of long-term studies of behavioural change–‘Despite a variety of studies in a variety of fields, or perhaps because of this variation, we would argue that there is no clear evidence yet for the support of any of these theories within the field of adherence behaviours. This is not to say that these theories cannot be useful – rather, we have insufficient evidence to conclusively determine this’ (Munro et al. 2007: 115-116).

Governance and intervention

• The mode of governance and the manner of intervention become mutually reinforcing.

• The mutual reinforcement between modes of governance and intervention also creates a path dependency in which solutions to sustainable tourism mobility are only identified within ‘green growth’ arguments for greater efficiency and market-based solutions yet with continued focus on growth in both GDP and tourism numbers, and an ideology that frames the problem of sustainable consumption in terms of individual consumption and responsibility

Capacity for change?• Implications for academic work as well as for policy problems

and their solution. • As Shove suggests paradigms and approaches which lie beyond

the pale of the ABC are doomed to be (forever) marginal no matter how interactive or how policy-engaged their advocates might be.

• In research on tourism governance far too much attention has been given to the assumption that a well-designed institution is “good” because it facilitates cooperation and networking rather actually focussing on the norms and institutionalisation of institutional arrangements and their potential outcomes.

• What, after all, is the point of encouraging governance mechanisms such as partnerships, network development, self-regulation and individual responsibility if they continue to have no practical effect on the sustainability of tourism and consumption?

• If the ethical value of “individual choice” leads to increased emissions from lifestyle and travel actions and worsening environmental change then how ethical is it?

StructureDimensions of carbon capability with upstream

social marketing

ActorLifestyleConsumption

Decision-making e.g. knowledge, judgements, skills

Individual behaviours & practices

Broader engagement with

carbon governance e.g. institutional change

Travel

Housing

Food

Other consumptive practices

Social Practices

Systems of provision

Education & social

marketing

“Upstream” social

marketing