Literature Review: Social Marketing Campaigns and Persuasion Theories

This literature review explores the intersection of marketing, persuasion, and social impact. It begins by defining social marketing and highlighting its increasing relevance for businesses and non-profit organizations aiming to achieve social well-being goals. The review delves into persuasion theory, examining how brands like Ching's Secret utilize celebrity endorsements and communication strategies to influence public behavior and attitudes. The role of semiotics in marketing, particularly in branding and advertising, is also discussed, with Amazon's logo as a key example. The review then transitions to the analysis of social campaigns against domestic violence, highlighting campaigns in the UK and Turkey. These campaigns leverage various communication tools, including social media and impactful imagery, to raise awareness and change societal perceptions. The review emphasizes the importance of changing both women's and men's attitudes toward domestic violence and the effectiveness of advertising in achieving these goals. It covers different advertising strategies and the impact of these campaigns on changing the perception of people about domestic violence. This literature review provides a comprehensive overview of key marketing strategies and their application in diverse contexts, emphasizing their influence on consumer behavior and societal issues.

Literature Review

Table of Contents
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................1
PART A.......................................................................................................................................1
PART B ......................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

LITERATURE REVIEW
Marketing is considered as one of the most important activities which is done by most of
the business enterprises. But now, concept of social marketing is also getting popular as many
non-profit organisations understand that it can assist them in attaining their goals which is
generally related to social wellbeing and health of society.
PART A
According to Sharp & Hartnett (2016) if someone wants to bring changes in this world
then first they have to modify attitude of the people. Persuasion theory also support this thinking.
It talks about bringing changes in the behaviour of individuals or customers. This theory
basically focuses on three areas. First is related to have a goal and the desire of sender to
accomplish target. Whenever a person tries to persuade someone, he/she basically influence
thinking of other individual. This process of convincing others happen because sender has a goal
in his/her mind and they want something from the receiver of message. Second significant part of
this theory is communication. Moving forward towards the aim is not possible with selection of
right channel of connecting with receiver. The most important part of this persuasion is ''free
will''. If someone is threatening, physically or mentally, recipient then this will not be considered
as persuasion. It is not accidental as well.
Ching's Secret is one of the most popular brands of noodles in India. This country has
seen remarkable growth in the last two decades but they are still fighting with basic problem like
hunger. This Chinese brand stated a campaign by collaboration with a local NGO Akshyaya
Patra who feed daily meal to poor children. They are adopting marketing strategy of celebrity
endorsement where a young film star deliver the message that cost for feeding one child for one
year is only 750 rupees i.e. around 10 pounds. Ching's secret may be doing it as a part of their
corporate social responsibility but they are successfully applying persuasion theory. They have a
cleat goal i.e. organise campaign in order to get donation from public by deliver key message
“Abolish hunger from India”. They are not forcing anyone to make contribution, they are just
using marketing tools and one of most successfully strategy of advertising i.e. celebrity
endorsement.
Although there is no doubt that this social marketing is good for the well-being of human
beings but Lewinski and et. al., (2016) argues that people should also see its negative side. When
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an organisation spends a huge amount of money on signing a celebrity and then telecast
advertising on television and other media platform then it result in huge amount of expenditure
on insignificant things which are not directly connected to improving health of people or
development of human being. This argument is not completely wrong as instead of spending a
lot of money on the campaign, they should try to focus on their responsibility. In the words of
O'Keefe (2016) they social marketing is essential because it deliver they message to large
number of people and influence their behaviour and beliefs. Ching’s Secret cannot remove the
poverty of country like India but they cannot develop a positive attitude in the public and
convince them to make a contribution for well-being of children.
Semiotics is the use of sign and symbol for delivery or interpretation of a message.
Amazon is one of the most successful companies in e-commerce. They understand significance
of semiotics and this is the main reason that their logo has an arrow mark which start from ''A''
and end at ''Z''. The message behind this sign is that this company is selling every kind of product
i.e. from ''A'' to ''Z''. At the time of advertisement and any promotional activity, they always keep
their logo behind because they know that it reminds customers about offerings of Amazon.
Semiotics can someone deliver surprising results.
Persuasion is related to changing the attitude of customer toward a brand. Advertising is a
mode of getting attention of public, it is also used for telling special feature of product to the
