ABSTRACT
This chapter examines social marketing, a relatively recent development in marketing thought, broadly concerned with social change. Social marketing relates to the use of marketing concepts and technologies to promote particular ideas or behaviours, with the aim to assist in the solution of social problems. Some of the most prominent social marketing applications include anti-smoking, safe driving and other health-related campaigns. Such campaigns have been arguably very successful in raising awareness and promoting behaviour change. As a result, an increasing number of organizations and government departments are adopting marketing for the promotion of social causes. For example, the UK government has been, over the past few years, consistently amongst the top spenders in advertising expenses, demonstrating the increasing importance of marketing tools for contemporary governments ( Hastings, 2007 ).
