ABSTRACT
Actively involving the community in developing and implementing social marketing interventions has a number of benefi ts (Bryant et al. 2007). It increases the likelihood of interventions being culturally appropriate, keeps costs down, and is consistent with and contributes to community development and community capacity building. Thus, community involvement can be seen both as a means to an end and as a benefi cial outcome in its own right. Recent years have also seen growing interest in the assets-based or community capacities approach (El-Askari et al. 1998; Kretzman and McKnight 1996; Assets Alliance Scotland 2010), which focuses on the resources, skills, talents and ideas within communities for generating change, rather than on their needs and defi cits. The assets-based approach to
community development can be seen as consistent with social marketing in its emphasis on starting where people are (Lindsey et al. 2001) and in the concept of exchange, which envisages both partners in the marketing relationship as contributing something of value (Bagozzi 1975). This case study examines the feasibility and value of a community-led, assets-based social marketing approach in two communities in Edinburgh, Scotland.