customers. Their are various techniques which can be adopted for persuasion buyers when they
see an advertisement. Rhyming, catchy sentences etc. are some of the tools which try to get
attention of customer and convince them to buy a brand. Persuasion play key role in having a
lasting memory and it increase the impact of advertisement and fulfil the purpose of delivering
message and attention from the side of buyers (Kergoat, Meyer & Merot, 2017). They
Elaboration Likelihood model of persuasion talks about two kind of routes. First one is central
route where message is received by receiver and if they have sufficient motivation and ability to
process to the information then it may change their attitude. It can be positive or negative. It does
not matter whether the impression is positive and negative, change in attitude will happen
through central route. Another route is peripheral route, in case receiver do not have any
motivation or they are unable to process the message then two things can happen if attitudes
changes then it whole process of central route will start, if it does not change then attitude of
receiver will also not change.
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There are many companies that have used creative symbols and designs for getting attention of
potential customers. In e-commerce industry, there are many players who are selling different
kinds of products. But, when Amazon started their business, they were only selling books. With
time, they widen their portfolio and introduced millions of products on their website (Yeh &
Jewell, 2015). When they decided to expand, they knew that company needs to do something
which delivers a clear message that this enterprise is ready to selling huge variety of items or one
can say from ''A'' to ''Z''. Semiotics play a significant role is delivery of message by brand. It has
ability to influence the decision of buyers by explain them speciality of the product or enterprise.
If it gets right platform like advertisement on television or sound presence on internet then
semiotics can assist a company in having a consistent communication with customer and
potential buyers.
Another key significance of having a unique symbol or sign is that it deliver clear
message and remove all the misinformation about a brand which rivals may have spread in
business environment. In present scenario, no one can claim that Amazon is offering limited
number of goods in the market because they know that eve sign of this organisation shows that
they are or will sell everything through their website or mobile application. This influence
decision made by buyers, they may not be interested in buying an item from Amazon but if they
will not find it anywhere then after this, the first thing which will come in their mind will be
Amazon. Verlegh, Fransen & Kirmani (2015) argues that convincing customers is a hard task but
it an organisation do not promote their product or company at various platform and take
assistance of semiotics then they can buy a space in mind of their buyers and separate themself
from others. Logo of a company is basically used for delivering brand message but sometime
enterprises use new and different symbols for communicating dissimilar message. Semiotics also
play an important role in decreasing brand development and testing. Business organisations do
not need to spend huge sum on television advertisement and promotion of internet they can just
put holding of logo or any other symbol and sign which deliver the message about what company
is offering.
Apple is a company who is known for innovation. Nowadays, everyone will agree with
this but in reality, this organisation is delivering this significant message through their logo
(Heinberg, Ozkaya & Taube, 2017 ). It is connected to the incident when an apple fall on Sir
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Isaac Newton and then he found law of gravitation. Semiotics do also have brand value and it
provide financial assistance to a company like value of logo of Apple is in billions.
PART B
Their are many NGO in this world who are running campaign against domestic violence.
This issues is popular at global level because in countries like India, Turkey etc., there are
business organisation who are working in this field as they consider it as their an CSR act. In
many countries, people think that they are superior then female and they have right to beat or do
physical damage to their life partner. In the words of Pennock-Speck (2016) this attitude is not
right and it is to be changes from ground level. In UK, national centre for domestic violence is
advertising a clear message i.e. “DON’T SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF A PARTNER.” By
persuading society, this work can be done in effective way. This campaign increased awareness
in women about their right. This campaign is still running and its main aim is to change believes
of women that marrying someone does not give their husband the right to beat their wife.
(Source:12 Of The Most Powerful And Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness Campaigns. 2018)
In Turkey, Dogan group started a campaign against domestic violence. In this country, it
is a big problem. This is the prime reason that this company started emergency support hotline in
2007 as a pilot project. Tag line of this campaign is “No to domestic violence”. They are
working in this area from a long time and trying to persuade women to take a step against
injustice. They target is to not save women from domestic violence, they only want a shift in
their attitude and motivate them to raise their voice against physical torches. They are also
advertising regarding this campaign and trying to spread the complain number in different region
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Illustration 1: 12 Of The Most Powerful And Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness
Campaigns

of this country. On social media, almost 37% of their follower are men and remaining are
women.
Hubbs (2015) argues that these communication tools play most important role in success
of this campaign, women in this region do not have courage to speak against their husband but
social media gave them platform where they can tell the incidents which has happened with
them. People who are part of this campaign understand then visiting every women in-person is
not possible because of customs and availability of resources. Advertisement on social media is
considered as an effective communication tool which gave a platform the campaign organisers
which they used in persuading women. Although their were many other communication tools
were used for promotion of this campaign but social media proved as most successful.
Kulick, Prieger & Kleiman (2016) raised a crucial point that people only consider want
changes has happen on women . They should also consider change in the attitude of men because
many of them has stopped domestic violence at home. Although the number of complain is
increasing on emergency number but this does not mean that believe of men has not changes.
They understand that they are not doing right and their attitude toward women is also getting
altered. Their is no doubt that advertising in an effective communication tool but if content of
advertisement is not appealing then people changing perception of people is not easy. In 2016,
this campaign started another project ''A single voice against violence''. This is a good
advertising strategy as it bring newness to the campaign and pour positive energy in social
workers. In this project, this company started depicting images of broken limbs of women who
have suffered domestic violence. Showing photos in public is a great advertising technique
because it reveal the actual physical pain which is faced by women (Goldman, 2014). These X-
ray play crucial role in persuading people to understand the kind of torches which women face.
Violence against women is a big issues which is present at global level. According to
Sramová & Pavelka (2017) most of the people think that this problems is also present in
developing or underdeveloped countries but this is not true. Their are various campaign against
domestic violence is running in UK. One of them is about death of women because of domestic
violence. Keira Knightley is also connected to this campaign. This increase effectiveness of
advertisement, campaign organisers understand that a celebrity can persuade more people in less
time and this is the prime reason that they are this campaign successfully changed attitude of
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many people. Those who thought that this problems is not present in developed countries also get
significant details about why a husband killed her wife and what is his thinking.
In France, a unique kind of advertisement tried to change belief of people. Amnesty
international started organised a fashion show, for which Paris is popular, and they showed how
domestic violence is still fashionable. This advertisement showed a reverse approach where
instead of stopping domestic violence they argued that it seems people have accepted it. This
campaign forced people to think about this issue which may not seem an ''issue'' in society.
Elaboration Likelihood model can be used for pursing people. It clearly defines that does attitude
of a person has changed or not. By applying this model, all the campaign organisers can find that
why people are not understanding seriousness of this problems. It can be further divided into two
part. First is to find a motivation for them so they feel that stopping domestic violence will be
beneficial for them. If a person do not have any motivation then they will never think seriously
about domestic violence (Ball, Dagger & O'Neill, 2017). Another factor which may result in
failure to persuade is inability to understand the message which is given in the campaign.
Their is another route known by name of peripheral route. It is situation when a person is
on the edge of being convinced. This situation can go in both direction, positive or negative
change in attitude. People who are organising this campaign should understand this model so
they can change belief of more people and remove the mistakes which they are committing on
constant basis. Elaboration Likelihood model covers all the aspect which are necessary to change
behaviour of men, its utilisation and resolve this problems in short period of time and it will also
assist campaign organisers in understanding the reason behind why domestic violence is
happening. In India, this model was used at a small level. Because of its help, supports of
campaign found that they domestic violence get encouragement because of alcohol. In most of
the cases, husband did violence because they were drunk and they were bit unconscious. When
sale of alcohol is banned in this region then the cases of domestic violence also went down.
People who were found guilty of violence argued that they did know what they were doing.
When campaign organisers motivated them that alcohol is the prime reason behind problem in
their relation they most of them stopped consuming it and incidents related to domestic violence
saw major fall. Campaigners found motivation and reason behind why people are unable to
understand the message given in campaign (Burke, 2014). Once this problem problem resolved
then this campaign successfully attained their aim.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ball, T., Dagger, R. & O'Neill, D.I. 2017, Ideals and ideologies: a reader, 10th edn, Routledge,
New York.
Burke, R.H. 2014, An introduction to criminological theory, Fourth edn, Willan, Abingdon,
Oxon.
Goldman, A.Y. 2014, Black women and popular culture: the conversation continues, Lexington
Books, Lanham.
Heinberg, M., Ozkaya, H.E. & Taube, M. 2017, "The influence of global and local iconic brand
positioning on advertising persuasion in an emerging market setting", Journal of
International Business Studies, vol. 48, no. 8. pp. 1009.
Hubbs, J. 2015, "Writing against normativity: Samuel R. Delany's textual Times
Square", African American Review, vol. 48, no. 3. pp. 345-391.
Kergoat, M., Meyer, T. & Merot, A. 2017, "Picture-based persuasion in advertising: the impact
of attractive pictures on verbal ad's content", The Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol.
34, no. 7. pp. 624.
Kulick, J., Prieger, J. & Kleiman, M.A.R. 2016, "Unintended consequences of cigarette
prohibition, regulation, and taxation", International Journal of Law, Crime and
Justice, vol. 46. pp. 69-85.
Lewinski and et. al., 2016, "Embodied resistance to persuasion in advertising", Frontiers in
Psychology, vol. 7. pp. 1202.
O'Keefe, D. 2016, "Evidence-based advertising using persuasion principles: Predictive validity
and proof of concept", European Journal of Marketing, vol. 50, no. ½. pp. 294-300.
Pennock-Speck, B. 2016, "Violent women in Spanish TV ads: Stereotype reversal or the same
old same old?", Discourse & Communication, vol. 10, no. 4. pp. 363-377.
Sharp, B. & Hartnett, N. 2016, "Generalisability of advertising persuasion principles", European
Journal of Marketing, vol. 50, no. ½. pp. 301-305.
Sramová, B. & Pavelka, J. 2017, "The perception of media messages by preschool
children", Young Consumers, vol. 18, no. 2. pp. 121-140.
Verlegh, P.W.J., Fransen, M.L. & Kirmani, A. 2015, "Persuasion in advertising: when does it
work, and when does it not?", International Journal of Advertising, vol. 34, no. 1. pp. 3.
Yeh, M.A. & Jewell, R.D. 2015, "The Myth/Fact Message Frame and Persuasion in Advertising:
Enhancing Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill", Journal of Advertising, vol. 44, no. 2. pp.
161-172.
Online
12 Of The Most Powerful And Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness Campaigns. 2018. [Online].
Available through: <http://art-sheep.com/12-of-the-most-powerful-and-brutal-domestic-
violence-awareness-campaigns/>
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